Hodgson keeps feet on ground as Eagles rise
ROY HODGSON doesn’t really do fairy tales. Maybe he knows better after his unhappy tournaments with the England team and the angst football can bring. He could easily wax lyrical about the homecoming he is enjoying at Crystal Palace but, a voracious reader of highbrow literature, he is having none of it.
‘It’s a romantic idea,’ he says. ‘Of course, you maintain a love for the club you supported as a child but I’ve been in so many places and had such a career, really, that I’d be lying if I was to go along with that notion that I’m enjoying some childhood dream.’
That said, his reputation is being restored after the humiliation of Brazil 2014 and Iceland at Euro 2016 and he is doing it by returning to the south London suburbs at the team he grew up watching.
At 70 he might even be seen as an elderly prodigal returning to a familiar embrace at the stadium to which his father Bill, a south London bus driver, would take him to watch Palace reserves one week and the first team the next.
The memories are inescapable. ‘In those days it was a very simple situation. One Saturday it was the first team and the next it was the reserves. Every Saturday we would find ourselves at Selhurst Park, sometimes among a decent-sized crowd and sometimes there were very few of us watching the reserves.
‘My father came back from the war, settled in the Croydon area, stayed, got married and as a result Crystal Palace were our team as a family because we lived literally 10 minutes from the ground.’
He is pleased to be here though, back in the spotlight and even more pleased to be making a success of it. With no points and no goals after seven games, Palace looked a Championship-destined basket case.
Hodgson took over in September after the departure of Frank de Boer and now, after yesterday’s 1-1 draw at Swansea, they are unbeaten in eight and having taken 13 points from the last six games, they are back in the fight.
Hodgson, though, wants to be more than a survival expert. After he did this job at Fulham in 2007-08 he then took them to a Europa League final. ‘So far, we haven’t got to the stage where it’s all about scrapping, fighting and kicking the ball as far away from your goal as possible.
‘We’re actually trying, when we get the ball, to play the kind of football I think that you need to play in the Premier League and we will work to get the players who can play that type of football.
‘I’d like to think they [chairman Steve Parish and American owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer] think I could help the club grow and move into a position where we’re comfortably mid-table. I mean, it’ll be a while before we start worrying Manchester City… but we have to be more comfortable than we’ve been in these past few years, where the spectre of relegation has been uncomfortably close.’
Christmas will be testing. They face Arsenal at home on Thursday and Manchester City on Sunday.
Hodgson has pretty much seen it all as a football coach, with his title-winning exploits in Scandinavia, titles at Inter and Liverpool and as a national team manager with Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and England.
In an age where football coaches are suddenly wearing skinny jeans and Converse trainers, there appears to be a place for a different generation. Jupp Heynckes has been asked to steady the ship at Bayern Munich at the age of 72. Hodgson didn’t feel he had anything to prove at the age of 70 and with an illustrious CV. And yet every day is a test of his ability as a coach.
Some things don’t change. Such as that feeling a late winner against Stoke or Watford can give you. ‘That is one of the classic clichés I suppose of football management as you get older,’ says Hodgson. ‘Once the drug has found its way into your veins it’s a hard one to get out.’