Managers: The New Breed

On Wednesday Keith Hill, the Rochdale manager, was appointed manager of Barnsley after four and half years with the Greater Manchester club. It seems to me that this represents a changing trend in managerial appointments. For quite some time now there have been a number of young British managers finding niches in the Football League and below as smaller sides have been willing, not so much to take the cheap option  but, to give keen aging veterans the chance to take over and establish themselves or promising coaches usually involved in the youth set up the opportunity. This season the next stage has begun to take hold as these managers are now being headhunted by the big(er) boys. The examples of this are Hill (obviously), Nigel Adkins (Scunthorpe to Southampton), Eddie Howe (Bournemouth to Burnley), Paul Buckle (Torquay to Bristol Rovers) and Alan Knill (Bury to Scunthorpe). I would add to this list Nigel Clough who made the jump from Conference side Burton – where he had spent a decade honing his skills – to Championship Derby County, Paul Tisdale of course who after setting up and winning four promotions with Team Bath in seven years moved to Exeter, Roberto Martinez (Swansea to Wigan), Mark Cooper (Tamworth to Kettering to Peterborough, this didn’t work, and he has moved to Darlington). This leaves those who have not moved, John Coleman (Accrington), Karl Robinson (MK Dons), Terry Skiverton (Yeovil) Graham Westley (Stevenage) and there are others.

These managers are for me the future. There is a surprising amount of loyalty bed into their thinking, each have their own styles and successes. Whats really interesting is the calibre of clubs that these guys have rejected in favour of continuing their work and development of their current club. Not from lack of ambition but from a realisation that their job is secure, that they can develop, that there is no rush in their fledgling careers and a desire to achieve all they can for the club that has given them this chance. In the nineties, so it seemed to me, we began to see young players (Owen, Rooney to name two) get a genuine chance over their more experienced but less talented colleagues. A trend that was in some ways started by Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United success despite the tag line ‘you’ll never win anything with kids’. This has over the last decade transferred into management. No longer are clubs looking for the quick fix or the big name or the foreign manager they are looking for genuine long term solutions and supporting emerging talent. However, this is not universal for instance people keep employing Peter Taylor much to my amusement. Swindon have panicked into appointing Paul Hart (he was not that good at Rushden then was the cheap internal option for Portsmouth where he was also poor in difficult circumstances maybe) and now have appointed Paulo Di Canio which strikes me as a failure waiting to happen.  The Premiership is still mostly out of the loop although Martinez at Wigan is the obvious exception and Owen Coyle who managed to wonders at Burnley got a justly deserved move to Bolton and has continued to be successful.

These managers all have certain traits in common, loyalty, youth development, intelligence, flexibility, a desire to succeed, a thirst for learning and development usually of their players, coaches and themselves, they want to achieve as much as they can with their club and leave a legacy, they don’t go at the first wave of cash but think things through take their time and only make the move when its the right one for them and often the club. It is my belief that these managers are the future of English football and it is only a matter of time before they start making inroads into the Premier League and given a few years might be the final answer to the England problem.