Moyes recalls his highs and lows ahead of 1,000th game
FROM electrical faults in the Auto Windscreens Shield to the electricity of a European night, David Moyes feels this evening will be a fitting way to mark his 1,000th game in football management.
Moyes will see in the milestone with West Ham in Genk, hoping they can become the first English side to win their opening four Europa League group games without conceding.
His journey started in January 1998, a soggy Tuesday night tie in the Auto Windscreens Shield at Macclesfield which Preston won 1-0, despite a power failure causing the floodlights to dim.
Moyes was player-manager at the time and picked himself once, in a 3-0 defeat by Carlisle. It took until his eighth game in charge of Preston to secure a league win, away at Bournemouth.
‘I nearly cried,’ recalls Moyes. ‘I was that pleased that I had won a game. Football is an emotional game. It can get you at times. We all put on a face — a football face — that’s how we work. But, deep down, we’re all emotional. We want to win. We want to be successful.
‘To me it means so much when you’re a manager because you know you’re the one who’s seen as the fall guy if it doesn’t go right. For me at that time (at Preston), maybe if I’d lost a couple of games I’d have said: “Hey, maybe this is just not for me”.’
Thankfully he didn’t call it quits and in this special chat arranged to discuss his achievement, Moyes (pictured) was asked the usual questions.
His best game? Everton beating Manchester United in a penalty shootout in the FA Cup semi-final in 2009 is up there. As is the 2002 victory over Arsenal in which Clive Tyldesley shouted: ‘Remember the name, Wayne Rooney.’
His worst? Losing 5-1 to Dinamo Bucharest in the UEFA Cup in 2005, and 2-1 to Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final in 2012.
It was when asked about regrets that the United job, which he took in 2013 and lost in 2014, was inevitably discussed.
‘I was certainly disappointed after Manchester United because I didn’t get offered the job by the Glazers, by Ed Woodward,’ he says. ‘I got offered the job from Sir Alex (Ferguson).’
Moyes was out shopping with his wife Pamela in Cheshire when Ferguson phoned, inviting him to his house. It was there, in a red room full of memorabilia, that he was told: ‘You’re going to be the next Man United manager.’
Moyes continues: ‘Sir Alex, in many ways, is the pinnacle of what people see in football in this country. To get that opportunity, it was something I felt I had to take.
‘Sometimes you have to have the bad times to get some good times. I don’t know if there are many managers who have gone through it where it’s been plain sailing. Maybe Sir Alex, but even Sir Alex had some bumpy times. There are not many who go through without having some bad times.’
There was also the regret of not getting the chance to carry on with West Ham in his first spell in charge, after securing survival in 2018.
‘That was really tough,’ he says. ‘We had made plans. I had met a couple of players who I thought were coming in for the next period because I thought we were going on. Then, out of the blue, it wasn’t there. It was disappointing.’ Moyes started out with modest ambitions, hoping he ‘might become a boys’ team manager, or maybe somebody would give me a youth-team job, or I would run a social club or something’.
Now on the verge of his milestone, the 58-year-old doesn’t know how long he’ll stay in football. ‘For Neil Warnock to get to 1,600 games is unbelievable,’ adds Moyes. ‘He must be 108 now, Neil! I don’t know if I want to be that.’
But, for now, he’s leading West Ham on a European jaunt and making it look easy.
‘You don’t get offered the big jobs if you haven’t done something right,’ says Moyes.
‘If I can’t be at Manchester United, I have to get back to the level I was at with Everton and use my experience of those jobs. Even (when I was) at Real Sociedad we had games against Barcelona that we won, so I have to get back to those levels and use my experience at West Ham.
‘West Ham is a good club for me. I am grateful to the owners for bringing me back. They have given me a chance to fight back and I’m going to keep throwing punches.’
Kick-off: 5.45pm, KRC Genk Arena. TV: LIVE BT Sport 3. Referee: Aleksandar Stavrev (Mkd).