The Manager by Sundeep Bhui

themanager

themanager The magazine of the League Managers Association

“You can’t be sentimental in this job” sir alex ferguson

Walter Smith OBE Peter Reid Paul Nicholls Ron Greenwood CBE Howard Wilkinson Noel Blake Gary Smith Bob Wilson OBE

Issue 8: Spring 2011

engage and deliver

Is it time to stop managing and start leading?

end of the peer show

The dos and don’ts of managing former colleagues

take it lying down

Sleep... why you need it and how to get it

The numbers game

always right

The increasing importance of customer service

37 years, 46 trophies and more than 2,000 games later, Sir Alex Ferguson tells all Issue 8: Spring 2011

SPONSORED BY

The League Managers Association, The Camkin Suite, 1 Pegasus House, Tachbrook Park, Warwick CV34 6LW Tel: 01926 831556 Email: lma@lmasecure.com www.leaguemanagers.com

Editor’s letter Take me to your leader

What makes a leader? I’m not sure I can give a definitive answer to that question, but like most people, I know one when I see one... and I think I’ve seen more than my fair share in the process of putting this magazine together. In the pages that follow we speak to three men with different experiences of leadership: Brigadier Ged Salzano (page 12) has led men into battle, Peter Reid (page 26) has led footballers both on and off the pitch, and Steve Radcliffe (page 50) teaches and mentors on the subject. All three have interesting things to say – and they say them here. While there is a school of thought that believes leaders are born, not made (something not all our correspondents agree with, by the way), it’s rare that a person begins their working life in a position of responsibility. Most have to work their way through the ranks, which, inevitably, means they will at some point have to manage former colleagues. We offer practical advice for those in this position (page 32), as well as guidance on other business issues, including brand management (page 36) and customer service (page 38). And just to return to the subject of leadership for one last thought... we at The Manager would like to add our voices to the many who have heaped plaudits on our cover star since he passed his extraordinary 2,000-game milestone. Measured simply in terms of longevity, Sir Alex Ferguson’s working life would be impressive enough, but add in the number of trophies he’s amassed over the course of that double millennium (we make it 46), then it becomes the sort of career that all others are judged against. Congratulations, Sir Alex... leader among leaders.

The Manager is supported by

Ciarán Brennan

the manager spring 2011

— welcome —

“You can’t be sentimental in this game” Sir Alex Ferguson reveals all

THE BACK OFFICE 42 The Insider

8 KICKING OFF

8 From the dugout

All the latest news, from both within the LMA and the wider world of football

12 “Ask the right questions” Brigadier Ged Salzano MBE at the LMA’s inaugural Leadership and Management seminar

14 Talking point

Finance expert David Paton examines the likely impact of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Rules

LEADERS

16 Sir Alex Ferguson

The Manchester United boss offers his thoughts on management and reflects on his career to date

22 Walter Smith

The Rangers boss explains how he achieved success with the Ibrox club the second time round

26 Peter Reid

As he faces his toughest test as a manager, the Plymouth Argyle manager discusses leadership

29 Gary Smith/Steve Guppy The Manager meets the former Wycombe colleagues who have taken the top prize, Stateside

THE BUSINESS

32 The up escalator

Some proven strategies for dealing with the challenge of managing former colleagues

36 Comment

Stoke City chairman Peter Coates on the art of stewarding a football club in the 21st century

44 The Outsider

Five-time champion national hunt trainer Paul Nicholls reveals how he keeps ahead of the field

46 The management divide

Are football managers different from their business counterparts?

48 Media Matters

Alan Whiter from Action Images on capturing the beautiful game

50 Mind Games

Stop managing and start leading, says expert Steve Radcliffe

52 The Technical Area

The LMA chairman, Howard Wilkinson, on how great managers create permanent change

54 The Coach’s View

England U19s coach Noel Blake argues for a change in attitude to youth development

56 Health and Wellbeing

Wakey, wakey! The role of sleep and the modern manager

From shop floor to top floor The challenges of being promoted

58 Castrol Analysis

How stats can help predict match results and even league tables

LMA PEOPLE

60 Hall of Fame Dinner

Leading managers past and present share FA Cup memories

62 Hall of Fame

Ron Greenwood CBE, a man who left his mark on club and country

42 54

65 Course of treatments

Why there’s more to St Andrews than just golf

67 Nike Football Academy A new home for the pro-level training programme

Brand communications specialist Nick Smith on the importance of brand stewardship

69 Bob Wilson

In today’s post-recession world, why the customer – and the level of service they receive – is key

A Scottish manager called Alex winning a trophy at Wembley? Step forward Mr McLeish...

38 Customer service

The former Arsenal goalkeeper is getting on his bike for charity

70 Stoppage time

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Kicking off

— News —

Kicking off news

and views from the dugout SPURS DON ARMOUR

Walter Smith (right) with Nikica Jelavic celebrating Rangers’ victory in the 2010/11 Scottish League Cup, the last to be sponsored by CIS

CRIME TO PAY FOR SCOTTISH FOOTBALL Scottish League Cup to be sponsored by Government, using funds raised from the Proceeds of Crime Act

From next season, Scotland’s League Cup will be financed by money seized from criminals and criminal activities, thanks to an innovative sponsorship agreement between the Scottish Football League and the Scottish Government. The cup, which will be known as the Scottish Communities League Cup for next season, will be supported by £1m of funding generated by the Proceeds of Crime Act and delivered as part of the Scottish Government’s programme of investment in football. “The Scottish Communities League Cup strengthens the commitment made

at the recent football summit to support the expansion of existing community and social partnerships, and back clubs, authorities and police in tackling alcohol misuse, sectarianism, racism, domestic abuse and violence,” said the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond. The SFL’s chief executive, David Longmuir, added: “This new partnership will build on the tremendous community legacy that has been achieved with our previous sponsor, CIS, and takes the new Scottish Communities League Cup forward into an exciting phase.” As a further element of this sponsorship agreement, clubs participating in next season’s Scottish Communities League Cup will be encouraged to build and increase links with community organisations and to market tickets for the competition to children and families.

PUTIN TAKES WORLD CUP CHAIR The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is to take a hands-on role in the organisation of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, as he is to head up the supervisory board that will govern the management of the event. Putin will be joined on this committee by three other politicians: first deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin and St Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko.

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The leading US sportswear manufacturer Under Armour has made its first move into the Barclays Premier League, with the announcement that it is to be Tottenham Hotspur’s ‘technical partner’ from the 2012/13 season onwards. Under Armour has already gained a foothold in Europe through similar agreements with Hannover 96 and the Welsh rugby union team. “It is a very significant and exciting partnership for Under Armour,” said Kevin Plank, CEO and founder of Under Armour. “The fact that we are connecting with an elite club like Tottenham Hotspur reflects our commitment to strengthen and build our brand in the UK. It will also show our clothing and footwear in the world’s most important and most prestigious sporting venues.”

— News —

€4bn The combined revenues of the world’s top 20 football clubs, as disclosed in this year’s Deloitte Football Money League. Real Madrid topped the table for the sixth-year running. Barcelona and Manchester United held on to second and third spots respectively.

UEFA SHOWS INTEGRITY Europe’s governing body steps up its campaign against corruption

UEFA has underlined its commitment to fighting corruption within football, with the announcement of its intention to create a network of integrity officers across its 53 national associations. Speaking after an executive committee meeting in March, UEFA’s general secretary, Gianni Infantino, said: “There is zero tolerance – if someone wants to cheat in football, there is no place [for them]. If you don’t eradicate the cancer before it starts to develop, then it can become a danger, and we will not allow it to become a danger.” In addition to creating the new network of integrity officers, UEFA has also pledged to forge stronger links with police forces throughout its region.

Nine The number of Barclays Premier League players (per 100,000 of population) produced by County Durham, the most productive of English counties in this field, according to a survey of the birthplaces of the 1,323 English-born players who have graced the division since its inception. North Yorkshire came in as runners-up, with Merseyside placed third and Berkshire finishing fourth.

MANAGER OF THE MONTH

A run-down of the managers whose results and performances have most impressed the judging panels in recent months February 2011 AWARDS

CLUB

DETAILS

Arsenal

W 3

D 1

L 0

Manager of the Month Brendan Rodgers

Swansea City

W 5

D 0

L 1

Manager of the Month Darren Ferguson

Peterborough United

W 4

D 2

L 1

Manager of the Month Graham Turner

Shrewsbury Town

W 4

D 1

L 0

Manager of the Month Arsène Wenger OBE

January 2011 AWARDS

CLUB

Manager of the Month Sir Alex Ferguson CBE

Manchester United

W 4

DETAILS D 1

L 0

Manager of the Month Billy Davies

Nottingham Forest

W 4

D 1

L 0

Manager of the Month Keith Hill

Rochdale

W 4

D 2

L 0

Manager of the Month Dario Gradi MBE

Crewe Alexandra

W 5

D 0

L 2

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BURTON BEGINS Work officially starts on the FA’s National Football Centre at St George’s Park in Staffordshire

The Football Association marked a significant milestone on March 11th when construction work officially began on the National Football Centre near Burton in Staffordshire. The £100m development at St George’s Park, which is due to open for business in the summer of 2012, will be home to all 22 of England’s representative sides and will be used for all the FA’s coaching activities. In addition, the new complex will be home to the LMA and will accommodate a centre for sports medicine and performance analysis. “Today is a momentous day for everyone in England who has football in their heart,” said FA board member, David Sheepshanks. “St George’s Park will be the home of FA Learning – in short it will be a multi-sporting destination of choice for all.”

— News —

3,290 The number of miles travelled by the average West Brom fan in support of their team over the course of a season.

Five things I’ve learned

Director of football, Sports Interactive 1. TRUST YOUR STAFF: Know when they can do something better than you – and be big enough to let them get on with it. 2. ENGAGE WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS: Always be straight with them, but remember that you can’t please all of them all the time. 3. MORE HASTE MEANS LESS SPEED: And besides, the reasons that you rush things rarely seem so important when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. 4. TIDY DESK, TIDY MIND: In my experience, a cleaner working environment almost always produces better work. 5. ALWAYS PARBOIL ROAST POTATOES: Before finishing them off in a very hot oven. www.sigames.com

ALLEN BRINGS HOPE Recently appointed Barnet manager spends time in Burkina Faso working with local coaches and children

As part of the LMA’s continuing commitment to the Coaching for Hope (CfH) programme, Martin Allen recently spent five days in Ouagadougou, a deprived area of Burkina Faso. Over the course of his visit, Allen visited a

24.5

Paul Collyer

The average number of players in a European club’s squad (of these, 8.2 are expatriates and, remarkably, 1.1 are originally from Brazil).

The LMA’s senior commercial partner, Anglian Home Improvements, enjoying a trip to Manchester United’s training ground; another example of the LMA delivering unique unrivalled access to its commercial partners.

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number of CfH’s partner organisations and took charge of a two-day coaching session where he passed on the benefit of his experience to 25 local coaches and a number of the children in their charge. “It was hard work, but it was such a fantastic experience of a new culture in such a poor country, where they all love playing football,” said Allen. CfH director Jane Carter added: “During his time in Burkina Faso, Martin had the opportunity to meet with our local partner organisations and saw some of the amazing and really life-changing work they’re doing, particularly working with disabled players and female footballers.” CfH, an initiative of the charity Skillshare International, is a sport for development programme that uses the power of football to communicate social messages to young people in disadvantaged communities, building the capacity of local coaches and youth workers through coach education.

DRESS TO IMPRESS Academic research suggests that managers who wear suits on matchdays get better results

Research published in the International Journal of Sport Psychology suggests that managers and coaches who wear suits on matchdays and tracksuits on training days get better results. The study, by the University of Portsmouth, looked at how a manager or coach’s appearance affected his or her players’ perceptions of their competence. “Coaches wearing suits were perceived as being more strategically competent than those wearing sporting attire,” said Dr Richard Thelwell. “However, when wearing sporting attire, they were perceived to be more technically competent than those in a suit.”

— News —

£15,000 The cost of the world’s most expensive season ticket... not, as you might think, for one of the Champions League high flyers, but for a seat in the director’s box at League One Peterborough United.

ATLANTIC CROSSING for LMA partners

BRIGHTON CHOOSE FIBRELASTIC for amex New 22,500-capacity stadium for Seagulls to boast state of the art ‘player-friendly’ pitch

Even if Brighton & Hove Albion falter in their bid to reach the npower Championship (which, at the time of writing, seems highly unlikely), their players will still be moving up a level next season, as the club’s new home will sport a state of the art Fibrelastic pitch. Steve Winterburn, the club’s head groundsman, chose the Fibrelastic ‘rootzone’ system after visiting a number of the other stadiums that use the technology, including Ibrox and St James’ Park. Fibrelastic rootzone uses a mix of silica sand, organic matter, rigid polypropylene fibres and flexible elastane fibres to deliver a more ‘elastic’ surface. The result is a more ‘player-friendly’ pitch that gives better grip, is less tiring to play on and reduces injuries. Brighton’s 22,500-capacity American Express Community Stadium is due to be completed in May.

Two of the LMA’s partners, Green Star Media and Sports Path, flew the flag for the UK at January’s National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) convention in Baltimore. The two organisations attended the event – the world’s largest gathering of soccer coaches – to promote their LMA-endorsed coaching development products: Elite Soccer magazine and the online management course, Developing a Culture of Excellence. The convention was attended by 9,000 active coaches over three days and was an opportunity for Green Star Media and Sports Path to provide their products with further exposure in the US, where soccer is the highest participation sport among children and is a rapidly growing market. “US coaches truly appreciate the quality and value of being able to access expertise from the English professional leagues,” said Kevin Barrow, Elite Soccer’s publisher.

The world record for red cards in a single game, set in an Argentinian league encounter between Claypole and Victoriano Arenas in February. Referee Damien Rubino sent off all 22 players, substitutes and some technical staff following a mass brawl. Claypole boss Sergio Micieli accused Rubino of over-reacting. The previous record was 20 sendings off (set in Paraguay in 1993).

