King confident he can keep Dundalk up

James Rogers spoke to Noel King for an exclusive interview on Monday afternoon after his appointment as Lilywhites boss

First and foremost, welcome to the club. I know there has been some negativity around the appointment but for you, it’s a massive thing I’m sure to be the new Dundalk FC manager. You’re obviously delighted?

Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a great club with a great history. I’ve had good times here and I’m looking forward to trying to repeat that.

How did it all come about? When was the first chat you had about it?

It’s just been in the last couple of days. It happened from talking to the owner, Brian Ainscough. I spoke to him and discussions happened very quickly and, obviously, it had to be done quickly. We agreed and I was certainly up for the challenge. I have been continuously working in football. There has been no break and thankfully there is no break again. It’s a great challenge and a great opportunity and it’s something that I hope we can bring success to.

It sounds like something you didn’t have to think long about?

No, it’s not. It’s something that I would have thought about in my head. I didn’t actually apply for the job when it came about but I don’t think if you’re a football-minded man and you like a challenge then I had no option but to take the job. I’d never have forgiven myself if I didn’t take it.

You’ve been working at Home Farm since January so you were still involved in the game but you must have thought that there wasn’t a route back to a job at this level?

I’d be mad enough to be thinking about it, to be honest, and you’re thinking maybe this opportunity will arise and maybe that one will and you’re looking at it and you’re thinking everyone thinks you’re an ould fart. I’m sure loads of people will be nodding their head saying ‘you are’ but I still think I can do it. Time will tell.

Has that surprised you, just as a general point, where a lot of the ‘older generation of managers’ now aren’t really involved in the game? I think outside of John Caulfield, there’s very few in their 50s even. It’s kind of got a lot younger but there’s a lot of experience in people around the league that you would know in Irish football that maybe aren’t involved because people think they’re past it.

I’ve got so many texts and emails of good wishes from ex-footballers who would be even younger than me but who have gone out of the game so I feel privileged to be given the opportunity and I will be fighting for them to make sure I succeed, or we succeed, because it’s not me, obviously. The team has to succeed and if the team succeeds then we all get the benefit out of it.

You mentioned Brian the owner there. You both have Home Farm connections. How long do you know Brian?

Well, I would have been his coach. Matt Butler at Home Farm was the manager of the team at U16 level and I was the coach. I was playing for Dundalk at the time, believe it or not, so that’s how it started but people go off and do their own thing and you don’t see them for years and then the opportunity comes to meet them and Brian has been very good. He’s very positive and he wants everybody to have a go and that’s what I’m going to do.

It must be a major vote of confidence in you as well that there were around 70 applications for the job but he went in and said you were his man. That must be massive for you in terms of knowing the owner is behind you?

Yeah, of course, but the bottom line is he’s behind me but he can be a ruthless man – as you have to be in football – and if you don’t deliver then you’re gone. That’s the standard and the mission for me is to get off the bottom of the league and keep going and keep rising. That can only be done with hard work and by support from people around the place, from players, staff, supporters and everybody feeling the same way that Dundalk do not belong in the league below.

Your title is manager but are you more hands on? Do you see yourself having boots on on the training pitch, etc, or is it a bit of both now because the manager role has sort of changed in recent years probably?

Well, head coach is a different word than manager. We will see how the game goes and we’ll see how the staff operate and the players operate. I have certainly been active coaching wise and would feel quite capable of doing it but it’s just an exciting time.

Any thoughts on your backroom team? Have you had a chance to putting anything in place yet in terms of a number two?

No, I’ve just been in with Brian Gartland there and I’m just making assessments as we go. We’ll see how the match goes on Friday. I would be ridiculous to come in and if there was good talent here not to keep the ship moving in the right direction. You’d be mad to go elsewhere but if there is somebody needed along the line, I know that the club will support us in getting access to that person but, hopefully, we’ll go in the right direction and win.

But you will have the option to bring in a number two if you see fit?

Yeah.

But it probably won’t be for this Friday, would that be fair to say?

Definitely not. We’ll have to see how people react and how the team reacts. It’s two tough games by the way. Bohs is the first one and that’s a tough game as we know and then the next one is Shels and that’s tough again but there are no easy games. That’s an old cliché but it has become harder and harder. The challenge is harder and harder to stay up.

You were saying you knew Peter Halpin from a previous life. Having that sort of knowledge of someone you’ve already met will probably be a help as well?

Obviously, yeah. There’s a lot of people around the place that I know still in football and a lot of players I know because during my U21 stints, I bumped into a lot of them. I feel happy about it. I understand how people will have a different view but, ultimately, the ultimate test is what happens and I’m going to do my best.

You were at a few clubs across your playing and management career but if you talk to people, you’d have played with like Keely, Lawlor, O’Neill and that sort of generation, they all would say there’s something magic about Dundalk when it’s going well. That’s something I’m sure you hope to harness while you’re here?

