FALLING IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN
Stuart McCall is bouncing back with Bradford after enduring more than his fair share of heartache
FOR Stuart McCall, the next best thing to the dream job has been another reunion with his first love. A year on from being rejected by Rangers, McCall and Bradford City got back together in the summer. The scars of a painful separation six years ago are fully healed. He no longer shudders at the thought of the day he was delighted his own club’s home match was postponed. When he was thankful to leave his position of employment. When he didn’t care if he’d ever manage a football club again.
‘I remember a game getting called off on a Saturday morning, waterlogged pitch at home,’ says McCall of the most grim of days in his first managerial role.
‘It meant that at least the weekend couldn’t be spoiled. We hadn’t lost. That’s when you know.
‘We were playing a top-of-the-league team and thinking: This could be a spanking. But the game was off and I thought: You beauty. The Mrs was thinking: I can enjoy a meal tonight and it won’t all be doom and gloom.
‘When I eventually left Bradford, there was a relief. Because I felt I’d been letting people down. And, for the first couple of months after, I wasn’t bothered if I’d ever manage again. I’d finished on such a low. Maybe I could be an assistant again, a youth coach. But never a manager.’
As hard as it is to imagine McCall’s natural ebullience being dragged down by defeatism, that was the state of mind in February 2010 when two-and-a-half trying years in charge at Bradford came to a blessed conclusion.
McCall had been No2 to Neil Warnock at Sheffield United for a top-flight season when he chose to launch his own career in management with the right club at the wrong time. Bradford had plummeted through relegations and, when McCall’s first attempt to lift them out of League Two stalled two points shy of the play-offs, a 40-per-cent budget cut handed him a task even the most sagacious and experienced lower division operators would have baulked at.
The problem was that the emotional attachment to the club, where he had spent the first six seasons of his playing career and a further four after leaving Rangers, made calculated decisions more difficult to reach.
Save Our Stuart banners and begging letters persuaded him to stay on despite no signs of progress, no hope of promotion. It all led to McCall resenting himself for becoming the fall guy who was letting so many of his people down.
Thankfully, when Bradford’s new German businessmen owners Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp selected McCall to replace Bolton-bound Phil Parkinson a few months ago, both the returning hero and the club were in very different places to when they parted.
McCall explained: ‘The fans were sort of split about me coming back. Those who remembered what happened last time and felt for me really didn’t want to see us go through that again. But I haven’t come back in any sentimental way this time.
‘I’m back with a six-year difference as someone who’s managed in the Scottish top flight, the Champions League, in a Scottish Cup Final, managed a club the size of Rangers, worked under Gordon Strachan at international level.
‘I’m more experienced, managed in a lot of games. I’m a different person. I’m not going to get weighed down by expectations. Now I always want to be a manager. Regardless of results, I love being on the training ground. Forget what happened at the weekend. It’s smiles on the faces out there again. ‘Last time here was a learning curve. But it got really tough for me. We brought in lads on £250 a week who’d been playing for Harrogate and working at TGI Fridays. The most we were ever going to do was bring kids through. We were up against it even at League Two level.’ Now McCall is aiming for the Championship armed with the proficiency and knowledge gained from the posts at Motherwell, interim at Rangers and coaching assistant with Scotland.
Speaking in Malta in May on Scotland duty, as rumours linked him with Hibernian and working alongside former Fir Park chief executive Leeann Dempster, McCall dropped the hints that he wanted a gig with a fan base and ambition for his next club.
Hibs went for an ex-Celtic boss instead of a recent Rangers manager but Bradford’s need for a new appointment when Parkinson departed in mid-June presented McCall with all the ticks on his wish list and more.
‘Our average gate is 18,000 and a couple of weeks ago our away support of 4,300 — selling the allocation out at Bolton — was the highest in the country that day,’ said McCall, whose team have lost just one of their 17 league games.
‘The next was Leicester at Man United. We could’ve sold another 1,000. A lot of things have changed.
‘It was all about me going to a club that, if I got the place going, you could progress the team on top of that. I’d options in Scotland but they didn’t have that specific appeal about them.
‘I loved my time at Motherwell but, regardless of success, you’re only ever going to get 4,500 and still sell players.
‘There are 14 clubs aiming for top six in our league and we’re in that. If we could be top six it would be a great first season in my eyes. It’s a much healthier situation than before and there’s been a feelgood factor from the improvements.
‘We only inherited 10 pros but they’re all experienced and good. I’m getting used to League One again after being in Scotland for so long. The players have taken on new ideas and staff quickly. It’s gone far better than we could have imagined.’
What McCall, assissted by Kenny Black, admits he cannot imagine is being granted a second shot at managing Rangers. The 52-year-old was hired swiftly after Dave King wrested control in March 2015 on an interim basis and a run of one defeat in 12 Championship games steered Rangers into the play-offs in better spirits than at any time in the previous four years.
However, eliminatin and Hibernian led only to a crushing 6-1 aggregate defeat to Motherwell in the final round. Rangers remained one step short of completing the journey and his race had been run. Mark Warburton and David Weir were the partnership preferred to lead the club into a new era.
There are no regret accept a two-and-a-half-month chance at
the Ibroxhelm. Yet there is a
brief block of time, from that first-leg home defeat to his former club, that sounds as if it was replayed plenty in McCall’s mind after he missed out on the permanent post.
‘Some things can define your career, your life,’ he states. ‘It’s not sour grapes, it’s not even looking back and feeling sorry. In fairness, Motherwell were the stronger team. But for about 30 minutes, I think they’d been in our half twice.
‘Then a breakaway, a deflection, a free-kick and we’re 3-0 down. In a matter of 18 minutes, the chances of me getting the job were nothing. I’m not saying for one second I’d have got the job but I think I’d have had a strong chance from what I’d been told. ‘People said: “Do you know what you’re going into? You’ve only got a couple of months, you can’t change players. You can only change the mentality”. It was the worst environment I’ve entered into in my history in football. The players, staff, they’d been through so much. ‘The job was to change the mood and get people believing again. We got full houses back. We beat Hearts, beat Hibs. Take the play-off game out of it and I was more than happy. I never regretted it for a second. Yet there’s always that bit in you that thinks: If only I had the chance to bring our own players in and have our own philosophy. We had no time for that.’