Performance of the Week

From basement battles to title deciders, FA Cup heroics to European exploits – any team’s efforts could earn them the LMA’s Performance of the Week award. Recent winners are... Week Ending

Manager

Performance

17/03

Darren Ferguson

Peterborough United 6 Carlisle United 0

10/03

Brian McDermott

Ipswich Town 1 Reading 3

03/03

Alex McLeish

24/02

Paul Tisdale

Charlton Athletic 1 Exeter City 3 Doncaster Rovers 0 Ipswich Town 6

Birmingham City 2 Arsenal 1 (Carling Cup final)

17/02

Paul Jewell

10/02

Mick McCarthy

03/02

Russell Slade

Swansea City 1 Leyton Orient 2 (FA Cup) Birmingham City 3 West Ham Utd 1 (Carling Cup)

27/01

Alex McLeish

20/01

Tony Mowbray

13/01

Graham Westley

Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Manchester Utd 1

Bristol City 0 Middlesbrough 4 Stevenage Borough 3 Newcastle United 1

The F&C Performance of the Week is decided by a five-man panel consisting of Sir Alex Ferguson, Howard Wilkinson, Joe Royle, Dave Bassett and Barry Fry. The winner receives an engraved crystal vase, in a presentation screened on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday programme.

the manager SPRING 2011

Kicking off

— leadership and management seminar —

“Ask the right questions” The LMA’s inaugural Leadership and Management seminar featured a keynote presentation by Brigadier Ged Salzano MBE, the commandant of the Royal Marines’ Commando Training Centre. This is a summary of that presentation

No matter where a leader

operates, or under what title, the basic tenets of command, leadership and management are largely the same: commanders have the authority and ability to direct, coordinate and control those under their direction; leaders have the combination of the will to dominate and the character to inspire; while managers make the best use of the resources available to them (both human and material) to achieve their organisation’s stated aim. The best leaders and managers, of course, combine elements of all three. Although leadership is a vital component of management, they are two very separate things. As the great British military commander Field Marshal William ‘Bill’ Slim put it: “Leadership is of the spirit, compounded by personality and vision: its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of calculation of statistics, of methods, timetables and routine: its practice is a science. Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.” To succeed, a leader must work to a clear strategy, which should be developed by working backwards from the organisation’s objective. This must then be delivered to the organisation as a clear narrative. As events can rarely be predicted with any certainty, though, it is

essential that the strategy should remain flexible, responsive and adaptive, as should the leader. The contemporary soldier faces great complexity, what the US Marine Commandant General Charles C Krulak referred to as the ‘Three Block War’. He said: “In one moment in time, our service members will be feeding and clothing displaced refugees – providing humanitarian assistance. In the next moment, they will be holding two warring tribes apart – conducting peacekeeping operations. Finally, they will be fighting a highly lethal midintensity battle. All on the same day, all within three city blocks.” When an organisation is led as though it’s a machine, people come to be treated as parts of that machine – mindless extensions of impersonal processes. When that happens, what is desperately undeveloped is commitment, creativity and a great deal of latent potential. If leadership is not adaptable, it is likely that it will, in time, become toxic. Three key elements of the toxic leader syndrome are: an apparent lack of concern for the wellbeing of subordinates; a personality or interpersonal technique that affects organisational climate negatively; and/or a conviction by subordinates that the leader is motivated primarily by selfinterest. Toxic leadership needs to

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be detected and corrected as soon as possible, particularly through the use of regular and thorough appraisal systems. Processes should also be put in place to reduce the likelihood of toxic management. To do this effectively, organisations and individual leaders should: ■ Share power (without compromising the link between authority, responsibility and accountability) ■ Know their weaknesses (and compensate for them) ■ Remember the mission ■ Stay healthy ■ Develop a personal support system (with strong and independent advisers) ■ Be creative ■ Be reflective Leaders do not need to know all the answers, but they do need to ask the right questions. They have to have moral authority: if their orders are good, just and right, the resulting performance will be good. They must also possess the will to dominate and the character to inspire. Above all, leadership is a state of mind. Prepare for dislocation of expectation – when you step into battle you might have to deal with something you didn’t anticipate. In short... hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

— leadership and management seminar —

Under the green beret

The first unit of ‘sea soldiers’ was formed in 1664 to serve with the fleet; it was known as the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot (the Grand Old Duke of York). The Corps assumed a Commando role in 1942 and is now part of the Royal Navy. Today, the Royal Marines operate as a High Readiness Response Force and will form this year’s Helmand Task Force. The Marines are renowned for their innovation and reputation for excellence.

About Brigadier Ged Salzano

Brigadier Ged Salzano MBE joined the Royal Marines in 1982 as a recruit and served as a rifleman before commissioning in 1984. He has served all over the world and is a qualified physical training and sports officer. Brig Salzano commanded 42 Commando RM from 2004 to 2006 and, on promotion to Colonel, was appointed to the Central Staff in the Ministry of Defence. He has participated in a number of operational tours, including Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Middle East and Afghanistan. He was appointed Commandant of the Commando Training Centre in May 2010.

■R oyal Marines constitute three per cent of the UK’s Armed Forces, but provide 34 per cent of all badged UK Special Forces ■ Royal Marines complete the longest initial infantry training course in the world (32 weeks) Of all those who express an interest in becoming a Royal Marine, only just over 17 per cent make the grade; of every 4,000 applicants every year, 1,260 are accepted for initial training and fewer than 700 complete the course.

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Kicking off

— TALKING POINT —

levelling the field?

Sports finance expert David Paton offers a personal view on the potential impact of UEFA’s forthcoming Financial Fair Play Rules The landscape of elite European football is about to change, significantly and probably permanently. UEFA’s much-publicised Financial Fair Play Rules (FFPR), which are scheduled to come into effect on June 1st, will, if successful, create greater discipline in football’s finances by encouraging clubs to budget and spend responsibly. Much of the discussion in the football business and media about these new rules has focused on the financial requirements that clubs will now have to meet and, of course, the sanctions they will face if they fail to meet them. These are as follows: Starting from the beginning of season 2013/14, clubs could be banned from European competition if their combined losses for seasons 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 exceed €45m. Thereafter, the permitted

“Clubs could be banned from European competition if losses exceed €45m”

loss drops further to a three-year aggregate of €30m by 2019. It will still be possible for club owners to sustain these losses, but any funds injected into clubs under these circumstances will have to be provided in exchange for equity, rather than in the form of a loan. Clubs will be monitored on the basis of the detailed financial information they provide to UEFA. Criteria that will prompt UEFA to consider further investigation include: ■ A wage-to-turnover ratio in excess of 70 per cent ■ Any overdue football-related payments ■ Any outstanding tax arrears Clubs could be banned from European competition from the 2014/15 season onwards if they are not compliant with the FFPR. So, what impact will these new rules have on the day-to-day running of Europe’s clubs? The clubs primarily affected will be those which are either currently playing in European competitions or which aspire to play in those competitions in the near future. Traditionally, the Barclays Premier League’s representatives in the UEFA Champions League have derived from a small number of clubs (although that number appears to be growing). The Europa League creates greater competition from the remaining Barclays Premier League clubs

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for the allocated European places. With this in mind, the FFPR could impact on almost any club currently playing in the Premier League in a three-year period. To remain within the new financial parameters, it will be imperative that future financial budgeting includes all members of a club’s management team, from the chairman through to the first-team manager. Decisions on monies available to spend on new players will be derived from confirmed commercial activities (sponsorship and advertising) and broadcast revenues over the coming financial year, together with a forecast for season ticket sales and realistic budgeted gate receipts over the course of the coming season. Other considerations will involve the size of the incumbent squad, the duration of contracts remaining and projected future bonus payments (which often depend on results). Whereas club benefactors could previously provide additional funds to cover player purchases, this will no longer be permitted for those clubs entering European competition. Budgets agreed before the start of each season must be adhered to and all elements of management must buy into and adhere to this new reality. The desired outcome from the FFPR is that clubs involved in European competition break even year on year, which will

— TALKING POINT —

require them to budget and forecast financially for several years ahead. Currently, the largest expenditure by clubs is player salaries. The management at each club will have to consider this when committing the club to any player contract and, in particular, consider the length of contract that is appropriate, based on future incomes (both forecast and guaranteed). Rather than signing players on five-year contracts (as is the current norm), it may be that in future players will be signed on two- to three-year contracts, with an option for additional years based on a club’s success and the commercial income derived from future successes. This would therefore give a degree of financial control to the club. But perhaps the most visible and significant impact of the new rules will be, in my opinion, on the tenure of managers and coaches. In recent years, the propensity for clubs to change manager after even a relatively short run of poor form has increased significantly. This situation has arisen from clubs chasing the additional income of a higher league placing and/or the avoidance of relegation from a league to sustain existing income levels. Such changes in management invariably lead to further changes in both coaching and playing staff – a situation that will become much more difficult when the FFPR come into play because of the increased cost implications attached to making such wholesale staff changes. One consequence of the new rule structure, therefore, may be that managers may be given more time than before to address a poor run of results. This would be a welcome additional benefit from the new regulations and provide greater continuity within clubs. UEFA’s decision to allow unlimited spending on youth

academies and development is also likely to bring about a significant sea change in club priorities. Article 18 of the FFPR stipulates the following requirements for each club: ■A t least two youth teams within the age range of 15 to 21 ■ At least one youth team within the range of 10 to 14 ■A t least one U10 team Many reports have highlighted the investment in facilities that many clubs will be required to make, but this aspect of the rules will also require a significant increase in coaching resources and, in many cases, a focus on experienced coaches and managers to provide the high-quality players that these academies will be expected to produce to fill out their club’s first-team squad. While the financial impact of the FFPR can be easily quantified, the intangible benefits from the UEFA initiative cannot be dismissed. Long-term planning is key to making the regulations work, something that the football sector will need to adapt to in the coming years.

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about David Paton

David Paton is chief sports advisory officer for leading financial and business adviser Grant Thornton. www.grant-thornton.co.uk

leaders

— SIR Alex Ferguson —

two thousand football

the man For all seasons One Scottish First Division championship, three Scottish Premier League titles, four Scottish Cups, a Scottish League Cup, two European Cup Winners’ Cups, two European Super Cups, the Inter-Continental Cup, the FIFA World Club Cup, 11 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, nine Charity/Community Shields, four League Cups and two Champions Leagues. Forty-six trophies, one man... Sir Alex Ferguson words sue mckellar PHOTOGRAPHY LEVON BISS

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matches... even taken in isolation, disregarding the time spent in preparation and post-match reflection, that still amounts to a solid 3,000 hours (or 125 days) spent on the touchline. For any one person to get through such a workload is, in itself, extraordinary. But for someone to do it at such a high level, with consistent and enduring success… that moves beyond extraordinary and into the realm where new words and phrases have to be coined. Everyone thinks they know Sir Alex Ferguson: the working-class Glasgow upbringing; the breaking of the Old Firm dominance in Scottish football; the move to the ‘impossible job’ of reawakening what was then the biggest sleeping giant in world football; reportedly one game away from the sack; the European Cup snatched from the jaws of defeat (“Football… bloody hell!”); dominance of the Barclays Premier League like no other… this paragraph alone could go on and on. But people don’t know Sir Alex Ferguson. At least, people outside of the game don’t know him the way that those within the game do. People outside the game may know about the post-match glass of fine red wine shared with the opposition manager, but they probably don’t know that one of the first calls received by numerous sacked managers is from the Manchester United boss, a call to see if there’s anything he can do; most people outside the game don’t know about his tireless work on behalf of managers and coaches at all levels through the League Managers Association, and most people outside the game don’t know how much he’s revered by his peers. One small anecdote sums this up. It was suggested at one stage that The Manager should carry a regular feature entitled ‘My Hero’, where a current manager would talk about the man who had inspired them the most. But the idea had to be

— SIR Alex Ferguson —

scrapped when it was discovered that it would most likely have been about the same man in every issue. As his friend Walter Smith (who assisted Sir Alex during his brief spell as Scotland manager in 1986 and again at Manchester United in 2004) says: “When I go to UEFA for conferences with other Champions League managers, the respect in which he is held is tangible and thoroughly deserved.” Although he announced his retirement before the beginning of the 2001/02 season, Sir Alex quickly saw the error of his ways and has gone on to deliver yet another decade of success; his reputation as a provider of great

“There’s been a lot of unusual sackings lately, which are hard to understand” quotes reached new heights with last year’s “Retirement is for young people” speech. His appetite for the game remains undiminished and he has made it clear that he will continue in his current role for as long as his health allows. All the signs are that could be some considerable time. As Sir Alex’s one-time rival (and firm friend), the former Arsenal manager George Graham puts it: “His biggest strength is his desire… and age has nothing to do with that. Alex has always had that desire and he’s still got it.” The Manager caught up with Sir Alex at Manchester United’s Carrington training ground where he reflected on those 2,000 games and outlined how he intends to continue his relentless quest for success into next season and beyond.

Cast your mind back to 1974, to the eve of your first match as East Stirling manager. Did you feel prepared, or were you anxious and losing sleep? Anyone who goes into a new job always has that trepidation and apprehension about it and whether they’re going to do well. I always remember my first day as an apprentice toolmaker; I was sent down for a bottle of ‘blue gas’. The man in charge of the storeroom was an old rascal and made me look for a bottle of ‘blue gas’ for about half an hour. The superintendent came along and said, “What the hell are you doing standing there?” and I said, “I’m waiting for a bottle of blue gas.” He laughed and said, “Well you’ll be standing there for a long time... get back up to your bloody machine!” (laughs) When I started out as East Stirling manager I was part time. I managed to gather 13 players by mixing free transfers with young players. My first match was a friendly against Kettering and the next week we played against Tranmere Rovers, with Steve Coppell playing centre-forward… quite an introduction. Looking back, it was easy to work with 13 players; it had nothing like the complexity that I face nowadays. When you’re young you go through every aspect and ask yourself if you’ve picked the right team, you regurgitate all of your ideas and look at your notes again. Nowadays we spend a lot of time looking at videos, checking up on our opponents. We have a good set-up in terms of the video analysis people who do all that work for us and we just have to cherry pick what we need. You were only 32 when East Stirling appointed you. Is that why you can relate to young managers today

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and make yourself available to them as a sounding board? More than ever, management is a precarious industry. I say to all young managers that the first thing they need is a good chairman; they also need luck and they need to make sure they’re prepared to make sacrifices for the job, because this is an unremitting industry. It’s a results industry, as we all know, but you can help yourself by being totally committed to that alone. In your first fulltime position, with Aberdeen, you went on to break the Old Firm’s dominance of Scottish football and win the European Cup Winners’ Cup. Where does that period rank in your career? Scottish football was pretty strong back then; Jim McLean took Dundee United to the semi-final of the European Cup, and Aberdeen and Dundee United were really the strongest teams in Scotland for five years in a row. Winning the European Cup Winners’ Cup was special because Aberdeen was a small club. If I look back I do tend to think how did we manage to beat Bayern Munich, who were the favourites, and then beat Real Madrid in the final? ➽

Sir Alex prior to management, as a striker with Glasgow Rangers (1968)

— SIR Alex Ferguson —

You make a point of supporting managers who lose their jobs; phoning them, inviting them to United’s training ground... My sympathy goes out to managers who lose their jobs. There’s been a lot of unusual sackings lately, which I’ve found hard to understand. Roberto Di Matteo was probably one of the most surprising of the season because West Brom were playing arguably some of the most attractive football in the Barclays Premier League and were scoring goals. If you’re a supporter of West Brom you want them to stay up – and the threat of them maybe going down is probably why Roberto has lost his job – but you are watching players who are enjoying themselves, playing good football

“I love the players that I’ve had and I’ve been fortunate to have had great ones” and scoring goals. I would rather watch a team playing the right way, whether they went down or not. The LMA recently hosted a lunch to celebrate your 2,000-match landmark, which was attended by a host of managers and coaches. What were you thinking as you looked around at their faces? I was really pleased to see all of the older managers there; it meant a great deal to me that they’d taken the time to come to London. Don Howe, Lawrie McMenemy, Lennie Lawrence, Keith Burkinshaw… all these guys were managers when I started in England. I was really proud and I referred to them in my speech as ‘the dinosaurs’. I think they enjoyed that because that is what they are; they’ve lasted and been there for years and years and

are still figures in the game because they have not lost that magnetism. Quite a few of the Scottish managers came down, including Walter Smith, Craig Brown and Archie Knox. I was pleased to see George Graham there, too, because when I first came down to England we had these great battles. Although we’ve become great friends now, at the beginning it wasn’t that way and when Arsenal and United played it was always war. George Graham is still a really good, top manager. You are revered for your accomplishments throughout world football, which must be a very surreal feeling. How do you keep your feet on the ground? It’s all about how you view yourself. Some people have a high opinion of themselves, sometimes brought about by arrogance, but sometimes it’s just supreme confidence. I prefer to think about what’s ahead and what next I can achieve and I think that has kept my feet on the ground quite well. I’ve never got carried away with it. My wife, Cathy, is fed up with the whole thing; when Alastair Campbell phoned her about my Knighthood she said to him, “Do you not think he’s had enough rewards?” You’ll not find a thing about my career in the

1 2 3 4 5 League position

The Manchester United years

➽ Would you say that management comes naturally to you? I think I was born with most things that you need to go into management. I was always a good decision-maker as a young kid. I think my trade union background helped me; I was a shop steward at 19 and my dad and my mother were both shop stewards for a while, so I had that leaning towards being in control of situations. Even as a player I always had a will to make sure we were going to win.

