I just want a chance to be the boss again
IT’S hard to beat being a football manager and I’d like to think my record over the last 25 years compares favourably to most. I’ve managed more than 900 games since late 1996 when first took charge in a dugout. My win record is 45 per cent, meaning that I’ve won 414 games, and I’m unbeaten in 68 per cent plus of the games I’ve managed.
My teams have won promotion three times, I’ve managed in four major finals and I’ve identified and recruited a number of players who have gone on to sell for big money.
At a personal level, I’ve invested ten long summers into gaining my B Licence, my A Licence, my Pro Licence and my diploma certificate in League Management.
In reality, to do the job of a lower league manager well is a tough task. It isn’t glamorous.
It involves lots of long drives to watch lots of games. You need to know opponents. You need to know players. You need to see them all in live games. You need to be out in the rain, sleet and snow to find out the most valuable truths. Sometimes you drive a ten-hour round trip just to learn an opposition’s best corner routine for the Saturday afternoon! Earning an edge is not easy work.
The job involves lots of communication with players, agents and clubs, including your own. There are a multitude of egos and agendas involved and it takes a lot of effort just to begin to try and understand those, let alone manage them.
It also involves a lot of day to day research and planning to construct the very best training sessions and development plans for individuals and the team.
Challenge
I love it all though. Every second of it. The challenge of building a winning team and a winning club is not easy, especially when resources are tight and with transfer windows which can lead to situations where you have missing ingredients.
But I love the grind; I love working through the frustrations; I love searching for the answer; but most of all I love the winning. Watching players and a team flourish and achieve is a great satisfaction. Hearing a crowd celebrate a goal and a victory is everything.
So where does all this boasting get me? The truth is absolutely nowhere.
In the past 12 months, like many other managers, I’ve pushed my name directly into 13 Football League clubs to suggest a discussion about a vacancy. Nine times I’ve had a reply. Once I was interviewed. But I’ve not been asked to work since 2020.
My record stands up well alongside men who get jobs. So I have reason to believe that I just need to be patient.
Mark Hughes (Bradford City) returned to work recently in League Two with a 37 per cent win record after being out of management since 2018.
Paul Ince (Reading) returned to the Championship recently with a 41 per cent win record after being out of management since 2014. Good men; good records; long absences.
I was standing in a queue to pay to get in to watch Accrington v Wycombe last weekend and a fan asked me whether I’d be back in management.
I found myself answering that I must want to - I wouldn’t be that far north of London watching Accrington for inspiration if I had no serious intentions. I say that 100 per cent respectfully.
For a club with 2,000-plus fans to be holding their own in League One is a truly remarkable feat. Manager John Coleman and his staff identify players, recruit and retain players, sell players (the excellent Dion Charles to Bolton being the latest), create a team structure and spirit, play to their strengths and slowly but surely build their club.
Their success should inspire any club, manager or player that hopes for footballing dreams to come true and I took great motivation from watching the manner of their comeback victory over the high-flying Chairboys. It was brilliant in wild conditions.
Experience
After some tough times at Real Sociedad and Sunderland, David Moyes appeared to some to be a busted flush.
But he has produced 49 wins in 103 games at West Ham to show why he has won 43 per cent of his 1,000-plus career games and, like me, is unbeaten in 68 per cent plus of his games.
He has shown that us 50-somethings still have life. He has proven that experience has value. He has demonstrated that older men can learn and adapt their ways to succeed in a new era. He inspires me to keep travelling, keep watching, keep learning and to keep applying.
Somewhere down the road, a chairman will interview me again. Somewhere down the road a chairman will employ me again. Somewhere down the road I will lead a team again, help a club again, develop players again and win big games again consistently. Somewhere down the road I will win my next trophy, we will win our next trophy.
That’s football. When I’m back, I’ll be glad that I didn’t waste my sabbatical. I’ll be glad that I invested time in my knowledge of teams and players. It’s the hard yards that differentiate the best from the rest. It’s the work you do when nobody is paying you and nobody is watching you that builds the capability that you have to offer.