FOWLER’S READY FOR PERMANENT GIG

LEE FOWLER says five months at Nuneaton Borough has given him years of education about football management – and it’s made him even more determined to be a success at it.

The former Wrexham and Fleetwood Town midfielder was Nicky Eaden’s assistant at the National League North club throughout a tumultuous period.

With concern over the club’s future, no training facilities and even bailiffs turning up, often the actual football was secondary.

Former Non-League defender Nick Hawkins rescued the club and, following Eaden’s departure, Fowler had a brief spell as caretaker before Jimmy Ginnelly left Barwell to take the reins.

The 35-year-old has already had interest from other clubs and he believes his next role will benefit from the experiences at Nuneaton.

“You need your badges, they give you the fundamentals,” he told The NLP. “But in terms of the realism of football, I was at Nuneaton for five months and it felt like five years with the amount myself and Nicky went through.

“The empathy is natural for me anyway. I’ve been captain at most football clubs so I knew I’d been able to relate to people, but the learning curve has been massive in terms of building with board members, chairman, embargos, bailiffs at the training ground – it’s been massive learning how to deal with those situations and keeping positive.

“I would be surprised if there are many managers in 15 years who have dealt with things like that. They might have heard about it or been told things, I’ve seen it firsthand in five months and it will be the making of me. “The biggest thing I took was to always be truthful to everyone around the place. Many managers would have lied or hid the extent but the reason we got the lads playing for us was because we were open and honest with them. “That open and honest policy is right, if we’d hid it we wouldn’t have got respect or performances on a Saturday. No matter how bad it is, you still treat people like human beings.”

Fowler also says he learnt a great deal from working alongside former Premier League defender Eaden.

“We worked so well together,” Fowler added. “Nick’s had experience with academies and been around football long enough. He’s a good guy to learn off. He’s quite laid back whereas I’m quite intense in terms of how I coach and deliver sessions so the balance was superb.

“I learnt a lot from how he conducts himself around football clubs and that rubbed off on me.”