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

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1986/87

1987/88

1988/89

1989/90 1990/91

1991/92

1992/93 1993/94

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1994/95

1995/96

1996/97

1997/98 1998/99

— SIR Alex Ferguson —

house at all. Everything is either in the bank or in the museum at Old Trafford. She’s unbelievable, I can’t even take a football book home or she’ll say, “What are you doing with that?” (laughs). You don’t seem to have had too much trouble embracing change. It’s a horrible thing to say, but you can’t be sentimental in this job. I love the players that I’ve had and I’ve been very, very fortunate to have had great players who have come through my career with me. At Aberdeen there were the likes of Miller, McLeish and Kennedy, who were a bunch of players that were very loyal to me. At United I’ve had Giggs, the Nevilles, Scholes and Butt, who represent the spirit of the club. All of the players that I have had here have played a part in my success. So when I see something happening, as in the cases of Nicky Butt and Phil Neville, I’ve had to release them to other opportunities. It was getting to the stage that I was terrified of talking to them and telling them they weren’t playing. It wasn’t fair to them because they were good players and played a big part in the resurrection of Manchester United. When the time came for me to let them go I knew I was cutting really important, loyal strings and I didn’t enjoy it. My job is to manage United,

to produce results and I am no different from any other manager. I’ll not be regarded in the same way if I’m not successful. Everything to me is black and white; if it’s on the football field and I see something that I feel is a retrograde step for the club I have to act and make decisions, which is something that I have always been good at. I can make quick decisions and I am lucky that way. In management you have to be able to make decisions; sometimes you’re not right, but that doesn’t concern me too much because the important thing is being able to do it. What facets of change have you liked in your management career; what’s been exciting?

When we moved to Carrington training ground I think it brought about the biggest change in me personally because our previous training ground, The Cliff, was so claustrophobic. Your staff were on top of you, all of the players were on top of you and there was no room. When we moved to Carrington the expanse of this place expanded our thoughts in terms of where do we go next in terms of progression, what can we add to this place. For example physiotherapy. It was always my dream to have four or five physiotherapists, masseurs, sports science etc and all of these things have made us even better. I’ve enjoyed taking the decisions that I knew were right and it probably all goes against my thoughts of 25 years ago when ➽

Flying home from Sweden with the European Cup Winners’ Cup (1983) UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup UEFA Super Cup FA Cup Premier League UEFA Champions League Charity/ Community Shield Football League Cup Intercontinental Cup

1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10

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2010/11

FIFA Club World Cup

— SIR Alex Ferguson —

➽ I believed I could do everything. That’s the unfortunate thing about being young; you think you can do everything. So the lessons have got to be learned on the way forward and today, at 69, I’m still looking to make changes. I want to put the club in a more controlled situation and want to spend more time as an observer; rather than working the way I did way back when I was involved in the youth team and reserves. I delegate better now. How do you cope with the stress that comes with this job? I don’t think there’s an easy way to do it. Maybe it’s your nature, but

“When we won that first trophy at United there was a sudden leap of confidence” it’s also about your upbringing and your core values that you’ve been given foundations of, right through from your teachers at school or your parents. I was fortunate in the sense that the early part of me was through my parents. My personality kicked in at around 19 years of age when my personality changed and I became more determined and more assertive about who I was. I started debating issues with my father; my mother thought I was a communist because I was reading books on Karl Marx, which of course I wasn’t, I was a trade unionist and I was socialist-minded like my father. My father was always supportive of me about reading books, my mother just worried because it’s your mother’s job to worry and when she saw me reading books like that she’d say, “What’s happening

here, why are you reading these books?” If I’d been reading The Beano or Superman comics she’d have thought that was great. That’s when my personality changed and I became an aggressive mind in terms of trying to learn and I read a lot of history. Is there one team talk you’ve given that stands out above the others? It’s difficult to say because I think that I pay attention to all of my team talks and I always try to think of something of value for the players to think about. You’ve got to create in the players’ mind this thirst for knowledge, a thirst for learning and, most importantly, a thirst to take responsibility. The problem for me now is the number of team talks that I’ve given over the years and these players have listened to them time and time again. I look for new ideas and new routes of motivation and new discussion points that the players will find interesting, and a lot of the times I think of human nature. Finally, how would you describe your journey in management? I would never have expected to achieve what I have achieved. There have been periods where there have been sudden leaps. Going to Aberdeen took me to a different level and it was an opportunity I grasped. When we won our first trophy at Manchester United there was that sudden leap of confidence and a sense that I was safe in the job. That stability is important, not for me, but for the players, because when they know who the manager is going to be every day it makes an immense difference to the structure, the confidence and the power base of the club, there’s no doubt about that. www.leaguemanagers.com/ managers/profile-16.html

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On This Day Sir Alex Ferguson was appointed as manager of Manchester United on November 6th 1986. Here is a snapshot of how the world looked, way back then... ■ Number one single: Nick Berry, Every Loser Wins ■ Top-grossing film of 1986: Top Gun ■ Average house price: £44,040 (Now: £163,000) ■ Petrol: 42p a litre (Now: £1.30) ■ Milk: 24p a pint (Now: 45p) ■ Pint of lager: 95p (Now: £3.06) Also in 1986: ■ The UK and France announce plans for the Channel Tunnel ■ Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates after launch, killing all on board ■ Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut ■ The Chernobyl disaster ■ Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 to win the FIFA World Cup ■ Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson ■ The Phantom of the Opera opens in London ■ Mike Tyson becomes heavyweight world champion Sir Alex’s reign has spanned: ■ Five British prime ministers (Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron) ■ Five US presidents (Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama) ■ 11 licensees/ owners of the Rovers Return (Bet and Alec Gilroy, Jack and Vera Duckworth, Natalie Barnes, Mike Baldwin, Duggie Ferguson, Eve and Fred Elliott, Steve and Liz McDonald)

leaders

— Walter Smith —

The history of football

management is littered with examples of managers returning to scenes of their former glories, only to find that, contrary to the sentiment of the old Frank Sinatra song, things aren’t always sweeter the second time around. In fact, it’s hard to think of a returning manager who has matched their initial success... or at least it used to be, until Walter Smith went back to Rangers. When Smith agreed to leave his position as the Scottish national team manager in January 2007 to return to Rangers, the club he supported all his life and with which he had

achieved extraordinary success in the 1990s, most pundits expected the pattern of second-time management to be repeated. Not only had Smith set himself high standards (he’d won seven SPL titles, three Scottish Cups and three League Cups in his first seven-year spell), but he was also returning to a club in a vastly different financial situation to the one he’d left in 1998. Smith, however, didn’t see his return to Rangers as an opportunity to fail; instead, he saw it as exactly what it was... an opportunity to test himself under an entirely different set of circumstances. This time

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around, he wasn’t taking the reins of an already successful operation, nor was he going to be in a position to attract bigname players to the club, like he had in the 1990s (when the likes of Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup moved to Glasgow and pulled on the famous blue shirt). In fact, the club’s financial position became so limiting during his second stint as manager that he was unable to sign any players for a two-year period. But despite the club’s reduced circumstances, Smith once again worked his Rangers magic. In the first full season of his second spell, Rangers

— Walter Smith —

You’ve always said that the Rangers manager’s job is simple… you just have to win every game. Is that still the case? It’s becoming the same in all Leagues. In Scotland we have two big teams, Rangers and Celtic. If you look at England in recent seasons there have been maybe four or five teams that have been at the top of the League consistently. They’re in the same situation as Rangers and Celtic; they’re expected to win every game that they play in and if they don’t they have a problem. I always mention Rangers and Celtic together because I think that they go hand in hand; the pressures on both clubs are exactly the same. Even when we qualify for Europe, whether we’re playing Barcelona or anyone else, we’re still expected to win, because that’s just the way things are in Scotland. So the advice I would give to anybody taking over as manager of Rangers or Celtic would be the same... just win.

lifted both Scottish Cups and, more remarkably, reached their first European final for more than 35 years (losing 2-0 in the UEFA Cup final to Zenit St Petersburg – who were managed, ironically, by the man who had succeeded Smith when he left Rangers to take over at Everton, Dick Advocaat). The following season, Rangers finally wrested the SPL trophy back from their biggest rivals Celtic, who had held it for the previous three seasons. In all, in the first three full seasons of Smith’s return, Rangers won six of the nine domestic trophies available to them. Now, however, Smith’s second Rangers adventure is drawing

to a close. Before the beginning of this season he announced that it was to be his last as Rangers manager. The club has since announced that Smith will be succeeded by his assistant, Ally McCoist. Smith sat down to talk to The Manager with the Scottish League Cup already secured and his team still going toe to toe with Celtic for the SPL title. But even if Rangers don’t manage to retain the championship for a third season running, there can be no doubt that, for once, this ‘second time around’ appointment was good for both club and manager.

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Has the club’s difficult financial position required you to develop new managerial skills? When I first came back to Rangers the circumstances were slightly different to how they subsequently became, because we were still investing in the team at that point. At the end of my first season back the club was struck, like a whole lot of other clubs, with a serious financial problem because of the overall downturn. Fortunately, I had reasonable experience of handling financial problems from my time at Everton, where we had one financial crisis when the chairman left and another when our major sponsor withdrew its support. That experience helped me a great deal, as I have been able to use my experience to handle it in a far better manner than I was able to do then. ➽

— Walter Smith —

➽ In October 2009 you revealed the extent of the club’s financial constraints and later that your entire squad was up for sale. Was this so that the fans and players would understand what was behind the decisions that you were making? When we were told that we had financial problems and that, effectively, every one of our players was to be put up for sale, I felt it was important to be straight with the players right away. So I held a meeting and explained the financial situation to them; how we had to make everybody available for transfer and why expiring contracts weren’t being renewed. The overall picture has to be explained, because the supporters and media are always quick to decide who’s to blame for making decisions they don’t agree with. I think that people in football nowadays, if they have got a problem financially, then they should tell people that. Supporters pay an awful lot of money towards the club’s wellbeing and if that money is not getting spent in the manner that they would like, then they have got a right to know why.

Have there been any positives? For example, has the fact that you’ve not been able to strengthen the squad brought the existing players together? That’s one thing that I never realised would happen. When we put everyone up for sale, effectively every player was in a similar situation. We’ve had a squad of players that’s been more or less the same for two full seasons and that’s created

How closely have you had to work with the chief executive, Martin Bain, to steer the club through this period of financial instability? Martin and I take care of the day-to-day running of the club and he’s been fantastic in helping me handle the overall situation. It’s been a hard time for him as well; keeping everything going and making sure that we remain competitive on the field, while still trying to juggle the banks and other financial aspects in the background.

Given your contrasting financial positions, your away draw with Manchester United in this season’s Champions League was impressive, yet you were criticised for adopting negative tactics. But when José Mourinho used similar tactics to win the same competition last season, he was applauded. Does that frustrate you? That aspect of it is a little bit frustrating. It was similar to when we reached the UEFA Cup

“Rangers and Celtic go hand in hand; the pressures on both clubs are exactly the same” a terrific bond, which, as much as anything, has helped us through the situation. It has happened by accident to some extent, but it has been a factor in the team remaining successful despite the off-field problems.

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final and we were criticised for being defensive. I admire José Mourinho. I think the way he sets his teams out is excellent and he’s been a fantastic – and very successful – coach. I have always done what I thought was best for the team and I make no excuses for that. I think in the circumstances that we have been operating in we’ve done okay. You do get a little bit disappointed that maybe people don’t have the overall understanding of why we do things a certain way – and that it’s out of necessity, not by choice. But that’s management... we get paid to make decisions that we hope are successful for our clubs and we get on with it. There seems to be a general perception that you’re retiring from football when you leave Rangers in May; can you clarify that? When you leave a job at 63 everyone assumes that it’s because of your age. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I am going to retire. If the right opportunity arose elsewhere, then of course I would consider it. I’ve had opportunities to go back to England on a couple of occasions, the most recent being at the start of this season. It was a good Barclays Premier League Club, but I didn’t think that it was right to leave Rangers when I had just agreed to stay for one more season. What would you like the legacy of your second spell to be? I would hope that my legacy this time would be that I have brought back a level of success and that I have been able to guide the club through a very, very turbulent period and still managed to win some trophies. www.leaguemanagers.com/ managers/profile-179.html

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leaders

— peter reid —

Hard times

As he faces the toughest test of his managerial career, Peter Reid shares his thoughts on a subject that he knows a thing or two about... leadership words ciarÁn Brennan

Benjamin Disraeli once

remarked, “There is no education like adversity.” If the great 19thcentury politician and statesman was correct, then the Plymouth Argyle manager, Peter Reid, is currently enjoying the finest education available. When Reid took over at the Devon club in June 2010, he had an idea that things might be difficult... he just didn’t know how difficult they would turn out to be. “I knew when I came into the job that, as we’d just been relegated, I would have to move some of the squad on,” says Reid. “But what I didn’t realise was that I was going to be spending as much time with the finance people as with the players.” The club’s financial problems escalated through the first months of Reid’s tenure, eventually reaching the point in March this year where it had to succumb to the inevitable and enter administration. Apart from the human cost in terms of jobs

“You’ve got to face up to the situation you’re in and just get on with it; it’s a fact of life” lost at the club and the knock-on effect on local businesses, this also had a serious effect on Reid’s team. Having somehow managed, against all the odds, to keep Argyle above the drop zone, Reid could only watch as the resulting 10-point deduction saw his team unceremoniously dumped to the foot of npower League One. Despite the fact that Reid has had to face this situation with a seriously depleted squad (a number of the leading players in the already threadbare squad were sold during the January

