GRAHAM WESTLEY
Our guest columnist looks at Sol Campbell’s desire to be a boss
THERE was a big debate over the last few days about Sol Campbell's entitlement to a managerial opportunity.
One school of thought was that Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker are going the right way about earning a managerial opportunity by developing their coaching skills in the academies at Liverpool and Spurs.
Meanwhile, Sol was pointing at his playing career, football experience and personality as evidence of his managerial potential.
The facts of the matter are these – different people have different routes into management and can all be successful.
Kenny Dalglish was a phenomenally successful player/manager at Liverpool, even winning the double in his first season in 1985/86.
King Kenny scored 260 goals in 661 appearances for Celtic, Liverpool and Scotland.
Domain
Arsene Wenger, on the other hand, won just four trophies in 14 years at Nancy, Monaco and Grampus Eight, before winning that same double at Arsenal in 1998.
His playing career is described on Wikipedia as being a ‘modest’ one, in which he made appearances for several amateur clubs.
So we have one phenomenally successful player moving straight into management whilst playing and immediately winning a double.
And we have a poor player, by comparison, serving a lengthy apprenticeship and then achieving the same feat of a double at England's top table.
There are no right and wrong routes.
What I would say to Sol is this: Managing in League Two is a completely different challenge to managing in the Premier League.
The process of finding new players is about driving round the country, watching countless Non-League games, building up a personal database and needing a huge network of contacts at those levels.
Your work tends to be around poor quality facilities and you puncture plenty of tyres in plenty of crater-ridden car parks to gain information and knowledge. It is a slog. It is not glamorous.
I say that respectfully to both host clubs and personalities.
A manager who doesn’t know lower levels may struggle to identify talent and to know which inadequacies you have to accept at the different levels.
My view is that many top level players will struggle to successfully transition into lower league football. Teddy Sheringham and Tony Adams both found that out at Stevenage and Wycombe.
For me, Gerrard and Parker have got it spot on, serving their apprenticeship within their own domain.
Characters
But Eddie Howe became a Premier League manager in a completely different way, working his way through the leagues.
There is no reason why Sol Campbell can’t break the Sheringham/Adams mould, be handed a lower league job without serving a real apprenticeship and make a real success of it.
Although he might find that many of his opponents have surprisingly great football minds too, particularly at their current levels where they know their way around off the back of extensive experience.
Personally, I like to see highprofile characters around the lower leagues. Crowds go up, media interest goes up and commercial revenues can be improved. All those benefits are positive for lower level clubs.
There are no right and wrong answers. There are no absolute routes. There are just indicators based on history.