UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
I’ll never be a manager again, insists ex-United star Gary Neville — why would I when I can help thousands of students prepare for life?
GARY NEVILLE knows the cliches. You will hear them bandied about frequently. ‘No more characters, not enough leaders.’ He may even have been tempted to use them when he watched an England team he helped to coach implode against Iceland or his Valencia team concede their seventh goal at the Nou Camp.
As with most cliches, there is a grain of truth. Neville certainly agrees there is a generation of players less prepared for the mental challenges of the game than he was. His response has been to set up a university with his ‘Class of 92’ partners — brother Phil, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt.
‘There are some things that happened with England that I would never go into the detail of, but there were young players who I felt really weren’t robust or resilient enough to cope with what was about to hit them in terms of exposure, limelight, criticism, praise and fame,’ he says. ‘Rather than saying: “Well, in my day, they were tougher, more resilient, better characters, more leaders” — which I’d heard, I don’t know how many times — I thought: “Hang on a minute. What can we actually do?” We were given the opportunity as young players; a great grounding, not just in football but in life by our coaches, Nobby Stiles and Eric Harrison.
‘About four or five months before I went to Valencia [in December 2015], I’d been coaching with England and we had a partnership with Salford University through our football club, Salford City. At the time I got to know Amanda Broderick, who was Dean of the College of Business and Law at Salford University, and we were talking about the vulnerabilities in young footballers. She was seeing the same at an academic level: people weren’t ready for employment when they came out of university.
‘They needed more work to be done so they were ready for the work and for that slog which happens when you come out of university at 21 and have 40 years in front of you. You’re going to be criticised and praised, you’ll have to self-analyse, you’ll have to be able to present to an audience. All those things breed confidence, leaders and authority.
‘She was seeing the same things in education as I saw in football.
‘As a football coach, the maximum amount of people you can impact with your values and principles is 20, the players you have in your team. I started to think how we could actually impact more people. We talked to Amanda and established 10 pillars or principles that I think everyone should have instilled in them between 16 and 21. We put in a sum of money to do a study to see if we could turn this into something deliverable as an education.’
At the same time as the research was being commissioned and the University of Lancaster and Microsoft were being brought in as partners, Neville was offered the Valencia job by business partner Peter Lim. He was also preparing for Euro 2016 as an assistant coach with England, as well as co-owning Salford City, developing a multipurpose tower block in Manchester and a new restaurant and hotel, The Stock Exchange, to add to the former United players’ Hotel Football opposite Old Trafford.
Valencia ended in the sack and England in resignation after defeat by Iceland. Given his commitments, it always seemed coaching aspirations were on hold. Now he is more definite. ‘It’ll never happen,’ he says. ‘I’m a million miles away. I suppose never is a strong word because in 10 years you might wake up and say: “I want to coach.” I love football and the camaraderie but I don’t want to be in that environment any more. Up until 15 months ago I was coach of England and 19 months ago I was coach of Valencia, so it would be impossible to say at that stage that I’m never going to be a coach. But I had turned down two or three Premier League jobs, I turned down two Championship jobs and I wasn’t going to go into coaching.
‘I did it because it was my business partner and I thought that the opportunity for an Englishman to manage one of the top four or five clubs in Spain was never going to happen again. It was an unbelievable opportunity. And it didn’t go as well as I wanted it to. But I enjoyed every minute and it taught me a lot and things I will apply to my business life. I don’t regret going to Spain and I would have liked to have stayed in Valencia for 18 months. But I wouldn’t have continued in coaching.
‘My ultimate aim is to learn as much about business, sport, media and education over the next five or 10 years and deliver these projects and then settle down into a role over the next 10 to 15 years and be able to say that I’ve taught myself how to be a businessman, or someone who works in the media or in education. But these next five years are set for me now. I can’t move from what I’m doing now.
‘The buzz from football up to the age of 32 was incredible and that can probably never be replaced. But, compared to the last three years of my career, I enjoy what I’m doing now far more. I look forward to football, but I don’t want anything to do with it in terms of playing or coaching. And that’s not because of my experiences with England or Valencia.
‘I was moving my career to these projects. I’m stimulated every day to be the best I can be in business and it will either be a failure or success in the next 15 years but that’s what I want to be.’
With his growing business experience, many might consider him a natural executive at Manchester United but he says not. ‘I would never say never but I can’t see it at all at the moment. With everything I have on, there would be no role in football I would be able to take because it would mean me stepping away from the projects I have. I’ve committed to too much out of football to take a job in football over the next five years.’
The university campus itself, University Academy 92 or UA92, will be next to the Old Trafford cricket ground. A public consultation is taking place but students should be coming for the 2019 academic year, eventually rising to 10,000 a year. It will focus on business studies, media, sports administration and hospitality courses, the areas in which Neville and his former teammates have experience. The twist is the extra components which add mental strength, whether that be physical challenges which need to be completed or psychological support. Even for Neville’s well-known zest for taking on the improbable, it’s ambitious. But he remains undaunted.
‘We want the students to be resilient when they come out with the degree from Lancaster University and go into a great job,’ he says. ‘In 10 years’ time, we want to look back and be thinking we changed people’s lives.
‘We’ve been given so much by United, by the people who worked at United. We’re the most-famous intake of young football players, along with Busby Babes, that have ever come out of this country. For all six of us to come out of one youth team [including David Beckham], means that there is an obligation not to just sit back and say: “We’ve finished our football careers and we’re all Mr ex-Manchester United now.”
‘We should use our strength, our name to create what I think are great projects which can affect a lot of people and do things that will impact young people in this area. All of us together have an obligation to give people a chance because that’s what happened to us.
‘If we don’t believe in doing that, after what happened to us, it would be a huge waste of the faith that we’ve built up.’