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transfer window to generate funds and lower the wage bill), he remains upbeat and determined to do everything possible to avoid relegation. “When a football club comes under this type of pressure then everything goes out the window and we’re all in it together,” he says. “You’ve got to face up to the situation you’re in and just get on with it; it’s a fact of life.” At one point, just after the transfer window closed, Reid found himself working with a squad of 18, some of whom are still in their teens. “These lads should be learning their trade in the youth team,” says Reid. “It’s a great education for them, but in an ideal world I’d like to be able to bring them into the team one at a time and drop them back out again to give them some rest, but the situation doesn’t allow for that.” To further complicate matters, those players who remain in the squad have gone for long periods without payment, which has meant that Reid, too, has had to be flexible. “A few of the lads were late for training,” he says, “so I told them to cough up their fine for the kitty as I would normally do. But when they pointed out that they hadn’t been paid, I had to cancel the fines. You’ve got to be flexible and you’ve got to read situations. It’s all well and good having a plan, but sometimes situations change those plans.” Reid believes that, where possible, he has to use the club’s current situation to his advantage. “I’ve had to sell some of my best players – the goalscorers – and this affects the team,” he says. “But

— peter reid —

I’ve explained to the remaining players that this opens up opportunities for them. You’ve got to use these things as a positive if you can, because negative thoughts are all around anyhow. Positivity, on the pitch or even just around the building, generates a better atmosphere.” On the pitch, Reid was known as a leader. And leadership, he believes, is what’s going to get

Plymouth through its current troubles. “You often have games in football where things are very evenly matched,” he says, “but there’s just one thing that makes one team the winner; it might be a bit of skill, but it also might just be the desire or the will to win.” Leadership, Reid believes, can be found in many guises. “You can find leaders anywhere,” he says, “they can be the assistant

manager, or a coach or they can be on the pitch. Ian Greaves, my manager when I was at Bolton, was a terrific leader; Howard Kendall was a totally different type of person, but still a great leader. We had a lot of leaders on the pitch at Everton – Bracewell, Ratcliffe and Southall all took charge at times – but it’s not just about rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck in. Was George Best a leader? Of course he was. He led because he was usually the one with the ball.” Despite Plymouth’s plight, Reid insists that the club is still aiming high. “Of course, we have ambition,” he says. “Once you lose that you lose everything. The Barclays Premier League is always the dream. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Blackpool were in a similar situation to us and look at them now. And Blackpool aren’t the only ones... Burnley have been in the top flight, as have Swindon and Barnsley. I still believe that, with ability and ambition, it’s possible to get there.” But first, Argyle will have to achieve the near-impossible task of staying in npower League One… something that Reid believes they can do by putting their off-field problems to the back of their minds. “The way we’re going to get through this is if we can get the players relaxed and let them enjoy the football side of things,” he says. “If you’ve got a good dressing room you’ve always got a chance.” Argyle’s long-suffering fans might just believe that, with Reid at the helm, they might just have a chance, too. www.leaguemanagers.com/ managers/profile-298.html

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leaders

— GARY SMITH/STEVE GUPPY —

Robson, McClaren… Smith and Guppy? The Manager talks to the former Wycombe colleagues who have joined the list of English coaches winning league titles abroad words CIARáN BRENNAN

It may be almost two decades since an English manager led a team to success in his own country’s top division, but in that time English managers have achieved some notable successes overseas. Since Howard Wilkinson led Leeds United to the old First Division title in 1992, Sir Bobby Robson won two Portuguese League titles with FC Porto and, more recently, Steve McClaren guided the previously unfancied

Dutch team FC Twente to a surprise championship in 2009/10. The most recent English manager to pick up the top prize in a foreign league, however, doesn’t enjoy anything like the same profile as either of those former England managers. Gary Smith, a former Wycombe Wanderers midfielder, has mirrored McClaren’s achievement by leading an unfashionable club to a national title. In Smith’s case, the club is the Colorado Rapids, ➽

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— GARY SMITH/STEVE GUPPY —

➽ who won the Major League Soccer title in 2010. Like other major US sports, the MLS is organised in a part-league, part-knockout structure. In the case of the MLS, this works out as a ‘regular season’, where all of the teams play each other twice, followed by the ‘play-offs’, where the top eight teams enter a knockout competition to decide the champion. Smith’s achievement is all the more remarkable in that the Rapids finished seventh in the regular season. The team picked up momentum in the play-offs, however, eventually beating FC Dallas 2-1 in the MLS Cup final. Although the Rapids were one of the original 10 teams that founded the MLS in 1996, the club had not enjoyed a great deal of success before last year’s title win. Previously, the Rapids had only reached one final (back in 1997) and hadn’t even made the play-offs in the three seasons before their ultimate success. Having started his coaching career in the lower divisions of the English game, Smith moved to the US in February 2008 to act as assistant to the then head coach, Fernando Clavijo, and also to head up the club’s newly formed Arsenal Centre of Excellence (the Rapids are owned by one of Arsenal’s major shareholders, Stan Kroenke, and there are close links between the clubs). When Clavijo resigned in August of the same year, Smith stepped in to take the reins for the final 11 games of the season and, having brought his team to the brink of play-off qualification, was appointed permanently in November. One of Smith’s first acts was to bring in former England and Leicester City winger Steve Guppy as his assistant. From the moment they met on the Wycombe Wanderers training pitch, Smith and Guppy hit it off. “Gary turned up one night to train with the reserves,” says Guppy, “and I remember that he’d only been there for five minutes and

“It will be interesting to see how far some of the young guys can go” he started moaning at me. To be honest he’s been doing exactly the same in the 20 years since.” Smith disputes this account, saying: “The reality is that for the two to three years we were at the club together, I did nothing but look after him. I not only supported him off the pitch, but whenever he got into any trouble on it I was normally the one who was there making sure that he wasn’t being abused.” Whichever version of events you choose to believe, even at that early stage, they both had an interest in coaching and management, and decided that they would work together if the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunately for Smith, a career in coaching was forced upon him earlier than he would have liked, as

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injury cut short his playing career at the age of 27. This, however, gave him the opportunity to achieve his coaching qualifications earlier than most and led to stints on the training pitches of Wimbledon, Wycombe (where he briefly acted as caretaker manager after the departure of Tony Adams) and Watford, as well as some scouting work with Arsenal, which, in turn, led to his opportunity to join the Rapids. Guppy was finishing his final year on the field as a player/coach in Rochester, New York State, when he got the call to join Smith. While Smith is unquestionably in charge, the pair divide their duties to suit their individual skill sets, which means that Smith concentrates on recruitment and overall team shape, while Guppy works mostly with the forward-minded players. “I’m passionate about things in the attacking third, a change of pace, beating players, taking players on and creating things; stuff that I feel has gone out of the game to some degree,” says Guppy. “The combination has worked very nicely,” says Smith. “We always wanted to work together, but I don’t think either of us knew how it would work out on a practical

— GARY SMITH/STEVE GUPPY —

“We would like to test ourselves on the European scene at some point”

level. Steve’s done a fantastic job... when you see the type of rapport that he’s built with wide players and forwards, the continual energy that goes into analysing the positives and negatives of each individual’s game. The result is that we have a well-balanced side, with good footballers and pace in the right areas. We also have a combination up front that’s been as good as anyone in this league.” It’s useful for Smith, too, to have a countryman to work with in what is very much a foreign league. The spoken language may be (more or less) the same, but almost everything else that Smith and Guppy have to deal with is different to what they would expect at an English club. Take something as simple as travel, for example. The manager of a club on the south coast of England might complain about having to make a midweek trip to the north east or Carlisle, but the Rapids’ away games can often be played in a different time zone. Add to that the fact that MLS rules dictate that all team travel has to be carried out by scheduled flights (to help maintain a level playing field) and that matches are played on a

variety of surfaces, and it becomes clear that Smith and Guppy face challenges that would normally only be encountered by national team managers. Some of the problems they face, however, are universal. The Rapids are a well-equipped and stable club, but they don’t have the same financial resources to draw on as some of their more famous rivals. While MLS clubs are restricted in their overall spending by a salary cap, the league’s rules allow for each team to field a number of ‘designated’ players (players whose salaries do not count against the salary cap of $2.55m). The Los Angeles Galaxy currently field the maximum three designated players (one of whom is, of course, David Beckham), the New York Red Bulls have two (including Thierry Henry). The Colorado Rapids have none. Smith and Guppy are now entering the final season of their current contracts and are keen to build on the success that they achieved last season. “We’ve managed to keep the majority of the squad intact,” says Smith, “which wasn’t easy, given the salary cap constraints and the fact that we’ve just had to go through what’s

the manager SPRING 2011

called ‘an expansion draft’, where a percentage of everyone’s squad has to be made available to the two new teams that are entering the league for this season. But we have kept a good group and I believe that they have more to give. There were six teams better than us in the regular season last year and, to start with, I would like to improve on that.” Guppy says: “From a purely coaching point of view, it will be interesting to see how far some of the young guys at this club can go. One or two have broken into the US national squad and we even have a lad who’s close to getting involved with the Japanese national team.” But what of their long-term ambitions? Surely there will come a time when they will want to return home and prove themselves on this side of the Atlantic? “I think both of us would like to test ourselves on the European scene at some point,” says Smith. Smith is aware, though, that breaking into management in the English game won’t be easy. “The difficulty for us is going to be breaking into that group of individuals that chairmen and chief executives immediately think of when they come to choose a new manager. Until our names are in that group it’s going to be difficult, because we’re a little bit of an unknown quantity.” But while that may be true right now, if the former Wycombe colleagues continue to collect foreign silverware, it’s unlikely that they’ll remain unknown quantities for too much longer.

THE BUSINESS

— MOVING UPWARDS —

from shop floor to top floor 32

Being promoted to the ranks of management internally is a transition made by many, but it can be fraught with difficulties as working relationships change. The Manager looks at the challenges that lie in wait words dave roberts ILLUSTRATION Peter James Field

The rise from rank and file to

senior management is a worthy and admirable one. Promotions from within are signs that a company has good people in situ and that it rewards the talent and endeavour of existing employees rather than parachuting in ‘outsiders’. But it can also be a minefield – both professionally and personally. So, while the day you finally reach the top spot might feel like the happy culmination of a long, hard slog, it could just as easily be the start of something soul-destroying. In football, the big step is from player to manager, and for some it comes young – quite possibly through injury. Suddenly, maybe only just into their 30s, someone who has been ‘one of the lads’ since they were a teenager is managing players who used to be team-mates. And not just managing them in

terms of tactics and training, but managing them as people; gaining their respect, getting them to acknowledge the new hierarchy and act accordingly. It’s the end of the peer show, and the beginning of a potentially lonely readjustment to life in the hot seat. The perils and pitfalls of such a scenario are recognised throughout the business world, not just in football. Paul Winter, CEO of Copra, one of the UK’s leading management consultancies, says: “Once that change happens, the dynamic between them and the group is changed deeply, and they don’t realise it. They convince themselves they have the same relationships as always, but they don’t, and everyone else knows it. Their employees start double-speaking to them. They behave one way when they’re with them and then say something else

the manager spring 2011

when they’re not around. A negative subculture sets in.” Kelly Sumner, who now runs football training technology company Soccer Matrix, cut his teeth at Commodore when the firm was the leading supplier of home computers in the UK. He joined the company as an apprentice engineer, switched to sales, became head of the department and then, aged 29, was appointed UK managing director. He recalls: “When you’re catapulted into the top job at a young age as I was, the important thing is not to become ‘Billy Big Boots’. No one’s going to buy that. You have to keep your feet

— MOVING UPWARDS —

on the ground. You don’t become knowledgeable about all aspects of the job or the company overnight. Make big decisions, sure, but bring your team into the process. Remember that the people who have been doing their jobs really well for 10 or 20 years probably still know more about their jobs and their departments than you do.” Sumner was a success, but Winter believes that in most cases the odds are stacked against young managers plucked from the workforce – and that the reason is lack of specific management training. “In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he talks about how you need 10,000 hours to really succeed at something. In football, players train from the ages of nine or 10 to 17 or 18 before they really launch their careers. They put the hours in and they succeed. The same

“Keep your feet on the ground. Make big decisions, but bring the team into the process”

the manager spring 2011

is not true of a player’s ascent to management, where they’re basically thrown in at the deep end. The same is true in any business. Someone can know the company inside out, and know the people at the company, but they don’t know how to manage. “At any serious level that requires intense, specialist training. They ➽

— MOVING UPWARDS —

➽ need to understand the psychology of their employees – and themselves – at a pretty deep level in order to be effective, and that can only come from a great deal of training from real experts. “Becoming the boss moves people into a new level of complexity that they sometimes don’t appreciate. They’re also learning skills as they’re putting them into practice, which means they can make mistakes, sometimes big mistakes, in front of people who they were having trouble convincing anyway.” Winter says that some might make it under the force of their own character “if they’re a very special type of person”, but that, generally speaking, sudden promotion from the team, if done in isolation, without training, is a risky strategy. “They might be able to manage a team, but now they have to manage an entire environment,” he says. “They need to be able to self-reflect

and be aware of their presence and the impact that has on those around them, because suddenly it’s having more impact in different ways than it did before, and they’re very unlikely to take that into account if they’re just thrown in at the deep end. We talk about people having a ‘management reach’, as in ‘he’s good, but he’s only got a management reach of about 20 people.’ “A good mate of mine is a League manager and we’ve worked out his management reach. There is a certain size of club where, if he messes up, it’s down to him. “But there are other clubs, bigger clubs, of such a size that managing them is fundamentally beyond him. If he’d been trained as a professional manager, those clubs may well not be beyond him, but he was trained as a professional footballer, and that’s a very different thing.” Stepping up, then, remains a worthy goal – and there are enough

examples in both business and football to prove that it can work. But the key would seem to be not just in selecting the right candidates, but also giving them the sort of specialised and intense training and support they need to become fully rounded managers – of clubs, businesses, people, situations and environments, not just the team that plays on a Saturday.

“it’s a gradual process, not a sudden jump” Dougie Freedman spent 10 of his 16 years as a player at Crystal Palace. Since January, however, he has been the boss. He recognises that his demeanour and outlook have changed along with his job title, but not as dramatically and not overnight. “My core philosophy is to treat players as human beings and I think my former team-mates respected and responded to that. It didn’t stop me talking openly with them and hearing their views – I just took more responsibility after those discussions.” Freedman believes that consistency is key. “You can’t talk with one voice one minute and a different voice the next,” he says. “You can’t just be the boss when it suits you. I think that’s a natural progression anyway for a senior pro. As you get older you sit closer and closer to the front of the bus, you get involved in talk about the game rather than stuff outside the game, so it’s a

the manager spring 2011

gradual process, rather than a sudden jump. “I also accept that the lads are going to have their own banter and that I’ll be excluded on certain occasions. But the age gap takes care of that anyway. It doesn’t matter if I’m around to listen in or not, I wouldn’t know what they’re talking about. “One thing I’ve learned from life is that it’s not you that changes, it’s the people around you. What I try to do is put them at their ease, to assure them that I’m still the same person and I’m still completely approachable in whatever way they like. If they feel odd about sitting down in my office, that’s fine, we can have a chat over a cup of tea at the canteen, or they can phone me at 10 o’clock in the evening. “My advice would be to be yourself. I have to be... I’m not an actor. Be honest, be yourself, work hard and hope that that’s good enough.”

