Football How Coughlan developed from Bray Wanderers youngster into the Rovers boss
IF there is one thing we have learned from Graham Coughlan in the last ten months is that he hates losing.
The Bristol Rovers manager wears his heart on his sleeve and is not backward in coming forward over certain things. The 44-yearold has an air of authority when he enters a room and is fairly no-nonsense in a way that can take some managers years to develop.
While Rovers is Coughlan’s first managerial role, it has been a longtime coming for the Irishman, who admitted himself he thought the opportunity to take charge of a club may have passed him by.
It is a credit to the manager that, after taking over at Rovers last December, first as caretaker and then in a permanent role, he was able to transform a side that seemed destined for relegation into one that could scrap and pick up gritty points - and that was even before adding the goals of Jonson Clarke-Harris in January.
Yet it is no surprise to those that know him and have worked with him in the past.
Pat Devlin was the man who signed Coughlan for Bray Wanderers in 1995, taking the 20-year-old from Leinster Senior League side Cherry Orchard to give the defender his first taste of senior football. The young Coughlan immediately looked at home, and Devlin remembers it did not take long for him to start attracting attention from across the Irish Sea.
Devlin, now coach of Cabinteely, recalled: “He had been recommended to me from our own little scouting system we had in place.
“We watched him a couple of times and I thought the timing was perfect because we were looking for a centre-back similar to Graham’s description. I followed it up and said I wanted him to sign and he duly obliged.
“We won the League of Ireland First Division Shield and he was the centre-back. We got beaten 3-0 in the first leg of the final and I always remember people saying there was no way back from that but we won the second leg 3-0 and won on penalties. Graham was a big part of that.”
For a young player, moving into a new dressing room can sometimes be an intimidating prospect, and it can often take months for them to properly integrate into a new environment. Yet Devlin says this was far from the case with Coughlan, who was similar to the man Rovers fans know today.
He said: “Even to this day, Graham is a very similar fella to how he was then. He’s quite confident and he’s good around other people, so he was able to handle himself in the dressing room.
“He had a bit about him in that area. Ability-wise, he was a great defender, a good stopper and he had a good header. He lacked a bit of pace but made up for it with his aggression. So he was a fella who wouldn’t be intimidated by anyone else.”
He added: “He wanted to lead, he wanted to show by example and was a very determined young man.
“He was lovely around the dressing room and got on with everyone, but he showed his hunger and desire about how he performed on the pitch.”
Coughlan’s spell at Bray was to prove a short one, with Devlin eventually helping to engineer the 21-year-old a move to the Premier League, with then-champions Blackburn opting to sign him.
Devlin explained: “I used to do some work with Kenny Dalglish at Blackburn and I happened to be talking to Kenny when I said I’d signed this big centre-back who was a bit raw but looked like he had something about him.
“Kenny said he’d keep an eye on it and would have a look.
“The season progressed, Graham was only with us for three months and he did really well. I got Graham over to Blackburn for a week and he did very well. Kenny was still there but they weren’t going to sign him.
“Six weeks later, Kenny had left, and Ray Harford said he wanted to have another look at Graham, so he went over and played a friendly against Southport.
“Graham played against a former full England international and did very well, so Ray got in touch with me again and said they liked him. “As they say, the rest is history.” So, is Devlin, who is still in contact with Coughlan, surprised at how well his former player has done since taking over at Rovers? It seems not, with Coughlan’s personality meaning he takes like a duck to water when it comes to challenges.
The 66-year-old said: “I think he always had the potential to be a coach or manager, he was the type of fella who would certainly have stood out.
“I’ve been involved in football now for over 50 years and there are players you identify who you think might have a chance, and Graham always showed that.
“Even when he moved to Blackburn, it was very all of a sudden, it happened in a short space of time and he adapted to it quickly.”
While Coughlan has a lot to thank Devlin for in terms of launching his playing career, there is probably no manager who has been more of an influence on him than Paul Sturrock.
Coughlan failed to make a league appearance for Blackburn and moved to Livingston in 1999 after impressing on loan there. While in his second season at the Lions, he came to the attention of thenPlymouth boss Sturrock, who was impressed with his leadership abilities. Sturrock said: “I was up at a game in Aberdeen, they were playing Livingston one night, and he performed like a captain even though he wasn’t a captain. I kept him in mind when I went to Plymouth and he came down the road, signed a contract.
“He was obviously involved in winning the league twice with Plymouth. I went away to Southampton but was then at Sheffield Wednesday and brought him there, then I took him to Southend when he was at the end of his career as he needed to get into coaching.”
Coughlan proved a huge hit at Argyle, spending four years at Home Park and even ending one season as top scorer from centreback. Yet he left in 2005 when Sturrock came calling again, this time when the Scot was at Sheffield Wednesday.
The duo would subsequently work together again at Southend, when Sturrock appointed Coughlan as player-coach in 2010.
So what was it about Coughlan that Sturrock loved so much?
“He’s a winner, he loves to win,” the 62-year-old states simply. “He hates losing games and he’s very committed to the cause.”