GLAD TO BE BACK
John Yems returns for a second spell in charge of Crawley Town
NEW Crawley Town manager John Yems is urging his players to grab the chance to show what they can do in the Football League – and be ambitious to climb the ladder.
The 60-year-old has returned for a second spell in charge of the Reds after the club pulled the plug on Italian boss Gabriele Cioffi last Monday.
While Crawley enjoyed a decent start to the season and knocked both Norwich and Stoke out of the Carabao Cup to reach the last 16 for the first time in the club’s history, their results have nosedived in the past couple of months.
A run of one win in 11 league games cost Cioffi his job as the West Sussex club slipped to 17th in the table. But there is talent in the ranks and Yems believes his troops have the ability to turn things round and start heading in the right direction again.
“We are all lucky enough to be involved at a Football League club and I know a lot of the boys,” he told The FLP. “It’s a fair-sized squad with some good players and I want to get everyone playing with a smile on their faces and enjoying it.
“A few people are looking at our players and you have to be prepared for someone to come in. If it happened, I wouldn’t stand in anyone’s way if they had a chance to better themselves.
“Any time you put a shirt on, you don’t know who’s watching you. It’s in their hands.”
Alongside Ben Judge and Dave Woozley, Yems led Crawley to Conference safety on the last day of the 2006-07 season after they had started the campaign with a tenpoint deduction.
He then had a stint as assistant manager to Paul Tisdale at Exeter and spent six years with Bournemouth as football operations manager, playing his part as the Cherries climbed from League One to the Premier League.
The UEFA A Licence holder left Bournemouth in the summer of 2018 and has since been scouting for a number of clubs, including Newcastle.
But a chance to take the hotseat in the Football League with Crawley was too good to turn down.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that to be working in football is a privilege,” he said. “There are a lot of people not working and when you get the chance, you have to do your best.
Professional
“It drives you loopy when you’re not involved. You miss the buzz. When you see players and people you know doing well, you think you should be in the game, too. “My focus now is week to week and the next game. I won’t look at league tables until the end of the season.”
One of Yems’ first decisions was to promote evergreen midfielder Dannie Bulman, 40, to his management team.
“I took Dannie there before and he’s a top pro,” said Yems. “He’s concentrating on playing and he’s still contributing on the playing side. How he keeps going, I don’t know, but he’s a good role model for all the professionals at the club and has so much enthusiasm – he was like that first time around.” And the new Crawley boss will also try to take a leaf out of Bournemouth boss Howe’s book.
“We were in League One and rose together,” he said. “There was Eddie, Jason (Tindall, assistant) and myself. He had good people around him and worked hard. He’s a grafter and that’s what you get.”