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THE BUSINESS

— comment —

the manager spring 2011

— comment —

In his presentation to a

recent LMA Management Conference, Professor Chris Brady raised important questions regarding the relationship between business leaders and brand management. He was right. In this increasingly competitive world, the role of ‘brand protector’ has been added to the CEO’s list of responsibilities. But what are the key tenets of brand management and performance? One is differentiation; the ‘uniqueness’ that resonates with the audience. Another is consistency; a brand must deliver its promise and do so continuously. Both are necessary challenges to address for any business, irrespective of the acknowledgement that they are being faced under the banner of brand management. Brand can manifest itself, or be labelled, in many different ways. There are product or service brands, brands that rely upon what people think and others on what they feel. The challenge of communicating effectively with key stakeholders – and finding the differentiation and consistency to deliver strong performance – depends in part upon the nature of the brand-owning organisation and the landscape in which it operates. Advances in technology have led to greatly increased capability in innovation and differentiation. Delivering a multi-channel, ‘through the line’ communications plan is now a real option, but doing this in a clear and consistent way is the resulting challenge. It is easier for product brands to deliver a consistent message, as their customers usually know what they are getting. The challenge here is more about engagement and market positioning. Many brands, by their nature, will rely on the emotional connection with a consumer. Sport brands fall into this category. The level of player and team performance has a direct impact on the feeling a fan has

for their club. It can fluctuate, week in week out and generate enormous highs and lows. These emotions are then subjected to further manipulation through the media. This unpredictability and vulnerability to the fragility of opinion make the job of maintaining brand integrity much more difficult for the brand’s leaders and guardians. Irrespective of a brand’s target market, how does one best deliver its unique messages in a consistent way to the stakeholders? It helps to ensure that those who are representing the brand to customers or end users buy into

“The person at the helm can, up to a point, even substitute for a lack of results” the importance of communication. All employees are ambassadors for their organisation’s brand, but some will have a greater effect on customers and other key stakeholders than others. Who you partner with will also affect how people think about you. Nike, adidas and the like invest heavily in getting professional sportspeople to wear their products and display their logos. Why? The tried and tested psychological theory is that brand ambassadors (be they employees, partners or sport stars) seen in a positive light will transfer the same emotional connection, as mentioned above, to the brand they represent. And the return on investment can be more certain when managed carefully. Leaders, by definition, have a crucial ambassadorial role. Ideally, they should have similar qualities that complement the organisation’s

the manager spring 2011

brand values. Sir Richard Branson’s vivacious and tenacious personality sits very comfortably with Virgin’s ‘challenger’ status. The personality of the person at the helm can, up to a point, even substitute for a lack of performance, although ultimately results will matter. The actions and communications of a leader can have particularly acute repercussions on brand perception during those moments of truth when the chips are down and we see their true mettle. The stock of the Chilean prime minister and his minister of mining went skywards through their handling of the rescue of the trapped miners (but so, too, did the sales of Chilean Merlot, and I’m pretty sure that this had little to do with the efforts of the wine-makers). While organisational structures will in part dictate how often a leader will find themselves in the hot seat publicly, it is a necessary part of the job description, has repercussions for brand perception and can end up defining success one way or the other. There is no doubt that the chief executives of the investment banks have had to plan their words carefully over the past couple of years. If it is important what stakeholders think of you and take brand seriously. Analyse the landscape and act accordingly. It is a challenge and some will have it harder than others. And if it’s not you, be safe in the knowledge that the professional football manager has perhaps the hardest brand leadership job of all.

ABOUT THE author

Nick Smith, the former senior head of sport development at the Prince’s Trust, is the head of sport with the international brand communications agency, Navyblue. Navyblue advises a number of leading sports brands including Royal & Ancient, New Balance, Sport England, Soccerex, Deccan Chargers and Madrid 2018. www.navyblue.com

THE BUSINESS

— customer service —

The customer is king Gone are the days when a good product will sell itself. In the post-recession world, it’s all about the customer and the level of service they receive

words Alice Hoey

It’s a challenging time for UK firms. Not only is credit hard to come by, but as the spending power of the average consumer has weakened, customers have become more strategic in where they spend their hard-earned cash. In an environment where few businesses can afford to slash prices, good customer care has become essential, both in retaining existing customers and stealing a march on the competition. As the old business adage has it: If you don’t take care of your customers, someone else will. According to Sarah Dennis, retail researcher at the consumer research organisation, Which?, people are looking for value for money rather than just low cost. “Service is now considered to be a part of that equation,” she says, “and we know that people will pay more for good service.” A recent survey by Which? found that it’s important to 83 per cent of people to feel valued as a customer, and half of us would pay more if it meant getting better service.

“In periods of recession, brand reputation has always been a differentiator for businesses,” adds Peter Mottershead, chief executive of Anglian, one of the largest home improvement companies in the UK. Year after year, some 40 per cent of the firm’s turnover comes from recommendation and repeat purchase sales, something Mottershead is very proud of. “This is the result of our dedication and commitment to customer service and customer care, which are central to our brand values.”

“Service is now part of the equation and people will pay more for good service” the manager spring 2011

He adds that having a strong reputation for good service is especially valuable in an industry that is still sometimes associated with uncertainty, as companies that come into the marketplace have a relatively short lifespan. “When a customer chooses a home improvement such as double glazing, they’re not only increasingly conscious of innovation, price and environmental credentials, but also the level of service and support that comes with that,” says Mottershead. “It’s this balance between quality, value and service that makes a successful business and a lasting reputation. Guarantees can easily be handed out in our industry, but whether they are honoured and serviced for their duration is another matter.” Yet, it seems that many companies are indeed reneging on their promises. According to a survey by Greenfield Online in 2009, UK businesses miss out on £15.3bn each year as a direct result of poor service. What’s ➽

— customer service —

Anglian’s Peter Mottershead: “The balance between quality, value and service makes a successful business” the manager spring 2011

— customer service —

➽ more, 73 per cent of consumers have ended a relationship with a firm because of a poor customer experience, with financial services, utilities and telecommunications companies among the worst offenders. The December 2010 research by Which?, meanwhile, found that poor customer care would deter 93 per cent of people from using a company again. Dennis says many companies are missing a trick in using customer service as a differentiator. “What we’ve seen recently is a tendency among companies to align themselves with one another – for example, matching on price and warranty – rather than going the extra mile,” she says. “Companies have lost the unique added value that they once brought to customers.” Managers often also mistakenly believe their own rhetoric when it comes to customer care, without ever stopping to check the reality. Written guidelines on customer service and training to middle management might demonstrate good intentions, but how do you ensure the messages filter down and are translated into action on the shop floor? “Attitude and behaviour come from the top of any organisation,” says Mottershead. “At Anglian, we’ve introduced a new philosophy, ‘Raising the Standard’, which has been incorporated into our logo. This challenges every member of staff to improve their standard within their capabilities. “Whether you work in a manufacturing capacity or hold an administrative or management role, we can all strive to do better and work smarter.” Investing in your workforce, he adds, also gives employees a sense of pride and value within the organisation. But training, albeit essential, isn’t the only way to raise staff performance. “Having happy and motivated staff results in happy customers,” says Mottershead.

“Those people who enjoy a fulfilling working life will undoubtedly transmit that enthusiasm to the customers they serve.” It’s a theory that’s backed up by recent research. A team at Manchester Business School found that where the average customerfacing employee has a positive view of their employer, sales improved by 14 per cent. Incentives and rewards – whether in the form of an early finish on a Friday, a bottle of bubbly or simply a publicly made ‘thank you’ – can play a big part in encouraging staff to go the extra mile, and are especially important at a time when few

“Companies have lost the unique added value they once brought to customers” companies can afford to incentivise with financial rewards. Engaging with your customers is also essential in ensuring their experience with your company is the best it can be. The first rule of good customer service is to provide what people actually want. It’s not about how good your processes or guidelines are, but what the client or customer gets out of them. That means asking your customers what they value – in you and your competitors – and what has them reaching for the complaint form. As Mottershead points out, engaging with the customer has never been easier. “We live in a world of 24/7 communication, so it’s important for companies to actively get involved with their customers across every medium – from social

the manager spring 2011

networking sites, telephony and text messaging to traditional direct mail, TV, press advertising and even the humble letter.” Complaints as well as recommendations should be logged and communicated back to managers, so that as well as being dealt with case by case they can lead to company-wide change. “The philosophy at Anglian is that prevention is better than cure,” says Mottershead. “We try to ensure that mistakes don’t happen and training at all levels plays a significant part in keeping them to a minimum.” However, all companies, no matter how good, will make mistakes and, with some 1,200 installations across the UK every week, Anglian is no exception. Any mistakes are dealt with by a central customer service facility, which ensures they are handled quickly and efficiently, and no errors are swept under the carpet. A system registers the complaint, identifies the scope of the problem and how long it should take to fix. “If the issue is not resolved within that timescale, the complaint escalates to the next level of management,” explains Mottershead. “We have established five levels of escalation – I’m level five – with staff at each level given 48 hours to resolve it before it moves up to the next.” Dennis adds that it’s even possible to turn a complaint into something positive. “If a company handles a problem really effectively, the customer is actually 70 per cent more likely to recommend that business than if there had been no complaint at all,” she says. “It’s not about whether mistakes are made, but how you deal with them that really matters.” The bottom line is customers will vote with their feet when it comes to value for money, and without good service the value simply isn’t there. To succeed on the road to recovery, UK firms will need to invest in their customer care.

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THE BACK OFFICE

— Leadership —

Insider The

Peter Coates

with a wembley semi-final for stoke city on the horizon, the manager talks to the club’s chairman about football club stewardship in the 21st century Victor Kiam famously liked his Remington shaver so much that he bought the company. Stoke City’s chairman, Peter Coates, has gone a step further... he loves the club so much, he bought it twice. Following a spell as chairman and major shareholder of the Potteries club between 1989 and 1997, lifelong fan Coates sold out to a consortium of Icelandic businessmen, partly because of pressure from disgruntled supporters. Despite the manner of his initial departure, when the opportunity arose to come back to the club in 2006, Coates couldn’t resist the challenge. Coates takes up the story: “The club had been on sale for a while, but the owners couldn’t find a buyer. I was concerned because the quality of the team was deteriorating and I could see it getting worse if nothing was done. My initial idea was to put together a consortium of local business people, but I got no takers and so, having talked things through with my family, I bought it with the hope of trying to get the club sorted out and taking it forward. “My family were somewhat reluctant, because I’d had some ‘bruising encounters’ earlier on with supporters, as you often do as chairman of a football club, but I thought long and hard about it and I eventually returned. I suppose there was a little bit of unfinished

business from my point of view, because I’d been disappointed that I hadn’t got the club into the top division first time around.” One of Coates’s first acts in his second spell in charge was to bring Tony Pulis back to the club for his second spell as team manager (Pulis had first been in charge between 2002 and 2005). “I thought about a number of candidates, but Tony

“There’s no instant fix in football... managing a club is a very difficult and stressful business” was my preferred choice,” he says. “He had his reservations, as he was concerned about the crowd reaction, but I was convinced that with support from me and my family he could get us promoted on a reasonable budget. And that’s what he did.” Coates makes regular references to his family and to the ‘family business’ that underpins the club. This, however, is no ordinary family business; it’s the leading online

the manager SPRING 2011

betting operation Bet365, which is run by Coates’ daughter, Denise, with support from his son, John. John is also involved in Stoke City, often joining in with the regular informal meetings held between his father, Pulis and the club’s CEO, Tony Scholes. The two Tonys have separate, but entirely complementary, mandates. Scholes has been entrusted with ensuring that Stoke become an entirely self-sustaining business, something that the club is working towards and which Coates believes will be helped by the introduction of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Rules. “If UEFA can police it properly and make it effective I think that it will be good for football,” he says. “The Barclays Premier League is the most successful in the world... no other league generates such revenues, yet so many clubs lose money. Financially, football isn’t a complicated business. You know where your income is going to come from and you can have a pretty good guess as to what it’s going to be in any given year. Therefore, like in any business, your expenditure should match that.” Pulis also has a target to meet... the team, the results and the club’s standings are expected to improve on a season by season basis. While that, in itself, may not be complicated, Coates is aware that achieving it is no easy task.

— Peter Coates —

“We know that this is a tough, competitive league that we’re in,” he says. “There are lots of variables in football – and we accept that – but over time you do expect a certain level of consistency in line with the quality of your squad.” Coates is more than pleased with Pulis’s progress to date. “He’s done a fantastic job,” he says. “He’s got a good group around him and we’ve got a new academy and training

ground, which we’re all delighted with. We can see the progress all around us and that gives everybody a lift and keeps us going.” Coates estimates that he dedicates roughly half of each week to running the club. Throughout that time, his interactions with his two main colleagues are regular and, mostly, informal. “My office [at Bet365] is less than 10 minutes away from both the club and the

the manager SPRING 2011

training ground, so it’s easy for me to get down there and it’s equally easy for them to see me, which is often what happens.” Before Pulis’s second spell in charge, Stoke had been as guilty as any other club in the English game of operating a ‘hire and fire’ policy. In the eight years between Coates’s two spells as chairman, the club managed to go through 10 different managers. Coates, however, is a firm believer that this practice is not only costly in financial terms, it’s also detrimental to a club’s progress. “I always think that managers should be given three years,” he says. “If you make progress during those three years you’re almost certain to want him to stay on and if you don’t, you would probably make a change, but you have to give him time. There’s no instant fix in football... it’s a tough, tough game and managing a football club is a very difficult and stressful business. The manager needs support and we try to do that at the club.” As a lifelong fan, Coates has to balance his innate pragmatism with a real sense of ambition for his club. At the time of writing, Stoke are preparing for a Wembley meeting with Bolton Wanderers in what will be the club’s first FA Cup semi-final appearance in 39 years. And while he’s careful to temper his comments with references to steady progress and season-on-season improvement, it’s clear that Coates would like nothing better than for his club to pick up its first major silverware since it won the League Cup in 1971/72. “I remember once sitting down with the former chairman and chief executive at Leeds United, a man called Bill Fotherby,” he says. “He was puffing away on his cigar and he said to me, ‘You know... in football, we’re selling dreams.’ And I thought, ‘How right you are.’”

