Boro boss helped to lay foundations for Lionesses’ triumph
LAST summer women’s football in England reached its peak, as huge audiences watched Sarina Wiegman’s England Lionesses win their first major trophy at Euro 2022, and the country’s first major international tournament since the men won the World Cup in 1966.
The Dutch head coach had a crucial impact in helping so many trailblazing women inspire the nation with their success on the pitch, having overcome many obstacles and setbacks over the years.
The victory in the European Championships was the culmination of years of hard work in the female game to raise its levels and increase interest.
Many people deserve a huge amount of credit for laying the foundations for that triumph – and new Middlesbrough Women’s manager Mick Mulhern is certainly among them.
Serving as Sunderland Ladies manager for 15 years up to 2014, Mulhern found and developed many of the Lionesses squad.
Three of Wiegman’s most important players – Lucy Bronze, Jill Scott and Teessider Beth Mead – all credit the new Boro Women’s boss as being a huge influence on their career.
You can also add other top female stars such as former Lionesses captain Steph Houghton and another Teessider, Jordan Nobbs, to that list as well.
During Mulhern’s time at Sunderland, which saw him lead Sunderland to the Women’s Super League, the Wearsiders became a conveyor belt for talented young women who would go on to have excellent careers in the game.
Working full-time as a police detective for Northumbria Police alongside his Sunderland role, Mulhern would use those skills to source the best players across the region.
Mulhern himself described it thus: “It was like planting bamboo – you never see it growing under the surface for all those years and then it sprouts and continues to grow and grow. It was very clear that having been through the centre of excellence programme those players were better for it – and we just got stronger from then on really.
“I never had a blueprint to go off, but I was trying to run it just like I would have run a boy’s academy – I stayed away from the basics and taught them what I thought they needed.
“At Sunderland, we came from nowhere to being in the top three clubs nationally, for producing players from this region for England at various age groups. When I left there were over 20 players who had represented their country at the various age groups.”
If the successful Euros team was impressive enough, at one point during Phil Neville’s reign as England Women’s boss, the team boasted no fewer than eight players who had been coached by Mulhern.
More recently, Mulhern has been working as a scout for both England and Newcastle, but has also enjoyed coaching roles since leaving Sunderland at men’s team Hebburn Town and Whitley Bay. He guided the Bay to Wembley and FA Vase glory. But it’s his work at Sunderland that he is best remembered for, with many of the aforementioned women’s football stars crediting the new Boro Women’s boss with setting them on their way in their careers.
Hinderwell’s Mead – the Ballon d’Or Feminin runner-up in 2022 – said of Mulhern: “Another man that I owe a lot to is Mick Mulhern, who was my manager at Sunderland Ladies. He put a lot of faith in me when I was just 16 and has been a massive building block in my career and taught me a lot of things at a young age. He put me in at the deep end and played me against top players and top teams.
“A lot of England players have come through under Mick so we probably owe a lot to him because he gave us a chance at such a young age. He always told me to never lose the type of passion and always work hard and, to this day, I still do that.”
Jill Scott was 14 when Mulhern started playing her in senior games, with the pair first working together at Boldon before moving to Sunderland.
The rules have changed since then so that they have to be 16 to play senior football, but it speaks volumes of his principles.
Scott said: “When he first started Sunderland women, he really knew how to develop players, his coaching was very good and we were getting a good level of coaching at a young age which meant when you got picked for international camps, you weren’t behind on your knowledge.
“If you look at all the players that have come through from the North East they are all hard-working and gritty.
“I don’t know if that’s because we played most weekends in the rain and the wind and that made us a lot stronger.
“But a lot of us played under Mick Mulhern at Sunderland and he was someone who would always give young players an opportunity.
“He did that with a lot of young players and you can see them reaping the benefits of that as players now.”
Giving players a chance at a young age was a feature of Mick’s tenure at Sunderland.
The talent-spotter and developer is keen to give youth a chance – something which very much matches the ethos of Middlesbrough Football Club and the project the Women’s Team want to build with this new and exciting merger.
He put a lot of faith in me when I was 16...he’s been a massive building
block in my career.
Beth Mead on Mick
Mulhern