MATURE STUDENT
29 years and 974 games in the dugout but McGhee is off to Uni for a degree in... football management!
AT THE age of 63, Mark McGhee went back to school this week. Or, to put it more precisely, he started a two-year diploma course at Liverpool University on Wednesday... in football management. That may seem an odd choice for a man who was only 26 games short of 1,000 as a boss when he left Eastbourne Borough last year.
They were the 10th club he had taken charge of north and south of the border, during which time he came up against everything a manager could conceivably have to contend with, from being confronted by angry fans after a poor run of form to the tragic death of Motherwell midfielder Phil O’Donnell during a game against Dundee United at Fir Park in 2007.
You would think that there would be little more for him to learn but McGhee, who was also assistant to Scotland manager Gordon Strachan from 2013-17, disagrees.
While the impression remains that he would rather like to return to the technical area and break the four-figure barrier, McGhee insists there are other motivations for his pursuit of knowledge.
Part of it centres around a new role for himself as a counsellor for wealthy young professionals, seeking to advise them on how to steer clear of scams such as the one which fleeced some of the biggest names in the game, men such as former Scotland captain Colin Hendry, Wayne Rooney, Stuart Pearce and former England manager Steve McClaren.
‘I’ve become involved with a bunch of former players down south in the Phoenix Sports and Media Group,’ said McGhee. ‘It was started by a bunch of players — including Rio Ferdinand, Andy Cole, Michael Thomas and Rod Wallace — who lost millions of pounds in 2015 after being persuaded to participate in a scheme which centred on tax breaks for money invested in the British film industry.
‘There were dozens of players and managers involved and the police launched a criminal investigation into the asset management company. The Financial Conduct Authority no longer recognises it, which means they’re no longer able to advise anyone. But the damage had been done.
‘However, some of the boys who’d lost their cash wanted to prevent that happening to other players and so they formed Phoenix. It’s managed by Carly Barnes, who’s the wife of Craig Short, the former Everton and Blackburn centre-half, someone who was also scammed.
‘She’s a lawyer and she helped the other guys to put together a package for young pros, highlighting the dangers of losing their money and helping them to be sensible with their investments.
‘But it’s evolved and become more than just that. We also talk to them about business and leadership and those are the sort of things I was looking to become involved with anyway. So when they asked me to come on board, it was an easy decision.
‘Some aspects of what we’re doing is government funded and you need certain qualifications to claim the funding. I got my Pro licence back in 2001 but you need to keep doing the refresher courses because the game is changing all the time.
‘As a result, I’ve just begun the League Managers’ Association’s diploma in football management at Liverpool University. It’s basically a two-year degree course in the game and I wouldn’t have bothered normally but, since I’m not doing anything else, I thought: “Why not?”
‘It’s either that or sit on my backside and I’ve been doing that throughout this lockdown, so I’d rather have something to do.’
Before he became a student this week, McGhee spent his last days of freedom playing golf and visiting best friend Strachan at his Football Foundation in Rugby and reminiscing about how the LMA have helped to take him out of his comfort zone.
‘They organise these events for members: the guest list is like a who’s who of the unemployed!’ he said. ‘Earlier this year, I was at the army’s own leadership course at Sandhurst — a conference with 1,000 senior military men — and it was fantastic.
‘Some of the stuff that was being discussed there was mind-boggling, such as autonomous weapon systems — which are effectively robots — and quantum computing.
‘You get to listen to some very interesting people. One of the senior commanders questioned whether the British government could morally sanction matching what other countries are doing.
‘He was talking about the Chinese deploying what they call super soldiers, who are drug-enhanced and wearing exo-skeletal suits that make them like supermen. Apparently, the drugs make them think they can’t die, so they’re fearless.
‘You don’t get that kind of stuff on coaching courses at Largs!’
Robots and quantum computing .... you don’t get that at Largs