THE BACK OFFICE

— PROFILE —

THE

Paul Nicholls words sue mckellar

like his friend and collaborator sir alex ferguson, Five-time champion national hunt trainer Paul Nicholls is a dominant presence in his chosen field There are two defining similarities between Paul Nicholls and Sir Alex Ferguson. Both men have earned reputations for spotting and nurturing young talent and both men utterly dominate their respective fields. It’s little wonder, then, that the two have chosen to work together. Sir Alex’s jump horses are trained at Nicholls’s Manor Farm Stables, in Ditcheat, Somerset, and the two men have high hopes for one in particular, What A Friend. “What A Friend has done really well,” says Nicholls. “He won a couple of Grade 1 races last year and he won the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown and then the Martel Cup at Aintree. This year we trained him with the aim of running in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and then going on to Aintree. He’s the sort of horse that doesn’t run that often, but when he does, he does well and he’s capable in the next few years of running a very big race.” It was during an interview he gave after What A Friend’s Aintree victory last year that Sir Alex joked to a TV reporter that Nicholls was the one person who gives him the “hairdryer treatment”. There is clearly a lot of mutual respect and affection between the two, something that Nicholls believes has “naturally evolved” over the course of their working relationship. “I like to involve the owners,” he says. “There’s no point in me just saying, ‘This is what’s happening.’ I respect their thoughts

and get on well with them and they trust any decisions that I make.” Despite the fact that What A Friend is just one of almost 140 horses currently in his charge, Nicholls seems to be able to recall every pertinent detail relating to the horse from memory. “I can access Kauto Star’s information on the Racing Post’s website and it will give me all of his details, his form and what he’s run on and compare

“At the moment one in four of the horses that we run wins… and if we can stick to that, then I’ll be happy” with the opposition,” he says. “But my horses are in my head in effect and rightly or wrongly that is how I tend to do it.” That’s not to say that Nicholls is averse to adopting innovative practices, though. “You never stop learning and embracing different methods,” he says. “One thing that has evolved over the years is that the fitness of horses these days is second to none. We probably train them more like athletes now.

the manager spring 2011

Years ago they used to just gallop and gallop around fields. Now, though, all of our horses do interval training with either sprinting or steady work and they are treated like athletes. The horses get the best of everything from physiotherapy to blood testing, and tracheal washes; you don’t leave a single stone unturned. You learn every day, as things keep changing and you must change with them.” This willingness to adapt and learn has stood Nicholls in good stead; he’s trained 78 Grade 1 race winners to date (and 1,939 winners in total) and has been the champion national hunt trainer for the past five years. How does he keep ahead of the chasing pack? “By being a competitive person, I suppose,” he says. “I’m at the top so far this season, with a couple of months to go, but Nicky Henderson is chasing me fairly tightly. I suppose it’s like Sir Alex having Arsenal and Manchester City competing closely with him. You become determined that you want to stay at the top, you stay focused and work that bit harder to make sure that you stay there.” Working that bit harder, for Nicholls, means getting to the stables in time to start work at 7am every day and spending hours working through the smallest of details. “I spend hours studying entries at this time of the year because we have to enter our horses five days in advance of a race,” he

— PROFILE —

says. “This is easy for the big races, such as the Cheltenham Gold Cup, because you know well in advance what you are aiming for. With regards to other competitions, though, you have got to get to know what type of ground and tread each horse likes and you keep all of your options open.” Despite his long run at the top, Nicholls believes that a person’s character is defined as much by their reaction to defeat as to victory. “Anyone can win, but it is being able to cope with losing and being resilient that is incredibly important,” he says. “I often get in the car after I’ve had a bad day and I’m absolutely steaming that I have lost, but then I get home, count to 10 and tomorrow is another day.” And in Nicholls’s case, tomorrow is usually another winning day, especially for his big-name horses, including Kauto Star and Denman. Nicholls has achieved so much with this star-studded group over the past five years that he admits to having developed something of an emotional attachment to them. “Kauto Star, Denman and Big Buck’s have won all these fantastic races and they’re part of my life; it’s like they’ve become friends. You can’t help but become fond of people when they’re successful with you and it’s the same with horses.” This year’s Cheltenham Festival confirmed Nicholls’s credentials. In the Ladbrokes World Hurdle, Big Buck’s became the first horse ever to win the race three consecutive times. Then in one of the most dramatic and memorable Gold Cups, Denman, Kauto Star and What A Friend were just thwarted by the young pretender, Long Run. And this success is likely to continue. As Nicholls explains, it’s all a question of simple maths. “At the moment we’re running to a strike rate of 25 per cent,” he says. “Which means that one in four of the horses that we run wins… and if we can stick to that, then I’ll be happy.”

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THE BACK OFFICE

— management —

Spot the difference Are football managers very different from their counterparts in business? Yes and no, says Paul Daniels, a man with extensive experience of both

For the past 20 years or so I’ve advised countless managers and executives on employment issues. My clients have included CEOs, finance executives, bankers, media executives and, through my work as the LMA’s lead lawyer, football managers. Over that time I’ve noticed similarities between how managers operate in football and business – and also a number of differences. I’ll start with the differences. Most strikingly, managers in business are usually given more time than their counterparts in football. I recently acted for a fund manager whose fund was performing below market level. He was told that his performance was an issue, but he would be given two years to turn it around. Some football managers would consider themselves lucky if they were given two games. Similarly, the level of attention paid to recruitment and selection is often strikingly different between football and business. I have advised top city executives who have had to attend 13 interviews before being appointed. In contrast, football managers are sometimes hired after a chat over a cup of tea. This latter practice might, perhaps, be endearing and quaint, but it’s no substitute for detailed research and analysis of a candidate’s skills. In my view, football’s lax approach to hiring might contribute to its high management turnover. So what are the similarities? It is striking that those with good

“Managers in business are usually given more time than their counterparts in football” communication skills and a sense of humour are often operating at the top of their sector. I remember one manager of a Barclays Premier League club calling me at seven on a Friday evening and apologising profusely (and unnecessarily) for “interrupting my weekend”. Classy. It’s no surprise that he is still managing at the very top of the game. Of course, every manager will need to be hard-nosed at some point, but in dealing with people (which is what most management boils down to) making that extra effort and treating people with courtesy and respect can genuinely be the difference between success and failure. Perhaps the main similarity between business and football management is the level of passion and commitment shown on both sides of the divide. Passions obviously run high in sport, but it would be wrong to assume that fund managers, finance CEOs or top media executives are any less passionate about the

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areas that they work in. From what I’ve seen over the course of my career, those that have the most zest, commitment and enthusiasm tend to be the most successful. Having said all that, there is one area where I think football managers probably have an edge... in the ability to communicate to large groups of people. The one talent that binds together all football managers that I’ve met, regardless of the level they operate at, is their ability to silence a room when they tell a story. This is perhaps an underrated talent – but after all, whether you’re in the boardroom for a crucial meeting, or in the half-time dressing room, the ability to get everyone to listen to your every word is surely a priceless skill.

ABOUT Paul Daniels

Paul Daniels is a leading employment lawyer at Russell Jones & Walker, the LMA’s solicitors, with 20 years’ experience in advising managers and executives in a wide range of industries.

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THE BACK OFFICE

Media

matters Alan Whiter, Action Images

From humble beginnings in north-east London, Action Images has grown into a multinational powerhouse with lenses trained on a wide variety of sports

words alex mead

Wimbledon hatchet man Vinnie Jones grips, Newcastle’s young starlet, Paul Gascoigne, gasps. Without going into detail, there are few football fans who don’t have this famous image in their memory bank. Even for two players who went on to gain such fame and notoriety as Jones and Gascoigne, this moment from a 1988 Football League encounter will be forever associated with the pair. As they say (particularly in the world of photography), why use a thousand words when one picture will do. That image is part of the now Reuters-owned Action Images photographic agency back catalogue, and is just one of millions of sports pictures it either owns or is licensed to sell. “It’s a great shot,” says Alan Whiter, Action Images’ head of sales and marketing. “Picking the most memorable isn’t easy because there are so many, but I guess another one would have to be the Eric Cantona kung-fu kick – nobody had that shot and it was a major story. Here we had an icon of football and he was jumping over the barriers to join the fans.” If ever an agency reflected the changing face of football media, Action Images would be the first in line. The agency’s roots are embedded in football, with

founder David Jacob starting off as a one-man band covering Tottenham Hotspur. “He did everything,” explains Whiter. “First, he would take the shots, then without even knowing if he had anything he’d head for the dark room, develop them, make prints, pop them in an envelope and get them to the sports desks. He would have no idea if they’d use a shot or if he’d get anything.”

Things have certainly changed. Despite several agreements representing historical and international collections, giving it a sports image library of around seven million pictures dating back more than 100 years, the acquisition by a company of Reuters’ stature in 2005 took

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Action Images to a different level. “When Reuters bought us we became a global sports agency,” admits Whiter, who’s been with the company for almost a decade. “We went from having one office in London to having the support of 200 offices across the world, and from a staff of 15 photographers to receiving images from 650 globally. London was the hub for Action Images’ distribution – now we have the potential to distribute to every major city in the world.” With that came a substantially bigger sales force to sell Action Images’ work, a hefty chunk of which is English football. Not that other sports aren’t significant, far from it. “We cover every Grand Prix on the Formula One circuit,” continues Whiter, “we cover golf, tennis, cricket, horse racing, boxing and rugby… and we’ve even covered elephant polo in Nepal and bungee jumping in New Zealand! We’re truly a global sporting agency.” And here lies the rub. It’s surely no coincidence that just as Action Images has become a global sporting entity, so, too, has its premium export – the English top flight. Just as a thirst for football’s greatest domestic competition is at its peak across the world, Action Images is on hand to deliver the

message – and in volume, too. “In recent times, the industry standard was – and on the whole still is – that a photographer will shoot, a memory card would then be uploaded to a laptop and images wired across to an editor, and that process could take 15 to 20 minutes,” explains Whiter. “Now we have technology that delivers in real time, so an editor sees every image a photographer takes – we still have quality control, but it’s immediate.” The impact of the internet on the photographic industry has been phenomenal. It would once be the case that an image would have the reach of little more than the national newspapers, and they would use two to three pictures at most. Now, with Reuters on board, Action Images has access to more than 5,000 media outlets, some of which could use a photo gallery in a report using up to 20 pictures. When you work in those numbers – in terms of outlets and imagery – the reach for potential sponsors of football teams featured in those pictures is colossal. Hence the reason it’s so vital for football to protect one of its biggest brand promoters – sports photographic agencies. In return, as well as capturing football and all its sponsors, they help by ensuring the imagery doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. “The Barclays Premier League has to protect its commercial partners’ interests and official agencies control where images are used – we’re aware of all the rights issues,” Whiter says. “We know that brands such as Barclays now have a vested interest globally.” But it’s not just about what happens at any given game. Although Action Images sends photographers to every Premier League game, as well as covering roughly 90 per cent of npower Championship games, 50 per cent of npower League One and

snap happy

Action Images’ chief photographer, John Sibley, joined the agency as junior sports photographer in 1991 and has filed his fair share of pictures since then, covering four FIFA World Cups, four UEFA European Championships and numerous FA Cup, Scottish Cup and UEFA Champions League final s. “It’s a great job,” he says, “so long as you can cope with the unsocial hours. During a major tournament you can work solid 18-hour days for up to four or five weeks at a time . “I’d say Paul Gascoigne was the best footballer I’ve ever photographed . Partly because of his skill, but also because you could always rely on him to provide a great photograph.” And on the other side of the white line? Which managers prov ide the best material? “Early in my career I enjoyed photographing Brian Clough. Among current managers, I’d single out Martin O’Neill (right) and José Mourinho as two of the easiest to photograph. Both will stand next to the pitch for the entir e 90 minutes, kicking every ball and celebrating every goal.”

30 per cent of npower League Two, its remit now goes deep into commercial territory. Whiter estimates that around 50 per cent of the agency’s work in football is covering off-field activities, be it players doing brand work or a club making a new signing. What’s more, every time a picture is taken, it goes on to the Action Images library and those 5,000 outlets become accessible to one of football’s partners. It’s not hard to see why the game needs allies such as Action Images to help spread the word. “About 20 years ago, everything in sports photography was very localised, the national newspaper was the largest remit you’d get,” says Whiter. “Now, the Premier League is in global sporting territories – the Middle East has broadcast rights, so there’s interest for us there. Asia is absolutely huge, too. And where there’s an interest in English football, we’re there to provide the pictures.”

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ABOUT ALAN WHITER

Alan Whiter joined Action Images in 2002 and has been the company’s head of sales and marketing since January 2009. Whiter was part of the small commercial team which developed Action Images’ business prior to its acquisition by Reuters in 2005.

THE BACK OFFICE

— LEADERSHIP —

MINDGAMES In the first in a regular series looking at the mental challenges of management, leadership expert Steve Radcliffe outlines the difference between management and leadership and why the latter produces better results

Stop managing... start leading I’ve just had a meeting with a man called Phil. He’s a senior manager in a major organisation who’s just been promoted into a key leadership position. Trouble is, he’s struggling. I’ve met lots of ‘Phils’ during my 20 years of helping people in business, sport, government, education, etc grow as leaders. Most of them have devoted thousands of hours to learning and mastering their technical skill (whether it be finance, teaching, playing football or whatever), but they’ve spent far less time learning how to lead (and often, no time at all). The result is that they can be daunted by this ‘leadership stuff ’ and don’t know how to lead, rather than just manage. My team and I have one overriding ambition... to help people grow quickly as leaders. We do this by making sure they’ve grasped just a few big ideas and then are doing something with them. There are lots of people who will present leadership as a complicated, even mysterious, topic involving lots of complex models and ideas. Don’t believe them. In contrast, the following are five of our plain and simple ideas we make sure leaders grasp to give themselves the very best chance of succeeding. How many of these do you think you have already taken on board?

Understand that leading is not an advanced form of managing. Yes, whatever your job, you’ll need to do some managing, but leading is different. It comes from a deeper place. Managing is about attending to what you have in place and making sure it runs well. Leading is about creating something great in the future. It’s about having high ambitions and helping others have them, too. Managing alone won’t get you to greatness, but leading can. Every day, the world will throw emails, phone calls and meetings at you that will pull you into the managing space and take you away from energising your team and bringing the best out of them. At all times, be conscious of when you’re managing and when you're leading. Most of us spend too little time leading.

To be a great leader, you have to find your magic ingredient. We have found this ingredient in every effective leader we have worked with. It’s not a job title, personality type or technique… it’s that all of them are ‘up to something’. That is, they are alive with an ambition, a dream, vision or goal that matters to them.

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There’s something in the future they want and they’re going for it. This gives them an energy and vitality. It has them strive to be the best and get the best from others around them. This is where leadership starts, with you in touch with what you care about and being ‘up to something’. How often are you energised by what you’re up to? Leading is not just about communicating; it’s about engaging. Once you’re clear on what you’re up to, a large part of leading is about interacting with others so you leave them wanting to build something with you. This is engagement... and it’s different to ‘communicating to’, ‘presenting at’ and ‘telling’. When you engage people, they’ll go the extra mile for you. When you don’t, they may go along with you, but you’re not getting their very best. What do you try to achieve in your interactions? Clear communication or engagement?

Be aware that, as a leader, you’re always having an impact. Just before writing this piece I read an interview with Dimitar Berbatov where he explained that

— LEADERSHIP —

there are quite a few jokers in the Manchester United dressing room, but it all goes quiet when Sir Alex walks in. The nugget here is that when you’re in a position of power or influence in an organisation, you constantly have an impact on the people around you, how they feel and what they believe is possible. In our terms you are always either ‘shining your light’ or ‘casting your shadow’. But here’s the catch… You won’t always know what your impact is. There is sometimes a huge difference between the impact we want to have on others (our ‘Impact Intended’) and how we actually leave them feeling (our ‘Impact Felt’). The truth is that we can’t always work out our Impact Felt; we can only learn about it by asking others. So how well do you know the impact of your light and your shadow on others? Who have you invited in to give you feedback on your impact? You must know when your shadow is getting in the way of your engaging others and getting the best from them.

about Steve Radcliffe

Steve Radcliffe has been coaching senior leaders in the worlds of business, government, sport, health and education for 20 years. His personal clients have included Sir Gus O’Donnell, head of the Civil Service, and the top leaders in organisations such as the BBC, Boots, Eon, the FA, First Direct and Unilever. Radcliffe is best known for his simple approach to leadership, called ‘Future – Engage – Deliver’. He has captured the approach in his book, Leadership Plain and Simple, which is Amazon UK’s number one book on the subject of leadership. A free audio version is available for download at www.futureengagedeliver.com/ lmabook. Further information is available at www. futureengagedeliver.com.