Absolutely, yeah. It was fantastic. I remember the European nights here as well. I remember playing Liverpool and getting battered by two or three but we held them in Anfield. There’s just a huge history to it and it’s an amazing club. It was my first League of Ireland club after Home Farm so I will always have that in my head as well but that’s the history, that’s the past and that’s for a couple of years down the road when I retire.

Does the current position the club is in surprise you?

Aww, yeah. It’s difficult and it happens. This is a chance to stop it and turn it around. It wasn’t built in a day Rome and you can’t just succeed by winning tomorrow and you won’t fail by losing tomorrow. You have to take this as a bunch of matches that are coming up and we have to make sure that we don’t finish bottom.

You probably did a bit of studying over the weekend but how much would you have seen of the team in general so far?

I watched the match last week but it’s very much, I’m not concerned about what went in the past. It’s about what happens now and how people respond and react and perform on the pitch. That’s the only way I can make judgements and that’s what we’ll do.

You would have met the players today was there a good reaction?

There was a good reaction. It was a good session and the coaches were working hard and the players were working hard so we’ll keep going.

Is it hard for you now in a short period to get a sense of your ideal

starting XI because you don’t know everyone’s abilities yet?

Exactly. So that’s the challenge but the coaching staff have been here for a while as well and I’ll be leaning very much on them and will continue to do so. Then it’s about that assessment of seeing people playing, see how they go and you can only work from there. You can’t do it tomorrow but come the end of the season, if everything is fine, we’ll have proven that it’s the right thing.

Is success then just staying up in the short-term? Obviously you’re here for 18 months but for this season staying up – you’d take it right now I’m sure?

Well look at the table. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to know and you see the amount of games that are so competitive and how difficult it is but the players are aware of that and the club is aware of that.

It’s not insurmountable, though, would that be the message?

I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I could do it, to be honest, and that’s the truth and we’ll see.

There has been that negativity that I mentioned and it’s not ideal but I’m sure it doesn’t bother you?

I’ve had, what did you call it, negativity? I’ve had other words for it but that’s been with me since I started in the League of Ireland. At Shamrock Rovers, I got it from even our own supporters. I’ve been around various clubs as you know and I’ve been abused up here before. I don’t mean abused but it’s just part of the game and people enjoy it. I just close my ears to it. I can’t do anything other than what I think is the right thing to do.

But, at the same time, a win here on Friday probably gets them onside very quickly?

Yeah. I think what really will get them onside is the end of the season and survival and anyone who’s thinking we’re going to creep up the table and go to Europe, that’s really not in my mind at the minute.

Is it a help that your first two matches are here just in terms of it’s a home crowd and you’d like to think the fans will get behind them? There has been generally a good record here with even the last three being scoreless draws so it has been a hard place to come?

It is a hard place and people don’t like coming to play in Dundalk. I know that factually and personally. The astro can be challenging so if that’s the way it is and we can continue having good performances here then that will be exciting – very exciting.

Outside of the building you’re in, it hasn’t changed a lot from when you were here?

Well, the building is amazing. The facilities are incredible and the room we’re in now is just so professional and it’s brilliant. The investment that has gone into it – and I know there’s more coming – is only positive for the town.

One of the criticisms that I mentioned, it’s obviously a long time since you managed in the league but you have been around the U21 set-up, women’s set-ups and you have had success at Shels in recent years with the women’s team so you haven’t been completely away from it but how much in recent times have you been going to matches and keeping an eye on it?

On Friday nights, I would watch the telly sometimes or go to games. I probably live for football but whatever club I’m at, they’ll get my full attention and that’s the way it is and that’s the way it’ll be here. We could talk all night but at the end of the day, it’s not tomorrow, not next week, not next week or the next weekt, but when it’s the time for decision time of who stays in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland, that’s when the judgement will be made.

And you’re confident that there’s enough here to get out of that?

I’ll be trying to learn, I’ll be trying to watch, I’ll be trying to see and study and trying to make some good decisions. I’ll make some bad decisions, as always, but who doesn’t? And I’ll enjoy it.

What would you say your best attributes are as a coach/manager?

I don’t analyse myself like that. That’s up to other people to have their own views. Some of them are educated views, some of them are not but that’s the beauty of football.

Is the big thing, even speaking to Brian and Liam who were in temporary charge, just to restore confidence because, obviously, when you haven’t won a game, yet naturally enough you’re not as confident as you’d like to be? Is that something you hope to bring as well, that confidence?

■ I think performances and points and winning are what gets you the confidence and being selected in the team should give you confidence. It is a feature but ability is very important, too, and grit and working hard. These are all the issues that make you win or lose.

And I know you can’t do anything until the summer but have you already thought about bringing players in because it probably will need your own touch come the summer too?

Yeah, we’ll see. There’s a big squad here and I watched them in a good intensive training session this morning. In all fairness, they’re at the club and if they can produce for the club then we’ll move forward with them.

Brilliant. Thanks for everything, Noel, and best of luck with it.