Coaching quick-fixes? No,thanks...
SIR Alf Ramsey needs no introduction, but Bob Crompton is a name known only to ardent Blackburn Rovers fans. The two are bound, however, by a remarkable pair of facts which, as the years go by since Ramsey’s crowning glory, become ever more relevant.
Ramsey is the most capped English footballer to manage a club to the league title, doing so with Ipswich Town in 1962.
Crompton is the most capped Englishman to manage the FA Cup winners, with Blackburn in 1928.
Ramsey won 32 caps, Crompton, 41. Neither figure in the 75 mostcapped English players.
Qualifications
This is the raw material for a good quiz question, but why does it matter now? This month, John Terry (78 caps, 18th in the ranking) became the latest to suggest noted ex-internationals, like himself, should be ‘fast-tracked’ into coaching roles bypassing some of the qualifications. “I feel it’s very important we get the best players back in the game,” Terry said. “We need to make it easier for them to get into coaching roles – by not doing the full length of the FA coaching course.”
The FA’s technical director, Dan Ashworth, was, said Terry, ‘on board’. If this is the case, Ashworth is mistaken.
Terry’s words sounded a lot like ‘we’re too good and too rich to bother with the courses, just rubber-stamp our badges’.
The Chelsea defender is doing his qualifications, so he clearly sees some value in them. And he added that he did “appreciate and understand that it’s important to get coach ing badges (and) gain the experience”. Nevertheless, he is looking for a short-cut.
The League Managers’ Association was one of the bodies that pushed for mandatory qualifications, which the Premier League (but not the EFL) now insist on, because it realised the job is so difficult that proper training is vital.
Being a great player is no guarantee of being a great manager, as many fabled players have found out. Nearly half the 70-odd England internationals who won more caps than Crompton have so far tried management. Many have failed abysmally and none has won a major trophy. Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Stanley Matthews, Billy Wright, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, Peter Shilton, John Barnes, Tony Adams. The list of outstanding players who strug- gled to create winning teams from more moderate talents is a lengthy one, with Teddy Sheringham, at Stevenage, the most recent. Some had problems with chairmen, or limited resources, but that often happens in management, especially in the EFL.
One ex-pro, a Champions League winner and World Cup semi-finalist, is impressing in the Championship, taking Reading into the promotion contention on a tight budget.
Jaap Stam took a break after retiring but was asked to help out at his first club in the Netherlands, PEC Zwolle.
“Eventually you go for your badges and, before you know it, six years down the road, you’re coaching a team,” he said. The journey included more coaching, at Ajax, before taking up his first No.1 post in Berkshire.
Studying
Six years: it must seem a long time to be studying to the likes of Terry after so many years at the pinnacle of the game, but if he gets it right he could then manage for a quarter-century. If he goes in without the training and gets it wrong, he may not get a second chance. Many don’t.
Steven Gerrard had the right idea when he turned down the chance to start at Milton Keynes in favour of coaching Liverpool’s youngsters. Kelly Smith, the greatest English woman’s footballer of all, is following a similar route at Arsenal. She told me recently: “Just because you are a good player does not necessarily mean you will be a good coach, so I’m gaining my qualifications, gaining experience, starting at the bottom.”
Ex-pros already have a small leg-up as they are not expected to take the FA’s basic level 1 course. However, that should be the extent of any fast-tracking. The ‘show us your caps’ mentality has damaged English football for decades. We have at last begun to realise coaching is a skill that needs to be honed, but there is a still a long, long way to go. By all means mentor the likes of Terry, to ensure his experience is not lost to the game, but there should be no short-cuts, no quick-fixes, no nodding him through. That would be short-changing Terry himself and, just as important, anyone he went on to coach.