Derry trying to be cut above the rest
Honesty’s the best policy for Leeds old boy
SHAUN DERRY is still the straighttalking, football fanatic he was when pulling on the white of Leeds United. But as he prepares to lead his Cambridge United side into an FA Cup tie against the club he calls the biggest of his playing career, there is a distinguishing difference.
‘The sideburns were disastrous weren’t they,’ says Derry with a laugh when reminded of the hairstyle that characterised his time at Elland Road.
Now smartly shaven with the flecks of grey that seem to come as standard in management, Derry can still remember the lengthy brown mod look hee sported a decade ago.
‘I got some stick for that barnet,’ he says. ‘I went about 18 months without cutting it because e at that point I was really on form.m. I thought I was Samson.
‘I had some bizarre superstii tions. It coincided with me getting married so if you look at my y wedding photos, anybody whoho comes into our house think my wife’s been married before!
‘When my daughter Lilly was as born, she didn’t stop crying for 48 hours and I thought I was scaring ng her. So my wife Jo said, “You’d betetter get your hair cut”. I did and she stopped crying. But then I did loseose my strength, I got injured!’
Derry is a great teller of tales and having absorbed huge amounts from the delights and depths of playing for Queens Park Rangers and Crystal Palace knows that as a manager, one quality underpins everything.
‘The way I manage not just the players but everyone around the football club is through honesty,’ he says. ‘If you can look anyone in the eye and tell them exactly what your thoughts and feelings are on a situation, it can go one way or the other; they can respond or die.
‘We’ve seen a response in this team over the past three months and that gives me hope going forward.’
Derry, appointed Cambridge manager in November 2015, enjoyed initial success but at the start of this season his side failed to win any of their opening eight League Two games. The board kept faith and a recent run of six wins from seven — as well as the 4-0 thrashing of
Cove Coventry in the last round — has propelled Cambridge into the play-off places and underlined Derry’s promising start to the next phase of his football life.
At 39, he relishes the prospect of welcoming his old side to the Cambs Glass Stadium tomorrow night, and in Garry Monk he believes Leeds have a man to take them into the Premier League.
The last time Leeds were close to going back to the top-flight Derry was charging around midfield. He played 46 games during the 2005-06 season that ended in a Championship play-off final at Cardiff.
‘We went in as favourites and I think everybody expected us to just turn up,’ he says. ‘Watford had a different agenda. They were a team very much united and had a style of play which was route one with Aidy Boothroyd. They put us under severe pressure. It was 3-0, and it could have been six. When you are thinking about Leeds and the 12 years since they came out of the Premier League, to be successful there has got to be unity among everything, whether it is players, management, fans, the city, everything.
‘There have been too many players for whom the white jersey has been a burden. But I think Garry has been able to explain that a little bit more and bring in certain types who can handle the atmosphere. For us back then, pulling on the Leeds shirt every week drove us on.
‘I am quite an emotional guy but when you play at Elland Road on your debut and score the winner in front of 41,000, that’s something I’ll take right till the very end.’
After spells at Palace and QPR under Neil Warnock, Derry’s first managerial job came at Notts County. Experience had taught him to be wary of ‘poisonous egos’. He saved them from relegation before being sacked shortly into a difficult period the next season. Now he is positive about the future at Cambridge: ‘We are building an identity week by week, month by month, and that is something which is nice to be a part of,’ he says.