And finally, the good news is that there is a way you can become a more effective leader quickly. We now know that growing as a leader is less about implementing complex ideas and more about practice. Indeed, why should it be any different to anything else we aim to master? We learn anything fastest if we have some guidance and a few ideas up front, then put in lots of practice and get regular feedback on how we’re doing. You can be better at being up to something and going for a future you want, better at engaging others, and better at impacting others so they want to be at their best and deliver for you. Which aspects of leadership are you going to practise?

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THE BACK OFFICE

— comment —

The LMA chairman considers how great managers don’t just lead people; they are in the business of creating permanent change

Howard Wilkinson As this season’s catalogue of managerial sackings threatens to reach record-breaking proportions, the LMA is increasing its efforts to better prepare its members (and prospective members) for the difficulties they are likely to encounter in these turbulent times. Despite the alarming statistics, though, Arsène Wenger rightly maintains that: “A manager should approach every day in his job as if he were to be there the rest of his life, yet not be surprised if he is sacked the next day.” If the manager’s approach to the job is other than this, then he is destined to fail, because the job of the manager is to permanently change things for the better. Football clubs (like most businesses) very rarely change managers when things are going well; new managers are usually brought in to improve on the situation they inherit. Inevitably, the only way to assess positive change is on the pitch through the performance of the team. As the old saying goes: “Actions speak louder than words.” If you manage only looking to tomorrow or next week, you are then, in effect, a project manager, responsible only for your players’

jobs. If, however, you manage with one eye always on the horizon and your ultimate destination, you become a proper football manager, responsible for your players’ careers. As Sam Allardyce says: “Football management is not a job – it’s more than a profession; it’s a way of life if you want to succeed.”

“Great managers possess the ability to make their vision reality” Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s technical director, sees more of Europe’s top coaches in a year than most tour operators and he is in no doubt that the key element that makes good managers great is leadership. This is why we at the LMA are investing huge efforts into our new Leadership and Management Education Programme.

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There are three areas of a manager’s role: the technical, managerial and leadership. Being a good coach, a good man manager and/or a good organiser is not enough. To change how players live, behave and play, you have to permanently change how they think and what they believe. True leaders know that a player’s brain has to be fitter than his body, that the key to his performance lies in his heart and in his mind. Leaders invest time in developing personal relationships and, through those, the trust and confidence that must exist between manager and player. This is crucial if the player is going to trust his career development to that manager. Not being liked is one thing; not being trusted and respected is totally different. The former only has potential social consequences; the latter, over a period of time, can become corrosive and eventually toxic, especially within a group that needs to work together closely. Great managers are realistic visionaries who possess the ability to make their vision reality. Their very strong values and beliefs form the basis of their working lives. They don’t just train people; they educate them.

— comment —

“A manager should approach every day in his job as if he were to be there the rest of his life, yet not be surprised if he is sacked the next day” Arsène Wenger

Life in a football club is the ideal environment for these people to go about their work. To this rare breed, the football club is like a greenhouse, intensifying their positive input. Players and coaches live their lives ‘up close and personal’, warts and all. At times the pressure is intense, no more so than before, during and after games. Under pressure, you see the real person emerge. Strong values and beliefs are the foundation of behaviour; natural leaders respond in a consistent and positive manner to these situations, to see things clearly and make good, honest, fair (and, more often than not, very quick) decisions. The latter point is crucial and highlights one significant difference between a football manager and an

executive who operates within the realms of conventional business. In the real world, a business leader can move a board meeting, change an appointment or take their time over an appraisal, without having too great an effect on their colleagues or business. These luxuries are not available to the football manager, whose decisions are framed by the immovable timeframe of fixtures. Great managers create a new and unique culture at their club, which in turn shapes the behaviour of the coaches and players. Each great manager is a walking example of that culture. If you throw in tactical awareness, the ability to build teams (both on and off the pitch), an eye for a player, a willingness to make decisions and a constant thirst for knowledge, you end up

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like Sir Alex Ferguson, with 2,000plus games under your belt and a bulging trophy cabinet. If you want to know more about the educational effect of great leadership, ask Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes or Gary Neville... it took more than the ‘hairdryer’ to change their lives. Howard Wilkinson, in association with Sports Path, has devised the LMA School of Football Management, a series of online courses designed to help coaches and managers develop their leadership skills. The first course, Creating a Culture of Excellence, is currently in use at more than 40 per cent of English professional clubs and has attracted learners from more than 30 countries. Find out more at www. leaguemanagers.com/technical/ lmaschoolofmanagement-158.html

THE BACK OFFICE

— comment —

The Coach's view

Photography Hannah Edwards

England U19s coach Noel Blake on the need for a change in attitude to youth development

The make-up of the German

squad in last year’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa was no shock to those of us who have an interest in the development of young players. Five products of Bayern Munich’s youth set-up – Holger Badsturber, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kloos and Thomas Müller – all played their part as Germany came within a whisker of reaching yet another final. Bayern like to give their youngsters the opportunity to play in their first team, but then so do many of their rivals. The number of players aged 21 and under playing in the Bundesliga has more than doubled in the past ten years (from 32 to 76) as German clubs take a greater interest in their home-grown talent, giving them the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do before looking to sign a foreign player. This policy doesn’t just make financial sense, it also has clear sporting benefits for both clubs and country. So why is it that many clubs in the Barclays Premier League are not prepared to follow the Bundesliga’s example and give more youngsters a chance to break through? There are, of course, a number of reasons for this, but I believe

that the Barclays Premier League’s financial reward structure (where the prize money increases significantly for each position in the table) is a major factor. Some years ago, if a club wasn’t in relegation trouble, couldn’t get into Europe or wasn’t chasing a title towards the end of the season, the management would take the opportunity to have a look at a few of their younger players. Now that every point is so important, this is no longer the case, which means that most clubs miss out on a great opportunity to assess the future generation of home-grown talent. With so many of the top-flight clubs now reluctant to give youth a chance, many talented players have to drop down to the lower leagues to launch their careers. If clubs are reluctant to ‘blood’ young players, then they will find it difficult to attract youth players to the club in the long term. But the problem isn’t only with the clubs. Young players (along with their parents and agents) must also take some responsibility. Managers constantly question the attitude, application and dedication of today’s young players. Too many like the idea of being a footballer – and the money, glamour and status that goes with it – but they don’t really have the application to earn it. Players should get back

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to playing the game because they love it, not because of the potential trappings. They have to change the negative views that so many respected managers and coaches have of them. The likes of Jack Rodwell, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Jordan Henderson and Jack Wilshere are now appearing regularly in the Barclays Premier League. These players were given the opportunity because they have the right attitude, dedication and application to go with their undoubted talent. And there are encouraging signs that things may be changing. Earlier this season I watched the derby between two of my former clubs, Birmingham City and Aston Villa. There were nine players on the pitch who had graduated from the academies (seven from Villa and two from Birmingham). These young men didn’t just have talent, they also had clubs and managers who believed in them. They’re not alone either; the likes

About Noel Blake

A former centre-half with Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Birmingham City, Noel Blake is head coach of England’s U19 team, a position he has held since 2009. Before joining the FA in 2007 (where he was initially assistant coach to both the U16s and U19s), Blake was the academy manager for Stoke City. In addition to his role with the national team, Blake is also involved with the development of youth coaching, assisting in the delivery of the UEFA A Licence, UEFA Pro-Licence and Youth Coaches Course to prospective coaches aged between 17 and 21.

— NOEL BLAKE —

of Manchester United, Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers and Everton have also demonstrated a willingness to give young players an opportunity at senior level. We now need more top-flight clubs to follow that trend. The shortage of young English players playing in first teams should be a concern for all of us in the game, and unless we try to do something about it we will continue to see the likes of Germany and Spain flourishing at all international levels at our expense. It’s no use burying our heads in the sand and saying that the players are not good enough unless we give them the opportunity to prove otherwise. I genuinely believe that there are some real young talent in this country, but they have to earn the right to showcase their talent, while clubs need to give them the stage on which they can flourish.

“It’s no use burying our heads in the sand and saying that the players are not good enough” the manager SPRING 2011

WORDS TO THE WISE Drawing on his extensive experience of youth coaching and development, Noel Blake offers some words of advice to both the next generation of young talent and the clubs who will eventually be their employers... To the players: ■ You have to change the managers’ perceptions of you ■ Trust the clubs to do the right things for your development ■ Work with the clubs, not against them ■ Decide if you really want to be a footballer ■ If you do, then make the necessary commitment and sacrifices ■ Play the game for the love of it, not for the trappings (if you’re good enough the rewards will come) To the clubs: ■ Young players are the future of the game ■ Young English players have talent ■ Young players need to be given the opportunity at the appropriate time, but we have to improve their attitude and mentality to enable managers to trust them ■ We need to improve the reserve team structure ■ We have to bridge the gaps between youth, reserves and the senior team ■ Are we releasing players too soon? In Spain and Germany they wait until they’re 20-21 ■ We need to wrest some control back from the agents and parents; if we fail to do this, what will happen when the well runs dry?

THE BACK OFFICE

— HEALTH and WELLBEING —

Health &

Wellbeing With Dr Dorian Dugmore THE ROLE OF SLEEP AND THE MODERN MANAGER

In today’s HIGH pressurE

world, managers often work long hours, resulting in impaired sleep and dwindling energy reserves. To manage with the necessary clarity of thought to allow for effective ‘in the moment’ decision-making, it is essential to find the time for both rest and sleep. Much of good management is about making the right choices at critical moments. Some extreme examples from recent history illustrate this point: the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, the Selby rail crash and, most recently, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have one thing in common… all were caused by excessive tiredness that affected critical decision-making. On a more everyday level, 16-20 per cent of motor vehicle crashes in the UK are sleep related. But how much sleep is ‘enough’? It is recognised that eight hours of sleep for adults is considered to be fully restorative, while just one night with two hours less than your normal sleep can be sufficient to produce a drop-off in waking performance. Of course, there will be individual variations, but a reduction in sleep will ultimately result in a reduction in your effectiveness as a manager. Sleep occurs in cycles. The first phase is ‘quiet sleep’. The deepest element of this phase, ‘the delta sleep’, is probably the most restorative (interestingly, too much alcohol can disturb this). If you are depriving yourself of sleep, you

will need to spend more time in this phase of sleep on subsequent nights. The second phase is the ‘REM sleep’, which is characterised by slowly moving towards the waking state as heartbeat, metabolism and eye movements speed up. Sleep rests and restores our bodies; patterns differ as we age, but this stands true. ‘Delta’ or ‘quiet sleep’ releases most of the growth hormone often credited for the renewal of worn-out tissues, but the most important benefit is that adequate sleep restores us mentally. The body can be restored to some extent by taking a nap. Research tells us the best time to do this is between 2pm and 3pm, when the body’s temperature is at its lowest point. Doing this for 30-40 minutes (and no more than an hour) can give us enough ‘deep sleep’ to feel refreshed; any more tends to promote ‘grogginess’ and even interfere with later sleep patterns. In extreme circumstances, sleep can be induced by the use of sleeping pills, but these are – at best – a substitute for the real thing. Whatever sleeping pill you take, take a low dose first. Don’t take them for more than two to three days, never combine them with alcohol and try to address the underlying cause of your sleeplessness. It is important to appreciate that sleep can have an enormous impact on your performance as a manager. To rob yourself of sleep is to take away part of your capacity to perform well under pressure.

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WAKEY, WAKEY “The average man in his 20s wakes, briefly, up to 10 times each night; in his 40s this increases to 15 and by the age of 60 this increases to more than 20 times a night”

— HEALTH and WELLBEING —

SLEEP WELL

THE BENEFITS OF SLEEP AND REST

Sleep and rest offer a number of benefits, both physical and mental, including:

■ Enhanced immune function ■ Reduced recovery time from hard physical work ■ I mproved mental clarity and response time to rapidly changing situations ■ I mproved speed and accuracy when completing complex tasks ■ I mproved likelihood of producing innovative solutions to problems

To promote healthy and ‘productive’ sleep, follow these simple guidelines: ■ Stay away from stimulants (particularly caffeine) ■ Keep regular hours (tune your body clock) ■ Avoid exercise training near bedtime ■ Keep room dimmed, use relaxation smells (for example, lavender) ■ Remember that a ‘night cap’ can have a price (in disturbed ‘delta sleep’) ■ Don’t work for at least an hour before bed to relax your mind

expert comment

“Sleep is indeed very important to help support performance and health. However, given that it is possible to sleep and not recover, it is essential that we monitor the quality of recovery and not just the length of sleep. Scientists worldwide have demonstrated that a specific type of heart rate activity (known as heart rate variability) signifies that the recovery process is occurring, thus aiding the restoration and regeneration of brain and body. Conversely, if effective sleep does not occur, the mind and body become recoverydeprived and cannot perform to their optimum levels. A lack of recovery over a period of time can result in an inability to concentrate, and think clearly, and can be a hindrance to the body’s ability to cope with stress. The good news is that there is a simple method of assessing whether you’re getting enough of this essential recovery. To find out more, go to www.optima-life.com.” Nigel Stockill, performance director, Optima-life

SLEEP DEBT “Is loss of sleep taking its toll? To regain mental acuity at most you need two nights’ good sleep” Dr Dorian Dugmore is founder of the LMA’s Fit To Manage programme, run in association with Wellness International at the adidas Wellness Centre in Stockport, funded by the Barclays Premier League

the manager SPRING 2011

The BACK OFFICE

— ANALYSIS —

Analysis

how statistics can help predict match results and even the final league table

The latest addition to The Manager’s editorial team, the self-confessed football stats geek Daniel Finkelstein, explains the science behind Castrol’s all-new, web-based match predictor technology

SO THERE I AM at the stadium,

scarf on, standing in the queue for a pie before the game when the bloke in front of me turns round to chat. “What do you reckon our chances are today, mate?” And without thinking, I reply: “Of victory? 62.4 per cent.” He gives me an odd look and turns away again. It’s then that I realise I’ve got this data thing bad. About 10 years ago, during the Japan and Korea FIFA World Cup, I came across a man who appeared to be doing a PhD in football statistics. It turned out the football was a sideline, but

a pretty impressive one. He was applying his sophisticated expertise and statistical techniques to predict scores. And he was doing very well. Much better than you’d do by guessing. Even if your guessing was well informed. So we began to work together. The company he formed, Decision Technology, and I have been looking at football data for the past decade now. And it’s been an extraordinary experience. My entire playing career consists of being substitute for the school U15 B team for one cancelled game. Yet data has helped me make sense of the game’s myths and rules, value players and predict outcomes. For me, the data has been enlightening. For a professional, it could be game-changing. For the past few years we’ve been working with Castrol around its interest in performance analysis. It has helped us obtain data on the on-field actions that help us predict match results and provides insights into player performance. The reason we need long data series? Because the central insight of our work is that what matters in football is class, not form. No better barometer of

about Daniel Finkelstein

Daniel Finkelstein is executive editor of The Times and author of its weekly Fink Tank column on football data

the manager SPRING 2011

performance exists than the Barclays Premier League, which Castrol has focused on in the development of its new score, match and end-of-season predictor tools to help fans better understand the performances coming out of the world’s most competitive league. When developing these predictor tools, one starts with the last two years of goals and shots on target. Why shots on target? Because we’ve found that including it increases the accuracy of our predictions. Having lots of shots on target, even if in a few games they aren’t converted, is a strong indicator of future scoring ability. And conceding lots of shots on target, even if a team keeps them out for a while, is a strong indicator of future defensive frailty. The goals and shots measures have to be weighted, so that the more recent results count in the model more strongly – obviously a goal scored two years ago will be less predictive of a goal tomorrow than a goal scored last week. With this weighted model teams can be ranked, the probability of different outcomes in different games can be calculated, and then a computer can simulate the Barclays Premier League season over and over again. And it can do this at any given stage of the campaign. We’ve achieved this in the new-look predictors. You can see what we mean at our website, www.castrolfootball.com.

