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Search: 'Aidy Boothroyd'

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Living On The Volcano

344 VolacanoThe secrets of surviving as a football manager
by Michael Calvin
Century Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Huw Richards
From WSC 344 October 2015

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Football uses managers as defining figures much as old-style history employed monarchs, to the extent of describing often pathetically short periods in office as “reigns”. Michael Calvin’s labelling of this phenomenon “Gaffer as Godhead” typifies an eye for the neat, aphoristic turn of phrase. He sees Roberto Martínez as “an undercover pragmatist” and identifies Ian Holloway as a “man of contradiction and impulse”. Such one-liners stud a book built on long interviews with its subjects, among which Holloway’s stream of consciousness stands out along with a sympathetic account of Alan Irvine’s travails and an intriguing portrait of Paul Tisdale.

Anyone wanting the long view of football management still needs to read Neil Carter’s historical study (The Football Manager, published in 2006). But as a picture of how it is now, this will be hard to beat. Those seeking the “how to” guide implied in the subtitle will find plenty of ideas, but must look hard since they are located within the wealth of insight and anecdote throughout the interviews rather than any grand overarching exposition. “Survival” implies retaining health, sanity and self-respect, rather than avoiding the all-but inevitable sack, although on either count your chances are better at Swansea, Exeter or Everton than QPR or Leeds.

This is a job which demands unshakeable self-confidence, but at the same time is designed to erode and ultimately destroy it. The toll it can take is shown at its most extreme by Martin Ling’s description of depression and electro-convulsive therapy, but there is plenty of testimony elsewhere, such as Brian McDermott’s belief that: “There are a lot of depressed people in football, but they probably do not even know it, because they are conditioned by the game.”

Calvin’s questioning evokes a sense of men who are confident and reflective, with credentials and hinterlands beyond their coaching badges. Some, such as Brendan Rodgers, are adepts in neuro-linguistic programming (no, me neither before I read this book), while Chris Hughton did a corporate management course and many have benefited from the League Managers Association’s training.

Aidy Boothroyd may still periodically punch a wall at half time, but sensitivity has replaced rage as a default setting. It is not just innate decency that explains Eddie Howe’s practice of “being a shoulder” for players, but that it “can only help you”.

They are also supportive of each other. Rodgers and Alan Pardew in particular emerge as willing to assist others, while Pardew also generates the best piece of trivia with his pride, from his past as a glazier, at having installed windows on the Natwest Tower and Sea Containers House.

Calvin is no soft touch, but the overwhelming impression he conveys is a sympathetic one – of largely decent, if driven men working in a world where, as Mick McCarthy says, “common sense is not very common”. The problem is not the managers, but the people who appoint them and the hysterical atmosphere in which they must try to function.

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Stuck on repeat

Neville Hadsley explains what it is like to be stuck following a team to whom very little has happened for over four decades

Many football fans love this time of year. The season has not yet begun and anything is possible. The start of the campaign cannot come soon enough. As a Sky Blues fan of four decades all I feel is the onset of mild resignation. Experience tells Coventry City supporters  that, in all likelihood, our dreams will be squashed by Christmas and all Santa will bring are the annual recriminations and the knowledge that all that lies ahead is six months of treading water until the whole thing starts over again.

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Letters, WSC 281

Dear WSC
Simon Goodley’s excellent piece about Notts County (WSC 280) sums up the feelings of many long-standing Notts fans. Following the so-called takeover of the club by the Munto charlatans, the Notts fanbase was taken over by arrogant, intolerant glory hunters. Simon refers to the abuse heaped on the doubters on the internet, I know of two people who were physically attacked for the sin of professing to be less than wholly enthusiastic about the riches supposedly bestowed on us. Many supporters actually turned their back on the club, as a friend of mine said: “This is not the club I have followed for 30 years.” Getting promoted was in many ways the worst thing that could have happened as we may have to put up with these interlopers for a bit longer. Like Simon, I and many others I know actually hoped the team we support would lose matches so that it could regain the soul and good humour that attracted us to it in the first place. Here’s to a long winless run and relegation scrap – let’s see how many of the glory hunters remain then.
Tony Meakin, Nottingham

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Will You Manage?

The Necessary Skills To Be A Great Gaffer
by Musa Okwonga
Serpent's Tail, £9.99
Reviewed by Pete Green
From WSC 284 October 2010

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We've all questioned whether football management is really the arcane practice it's made out to be. And we know those simulations, however "authentic" they become, must be a million miles from reality. But there isn't a Football Manager addict alive who hasn't indulged themselves just a little by wondering idly, as they've steered Huddersfield Town to a ninth consecutive Champions League title, whether they could be the new Clough or Shankly given a pop at the real thing.

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Revenge tactics

When the opening day of the 2010 League One season paired newly-relegated Norwich with local rivals Colchester, few would have predicted the scoreline or the season-long feud that followed. Paul Buller documents events in East Anglia

Norwich City and Colchester Utd fans rarely have anything more in common than flat landscapes and a mutual distaste for Ipswich Town. Following Norwich’s relegation to League One, however, two matches, 13 goals, two new managers, accusations of skullduggery and even a demand for an unprecedented points deduction finds both clubs inextricably linked – whether they like it or not.

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