‘Players can create their own history with the spirit of ’86’
Jamie Vermiglio believes triumph over Wolves 35 years ago can be the spark for a repeat performance
One evening earlier this week, after a demanding day’s work at the primary school where he is head teacher, the Chorley manager, Jamie Vermiglio, sat down to do some homework. He was preparing for the final training session ahead of tonight’s FA Cup fourth-round tie with Wolverhampton Wanderers, a team who stand 109 league places above his own.
“I was looking at my notebook and I opened it on the notes I’d done on Farsley Celtic [Chorley’s last opponents in the National League North],” he says. “I’d written about their left centre-back: tall lad, not too mobile, put a bit of pressure on him and we could cause problems. I turned the page to my Wolves notes. Fabio Silva: bought for £35million. I started giggling to myself. It just highlights the gulf. We’re playing a team that collectively cost over £400million. Look at ours, we’d be lucky to get a bag of crisps for them.”
As the last non-league club left in the competition, drawn against a Premier League side presided over by one of the most coveted managers in Nuno Espirito Santo, Vermiglio is aware that common sense insists his team’s chances are minimal. But there is one advantage the Chorley manager believes he has: history. Until Chorley beat Derby in the third round earlier this month – to advance further than they had done in the competition – by far the biggest result in their 138 years had come in 1986 when, in the first round proper, they beat Wolves.
“I’ve been involved with the club for 20 years,” says Vermiglio, who was a player at Victory Park before moving into the dugout. “And that is the game that is always talked about. Ken Wright, the manager that day, is now the club chairman. The players have a reunion every year. It’s everywhere.”
At the time, Wolves were not what they are now, having sunk into the fourth tier. After twice drawing against a side then in the Multipart Northern Premier League, Graham Turner’s team were obliged to play the second replay at Bolton Wanderers’ old home of Burnden Park, just down the road from Chorley’s Victory Park. And there they were beaten 3-0.
Press response to their defeat was damning. “Disgraced! Wolves sink to new low,” was one headline, while the opening of the match report of the Wolverhampton Express & Star read: “The once great Wolves climbed unprotestingly into their coffin last night, fangs removed by the Multipart men from Chorley.”
Watching the humiliation from the stands that evening were Turner’s two new signings: Steve Bull and Andy Thompson. At the final
whistle, Bull turned to his colleague and said: “What the hell have we done, Tommo?” Indeed, for many a veteran Wolves fan, Chorley is a name etched into infamy: a marker of the lowest point to which their club sank. Vermiglio is unabashed about exploiting it.
“There’s a bit of doom and gloom around Wolves at the moment; results aren’t going their way, confidence is not high,” he says. “When their fans saw they were up against Chorley again, naturally, there was a fear they couldn’t do it again, could they?”
He has already encouraged the Chorley players to watch footage of the goals and celebrations back in 1986, asking them to think what it might mean for them should they achieve an unlikely repeat.
“If the players can be motivated any more then we’ll try to utilise the
spirit of 86,” says Vermiglio. “If these lads can do the extraordinary it will be them still talked about in 30 years’ time.”
In order to seek more practical ways to precipitate history, Vermiglio and his assistant, Andy Preece, watched Wolves’s recent Premier League defeat by West Bromwich Albion.
“Have they got any weaknesses? Everton or Liverpool might think they have. For us they look the best team we’ll ever play against. But West Brom caused problems being direct, with long throws and set plays. We’ve done really well on set plays. That’s our opportunity to cause disruption.
“And we’ll try and play on the fact it’s cold, that it’s been raining here for weeks, that it’s a sloppy pitch. All those things together. But the biggest thing we have is they’re expected to win and we’re not. We have to use that to our advantage.”
Back in 1986 the victory over Wolves earned the Chorley players a bonus of £120 each. Vermiglio is not prepared to reveal how much they might pocket 35 years on, but insists they would be properly rewarded.
“We’ve been on a run that no one thought about when bonuses were being arranged at the start of the season,” he says. “But I know Chorley, they will look after the players. One thing for sure, though, that’s not what motivates them. What motivates them is their chance to write their own history.”
Should they win, however, he is keen that things be more muted in the dressing room than after they beat Derby. In the aftermath of that win, film of all the players raucously singing Adele’s Someone Like You, gained wide circulation. Some expressed concern that the unabashed nature of the celebrations was not appropriate for pandemic times and Vermiglio admits they let emotions get the better of them.
Vermiglio, who is proving himself a shrewd user of psychology, is keen to point out to his players how anxious their opponents will be not to let history repeat itself. “As a club they know the embarrassment of losing to a non-league team is bad enough,” he says. “But one that sings Adele when they win?”