Living on the volcano : the secrets of surviving as a football manager

278 Pages·2016·1.51 MB·English

by  Calvin

Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Michael Calvin
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Arsène Wenger
1. Intolerance of Uncertainty
2. From King to Clown
3. Alive and Kicking
4. Out
5. Ollie’s Flying Circus
6. The Helicopter View
7. The Case for the Defence
8. A Self-made Man
9. Wear the Crown
10. The Lollipop Man
11. The Making of a Manager
12. Walking the Job
13. The Fallacy of Failure
14. No Blacks, No Irish
15. Daddy Day Care
16. Seeing Through the Noise
17. Back for Good
18. Hungry Like a Wolf
19. The Revolution Will Be Televised
20. View from the Boundary
21. From Darkness into Light
Index
Copyright
About the Book
This is a book about football managers, live and uncut. The average lifespan of a
manager in the Championship is eight months. New records for volatility are set
every season.
What makes these men tick? They are familiar figures, who rarely offer anything
more than a glimpse into their personal and professional lives. Who are they?
What shapes them? How and why do they do their job? Award-winning writer
Michael Calvin provides the answers.
About the Author
Michael Calvin is one of the UK’s most versatile sports writers, having worked
in more than eighty countries, covering seven summer Olympics and six World
Cup finals. He was named Sports Writer of the Year for his despatches as a crew
member in a round-the-world yacht race, and has twice been named Sports
Reporter of the Year. He is currently chief sports writer with the Independent on
Sunday, and has held similar positions at the Daily Telegraph, The Times and the
Mail on Sunday. His last book, The Nowhere Men, won The Times British
Sports Book of the Year award in 2014.
Also by Michael Calvin
Family: Life, Death and Football
Life’s a Pitch
Only Wind and Water
The Nowhere Men
Proud: My Autobiography (with Gareth Thomas)
Living on the Volcano
Michael Calvin
For Mum and Marielli. Golden links in the chain.
Acknowledgements
Gareth Ainsworth was the last to leave the training ground, as usual. It had been
a sunny day, and he walked me through the ground-floor gymnasium to a fire
exit which led to the car park. There, in the far corner, was a vintage Ford
Mustang, a vivid orange fashion statement from the sixties. It gleamed defiantly,
and took me back to my childhood, when my friend Tony Wilson’s father, John,
had a similar model, dark blue. Its lines were sleek and its noise was seductive.
We used to cram into the back seat and travel to the Northamptonshire village of
Brafield to watch stock car racing.
Ainsworth shared my reverie. ‘That car is my pride and joy,’ he confessed. ‘I
saw the sun this morning and had to get it out of the garage. That’s the rock ’n’
roll in me I guess. I’ve still got a bit of the wild thing left in me …’
Such an apparently inconsequential exchange captured the mood of many of
the conversations I had during the research for this book. Football managers are
categorised by the profundity of their pronouncements. They endure character
assassination, casual dismissal and crass judgements.
They are rarely allowed to be themselves. I thank every manager featured in
these pages for the privilege of their candour and the authenticity of their
responses. Since they inhabit a small, overheated world, news of what I was up
to spread. Each was interested in my perception of their peers; curiosity merged
with rivalry.
They were amazingly generous with their most precious luxury, their time. A
phrase from the ancient Chinese poet and philosopher Lao Tzu – ‘Leadership is
the ability to hide your panic from others’ – often filtered through my brain. The
pressure under which they work was tangible and, at times, terrifying.
I am hugely flattered and eternally grateful that Arsène Wenger should
contribute a foreword to this book. He is the last of his type, a dynastic manager
whose belief in winning being a consequence of excellence, rather than its
solitary justification, is wonderfully counter-intuitive in an age in which idealists
are no longer accepted at face value.
He has his moments, when he is consumed by the strength of his feelings, but
I have come to regard him as football’s equivalent of a favourite teacher, who
moulds lives and shapes personalities by his passion for his subject, the breadth
of his knowledge, and the subtlety of his communication skills. Is it really so
wrong to promote, pursue and protect a principle? I think not.
My thanks must go, first and foremost, to Dan Tolhurst, Arsenal’s Head of
Football Media Operations. Dan has been at the club almost as long as Arsène,
and his reputation for proactivity is rightly renowned. I’ve been fortunate to
work with some of the best club media staff in the business.
Special thanks, in strictly alphabetical order, to Ben Campbell (MK Dons),
Richard Dorman (Exeter City), Max Fitzgerald (Bournemouth), Colin Gibson
(Derby County), Jim Lucas (Southampton), Matt McCann (Liverpool), Fraser
Nicholson (Stoke City), Mark Rowan (Everton), Ralph Shepherd (Notts
County), John Simpson (WBA), Deano Standing (Millwall) and Jonathan
Wilsher (Swansea City).
I’ve been struck, during the process of writing the book, by the breadth and
sensitivity of the support system operated by the League Managers Association
in what is such a splintered, insecure profession. Thanks, especially, to Richard
Bevan, Sarah Collins, Alison Betson and Dr Sue Bridgewater for giving context
to my research.
You would not be reading this without the faith and professionalism of Ben
Dunn and his team at Century, which includes Ajda Vucicevic, Natalie Higgins
and Philippa Cotton. I thank them for their encouragement and support. The
working relationship we established on my previous book, The Nowhere Men,
has incalculable value. Thanks, also, to my literary agent, Paul Moreton, for his
guidance.
There really should be an additional name on the front cover. Caroline Flatley
is, spiritually at least, my co-author. Her transcription of the endless hours of
interviews was a miracle of patience and precision; all told they totalled nearly
350,000 words. She is an acute judge of character, despite the aberration of
putting up with me, and her observations on individual managers helped focus
my thoughts.
Life at home, with an expanding family that includes Marielli, my first
grandchild, is unremittingly hectic. Consequently, I made a pragmatic retreat to
the village of Hartington, in the Derbyshire Peak District, to write. Thanks very
much to Kate and Rob Tenty for the use of their cottage, and their directions to
the local pub, the Devonshire Arms.
As usual I must offer thanks and apologies, in equal measure, to my wife,
Lynn, my children, Nicholas, Aaron, William and Lydia, and their partners,