— ANALYSIS —

THE CASTROL LMA MANAGERS’ PERFORMANCE TABLE Club

PTS

TT score

Darren Ferguson

Peterborough United

181

139

Gus Poyet

Brighton & HA

118

218

128

Nigel Adkins

Southampton

100

198

124

Russell Slade

Leyton Orient

213

118

Carlo Ancelotti

Chelsea

133

111

Sir Alex Ferguson CBE

Manchester United

177

111

John Sheridan

Chesterfield

100

187

110

Arsène Wenger OBE

Arsenal

167

104

Lee Clark

Huddersfield Town

100

198

104

Karl Robinson

Milton Keynes Dons

100

177

104

Eddie Howe

Burnley

100

173

102

Sven-Göran Eriksson

Leicester City

131

101

Jamie Pitman

Hereford United

171

101

Brian McDermott

Reading

159

Lee Bradbury

Bournemouth

108

John Coleman

Accrington Stanley

147

Roberto Mancini

Manchester City

137

Paul Lambert

Norwich City

143

Andy Hessenthaler

Gillingham

161

Brendan Rodgers

Swansea City

142

Pos

Div

Manager

The Castrol LMA Managers’ Performance Table (powered by Prozone) allows managers to test themselves against one another. Points are awarded for wins and draws, with results away from home scoring higher. Points for clean sheets and goals scored accumulate throughout the season, while a team’s winning margin also counts towards the total. POINTS SYSTEM Home win 10 points Goal scored 1 point

Away win 12 points Clean sheet 1 point

Peterborough United’s Darren Ferguson leads a quartet of League One managers at the top of Q3’s Performance Table. Posh have been in freescoring form of late and are hot on the heels of Gus Poyet’s runaway leaders, Brighton & Hove Albion. An excellent run from Nigel Adkin’s Southampton has also seen the south coast club challenge for promotion, while Russell Slade’s Leyton Orient have shot up the table to threaten the play-offs.

Home draw 5 points Away draw 6 points Winning margin per goal 1 point

There is also a factor included in respect of knock-out matches (‘Cup points’), based on the League status of the relevant club. Points are divided by the number of games played. This number is then multiplied by ten – to exclude decimals – producing the final Top Twenty score.

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WP Win points DP Draw points GS Goals scored CS Clean sheets WM Winning margin per goal CP Cup points

Season 2010/11, Quarter Three (up to March 18th 2011)

LMA PEOPLE

— hall of fame dinner —

a night to remember An impressive array of leading managers, past and present, come together to share FA Cup memories

The lma’s annual Hall of Fame Dinner,

sponsored by Barclays, which took place at London’s Park Lane Hilton on November 21st 2010, turned the spotlight on the FA Cup. The evening culminated in a presentation of medals to those managers who had taken teams to the competition’s final before 1997 (prior to which, managers had not received medals). The event also saw Real Madrid manager José Mourinho inducted into the Hall of Fame, with the ‘special one’ making a flying return to London to speak at the event as guest of honour. “The LMA would like to thank the FA and also thank José Mourinho, who added to a truly memorable evening,” said the LMA’s chief executive Richard Bevan.

Guest of honour, José Mourinho

the manager Spring 2011

— hall of fame dinner —

LMA chief executive Richard Bevan

The campaign to persuade the Football Association to present managers with medals was largely led by LMA vice president Lawrie McMenemy MBE (above, being presented with his own medal) who won the FA Cup with Southampton in 1976. “I wrote to the FA asking them why and was told it was an occasion for the players,” said McMenemy. “I replied, if that was the case why did the match officials receive medals? I was delighted when the FA agreed to give medals to managers from 1996 and now I’m equally delighted.”

the manager Spring 2011

LMA PEOPLE

Hall of Fame Ron Greenwood CBE

in association with

The Manager looks back at the career of a man who left an indelible mark on his club and restored stability to the national team Some MANAGERS have such a powerful effect on their club that their presence lingers long after they’ve departed. It’s impossible to think of Nottingham Forest without picturing Brian Clough, Spurs fans find it hard to go half an hour without mentioning Bill Nicholson and when the Liverpool supporters decided to rise up against the club’s former owners, they congregated under the ‘Spirit of Shankly’ banner. For West Ham United, the manager who looms larger than any other is Ron Greenwood. He may not have enjoyed the same level of success (or generated an equal amount of column inches) as those mentioned above, but Greenwood forged the Hammers’ reputation as a breeding ground for international talent (the club earned its enduring ‘Academy of Football’ nickname during Greenwood’s reign), a reputation that endures to this day. A stylish centre-half, Greenwood picked up a League Champions medal with Chelsea in the 1954-55 season. Even during his playing days, though, Greenwood was already planning for a career in coaching and had earned all of the necessary qualifications by the time he hung up his boots. Like many people involved with English football in the 1950s, Greenwood had been

deeply affected by seeing England thrashed by Hungary at Wembley in 1953. Unlike most, however, he used the experience as a positive. “I knew then for sure that football was a combination of thought and intelligence, and fun and concentration, and vim and vigour, and everything, if you like, even art if you want to call it that,” he said after that fateful game. From the very beginning of his own coaching career, Greenwood

Greenwood clearly made an impression in his Highbury days, for when West Ham found themselves looking for a replacement for Ted Fenton in 1961, they raised a few eyebrows by appointing the then littleknown Arsenal coach. This, however, turned out to be an inspired choice, as Greenwood’s innovative thinking was exactly what the East End club needed to take them from gifted also-rans to

“I cared more about the purity and finer values of football than I did about winning for winning’s sake – and if that is a sin, then I am a sinner” Ron Greenwood

tried to instill something of the Hungarians’ attacking flair in his own teams. After spells coaching at Oxford University and Walthamstow Avenue – while also working with England’s youth and U23 sides – Greenwood took up his first management role in 1958 when he took charge at Eastbourne United. Just a year later, he took his first step into the top flight when he was appointed assistant manager to George Swindin at Arsenal.

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a team that could compete at the highest level in Europe. Within his first five years at West Ham, the club won the FA Cup for the first time (in 1964, beating Preston in the final) and also its only European silverware to date in the form of the 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup (beating 1860 Munich in the final). Greenwood’s West Ham also provided the backbone of the England team that lifted the World Cup in 1966, in the shape of Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore.

RON GREENWOOD FACT FILE

Although Greenwood had been considered for the England manager’s position when Sir Alf Ramsey resigned in 1973, the job had gone to the Leeds United manager, Don Revie. When Revie left the job in December 1977, Greenwood’s turn finally came. Although Greenwood’s time in charge of the national side is not remembered as a great success, it should be taken in the context of the situation that he inherited. When Greenwood was appointed, England hadn’t qualified for a major championship since the 1970 World Cup. He immediately rectified this situation, taking

his team to the European Championship finals in Italy in 1980 and then to the World Cup finals in Spain in 1982. Although England made it through the 1982 tournament unbeaten, a 0-0 draw against the host nation in their final game saw Greenwood’s team eliminated and he retired from the job soon afterwards. Although he said the England job would be his last in football, he did serve for a short time as a director of his local club, Brighton & Hove Albion. Ron Greenwood died on February 9th 2006, aged 84.

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Born: Burnley, November 11th 1921 Playing career: Centre-half. Bradford Park Avenue (1945-1949); Brentford (1949-1952); Chelsea (1952-1955); Fulham (1955); England B (1 cap) Honours and achievements: First Division (1955) Managerial career: West Ham United (1961-1974); England (1977-1982) Honours and achievements: FA Cup (1964); European Cup Winners’ Cup (1965); awarded CBE (1981); inducted into English Hall of Fame (2006)

LMA PEOPLE

— Profile —

Spa for the course

With a world-class spa facility, there’s more to St Andrews than just golf Mention St Andrews and the first thing that will come to mind is usually golf – and with good reason, as the small Scottish town is, without question, that sport’s spiritual home. The area does, however, have more to offer, as Victoria MacLeod (below), manager of the Kohler Waters Spa at St Andrews’ Old Course Hotel, is quick to point out. “St Andrews’ courses are exceptional,” she says, “but there are so many other things to do within the resort other than play golf.” Following its acquisition by the Wisconsinbased Kohler Co. in October 2004, the Old Course Hotel underwent an extensive refurbishment and reopened in March 2006, complete with a worldclass spa facility featuring a 20-metre swimming pool, relaxation area, rooftop hot tub, Japanese steam room, sauna, plunge pool and 11 luxury treatment rooms. The hotel’s Kohler Waters Spa is the first of its kind outside the US and provides a truly worldclass spa experience with the highest levels of personalised care and a range of treatments; some designed chiefly for relaxation, but many offering sporting and performance benefits, too. With this in mind, the spa’s team has built and developed a full training and fitness programme,

which now attracts sports people from around the world, both as individuals and, increasingly, in teams and squads. It will probably come as no surprise that one of the first groups of sportsmen to make use of the Old Course Hotel’s revamped training facilities was the Scottish national rugby squad, but what might raise a few eyebrows is the fact that Barcelona FC have previously used the venue to prepare for the rigours of the La Liga season. Having won a legion of admirers across the world with their unique and exhilarating brand of passing football, Messrs Messi, Iniesta, Busquets et al also made an impression on the staff at both the hotel and spa. “They were gentlemen... a real pleasure to work with,” says MacLeod. “I expected them to be professional, but I was surprised by how genuinely warm and appreciative they were.” But how did Barcelona’s Spanish and South American stars adjust to working in the Scottish climate? “I’m sure they’ve played in far colder places than this,” says MacLeod, “but having said that, I do think that they very much enjoyed the time they spent in our thermal suite.”

the manager spring 2011

www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk

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LMA PEOPLE

— Profile —

new home for nike academy

Nike’s Football Academy moving to Loughborough University from 2011/12 back in the summer of 2009, international

sportswear company Nike set up the Nike Academy, a part-time, pro-level training programme designed to help talented footballers who had somehow slipped through the net of the professional game to fulfil their potential and, hopefully, go on to enjoy a professional career. In the two seasons that have followed, the Academy (an LMA partner) has gone from strength to strength, achieving a string of impressive results in friendly matches against professional opposition (including a 1-0 away victory over a strong Paris Saint Germain team), and even seeing four of its participants leave the programme to sign with professional clubs. One thing that the Academy has not had to date, though, has been a permanent home. That, however, is about to change, with the signing of an agreement with Loughborough University, which will see the Academy housed there from next season onwards. “The Academy has been a huge success right from the off,” explains Adam Gardiner (right), a member of Nike’s UK football team, “but we have always thought that it would benefit greatly from having a solid and well-equipped base to work from. This agreement with Loughborough gives us just that.” Loughborough is home to some of the country’s leading coaches, sports scientists and support staff. It also has the country’s

largest concentration of high-quality training facilities, equipment and support resources. Next year’s intake to the Academy will not only enjoy full-time access to those facilities, they are also likely to find themselves rubbing shoulders on a daily basis with more than 250 international level athletes, many of whom will be members of Team GB, preparing to compete in the 2012 Olympics. “The move to Loughborough will allow us to offer a great deal more to the 22 players who are involved next season,” says Gardiner. “For a start, it will allow us to operate on a full-time basis, which means that we will be able to support all of the squad members on an educational level as well as in footballing terms.” This latter point is important, as Gardiner knows that not all of the Academy’s players will go all the way. “We want them to become professional footballers,” he says, “but if they aren’t able to do that then we want to set them up to ensure that they continue to have a career somewhere in sport.” But while the squad will change and the new location will broaden the range of the Academy’s offering, one thing won’t change – the Academy’s ultimate goal. Gardiner explains: “This move can only help us to achieve the Academy’s long-term ambition, which is to give those players that either have potential and who’ve never been given the opportunity, or players that are late developers, a chance to fulfil their dreams.”

the manager spring 2011

facebook.com/nikeacademy

LMA PEOPLE

— Profile —

Wilson Turns Spokes-man Arsenal goalkeeping legend hits the road for charity challenge

You don’t see many ‘things to do before you’re 70’ lists in magazines, but even if you did it’s unlikely that such a list would include ‘cycle more than 600 miles in less than two weeks’. It’s a good thing, then, that Bob Wilson doesn’t live his life according to magazine lists, as the former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper intends to do exactly that next month. Wilson is undertaking his marathon ride to raise funds for the Willow Foundation, the charity that he and his wife, Megs, founded in 1999 in tribute to their daughter Anna, who died of a rare cancer, aged just 31, in December 1998. The charity organises and funds uplifting and memorable ‘special days’ for seriously ill people aged 16 to 40 throughout the UK. “I wanted to achieve something special this year, not only because it will be my 70th birthday, but also because it’s the 40th anniversary of my biggest season in football, when I won the League and Cup double with Arsenal,” says Wilson. “Combining another big achievement 40 years later with a chance to support so many people living with serious illness means so much to me.” Starting in London on Monday, April 18th, Wilson’s bike ride will include stop-offs at all 20

Barclays Premier League stadiums before finishing in Glasgow at Hampden Park on Saturday, April 30th. Along the way, Wilson plans to meet some of his many friends throughout the game, including former rivals and current club managers. Wilson will not face the road on his own – he’s being supported by a permanent team of two (Steve Cliffen and David Tweddell) and will be joined over the course of the ride by a number of the charity’s celebrity supporters, including two other Arsenal heroes, Lee Dixon and David Seaman. To prepare for what will undoubtedly be a gruelling challenge, Wilson has been in serious training since June last year, completing a minimum of 25 miles per day, five days a week. This punishing regime will come into its own over the course of the expedition as there are three days in the schedule when the team will have to complete 65-mile stretches. As a result of his efforts, Wilson hopes to raise more than £250,000 to fund the charity’s operations. “I know it’s a lot of money,” he says, “but I’m determined to maximise the return on this… after all, it’s not something that I’m likely to do again.”

the manager spring 2011

www.bobwilsonsoccercycle.com

StoppagE

Time

Alex McLeish lifts the Carling Cup, February 27th 2011

Alex McLeish is no stranger to silverware, having won everything available during his time in Scotland. This, however, was the first trophy he’s collected since his move to Birmingham City in 2007. McLeish praised his players’ “titanic efforts”, but it’s clear that his own input was instrumental in Birmingham winning their first major honour since their last League Cup victory, way back in 1963.

the manager Spring 2011

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