‘Big clubs might have better pasta but I do not care’
After life at the top as a player, Tim Flowers has a non-league mission with Solihull Moors
After an hour spent answering a variety of questions on relegation escapes, youth development and player transfers, Tim Flowers finishes with one of his own. It is to check what day England are playing. His uncertainly is not a sign that the Premier League-winning goalkeeper has become disengaged with the latest fortunes of the national team or the battle to be the country’s No1. It is, rather, an indication of where his priorities lie.
On Saturday, the day after England play Croatia, Flowers will watch on from the touchline as the Solihull Moors side he manages host Ebbsfleet United in the fifth tier of English football.
Saturday is Non-league Day, a chance to celebrate the semiprofessional and amateur clubs across the country while the Premier League and Championship have the weekend off, and it is that level of football which consumes Flowers’ current thoughts.
“Even at this level it’s a hard job. Your head could be spinning. You wake up at 4am thinking about it,” says the man who was once Britain’s most expensive goalkeeper when he moved from Southampton to Blackburn for £2.4million in 1993.
“It is grass roots, but it doesn’t matter to me, it’s football. Sometimes, the quality of pasta you get at a big club is better than what you get here, but it is what it is.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a big stadium or a real small one, a good training pitch or a bad one. It’s what you make out of it.”
Flowers is making a good go of his first senior management role after a brief spell with Stafford Rangers in 2010. He arrived as assistant manager to Mark Yates in November last year, with the pair “needing snookers” to rescue a team who had won three of their opening 19 National League games.
Bringing in reinforcements and a more professional approach, they ended up six points clear of relegation in 18th – an achievement Flowers ranks alongside his title winners’ medal with Blackburn and 11 England caps. In June, Yates was approached to manage Macclesfield Town, just promoted