Great Britain..great manager?

[Dazz19]

In the beginning

I knew it would be hard. An un-tested, inexperienced manager is always going to have a hard time finding a managerial position, especially as I'd only just acquired my final coaching badges.

Unlike a lot of new managers and coaches I was prepared to start right at the very bottom and work my way up to the top. The only restriction I'd placed on myself was that I'd stay within Great Britain. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales would be my managerial playground.

Upon entering the job market there were only four teams looking for managers. In England Bury were looking for a new boss, while in Northern Ireland Donegal Celtic in the Premier, Glebe in Division one and Ballymoney in Division two were seeking new managers. Naturally I applied for all four, sat back and waited.

Unsurprisingly, Bury thanked me for my interest, but chose a more experienced manager. I was having more luck in Northern Ireland though, with all three clubs offering me the position. I asked all three if I could have a week to think things through and they all agreed. I wasn't being picky about where I went I still wanted to make sure it was the right move and while I have always had a soft spot for the Emerald Isle and the idea of managing there was very appealing, none of the sides could offer me a transfer budget and when it came to wages, two had reached their wage limit while one was over.

After a week of deliberation, I made my choice. I was heading for Glebe in the Northern Irish Second Division. There was no transfer budget and only a pound left for wages but it seemed the best option. Ballymoney were over spending on wages so I'd have to ship players out before I could do anything else and I didn't feel I was ready for management in the top division just yet, so that ruled out Donegal. Glebe offered me an initial one year, part time contract at £425 a week, I managed to negotiate to two years and after dotting the I's and crossing the T's I had my first management job in football!

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I received a warmer than expected welcome in the local press. I didn't think a rookie manager would be deserving of such a welcome, until it was pointed out to me that Ballymoney are Glebe's biggest rivals and when it was leaked that I'd turned them down to join Glebe I'd instantly won the fans over.

And so it was I ended up in charge of Glebe, an IFA First Division side with modest expectations. Don't get relegated and reasonable progress in the cups. It seemed like an ideal place to cut my managerial teeth. Hopefully I could make a good go of it.

 

[Dazz19]

August


It turns out this was going to be trickier than I expected. I'd been dropped in just five days before the season began. I made the most of those five brief days, casting out three players and bringing in two. One to cover the right side of midfield and one to cover the left back position where we had a grand total of one player capable of playing.

Banbridge 0-0 Glebe
A clean sheet in our first game, can't complain about that. What I could complain about was that we dominated the game, firing in 14 shots, but only one managed to end up on target. No wonder we were tipped to go down.

Ballymena United 2-0 Glebe (a.e.t) - Co. Antrim Shield 1st round
A narrow defeat to better opposition in extra time. We put in a good performance for the 90 minutes, but unfortunately their better fitness levels saw them through. The lack of goals from us is starting to get worrying though.

Glebe 0-1 Ballymena United reserves - Steel and Sons Cup
For the third game in a row we failed to score and we've been knocked out of another cup. I'm ashamed to admit lost my rag with my goal shy team. We hit the woodwork three times, but that's not good enough. Unfortunately my search for another striker wasn't bearing fruit.

Glebe 1-1 Ballinamallard
Well, we finally scored our first goal of the season. Unfortunately we conceded three minutes later. Still, we're undefeated in the league, so that's something I guess.

So my first month in charge has ended. We're sitting ninth in the table after two games, but we're out of two cup competitions and the goals for column is looking very anemic with just one goal scored in four games. On the upside we've only conceded four goals in those four games.

The end of the month brought a potential solution to the scoring crisis with the signings of 18 year old Irish forward Ethan Mannion and 22 year old Bulgarian forward Ivaylo Dimitrov. Both came in on frees and both agreed to play on pay as you play deals.

 

[Dazz19]

September

It seems that although we're tipped for relegation by 'experts' fellow managers disagree as a number have come out and declared that they think we have enough to keep our heads above water. Our successful negotiation of the League Cup saw us rewarded with an away tie to Premier League opposition Coleraine and we also saw the first Glebe player named in the team of the week.
H&W Welders 1-0 Glebe
A first minute goal cost us this game. That and some slightly biased referee that saw us pick up three bookings, but only one free kick compared to the home sides no bookings and eight free kicks, despite two of our players going off injured thanks to heavy tackles, one of which was Ethan Mannion, who was injured just 27 minutes into his debut and well be out for at least six weeks.

Glebe 2-0 Limavady Utd
OG
Mudd

We've done it! We've finally won a game. An early own goal gave us the advantage and a second in injury time sealed it, but to be honest, we never looked like losing. The question is, can we kick on from here?

Chimney Corner 1-1 Glebe (Glebe win 3-1 on pens) League Cup
Dimitrov

Finally we've progressed in a cup competition, and we did it the hard way. Dimitrov's first goal for the club salvaged the draw and we ended up holding our nerve better during the shoot out. The biggest issue is that, yet again, we're firing in plenty of shots, but none are hitting the target.

Loughgall 3-0 Glebe
Our worst performance since I took over. At 0-0 after the first 45 I was confident, but some appalling decisions from the officials robbed us. We had two clear cut penalties turned down, one at 0-0 and one at 1-0 only to see Loughgall awarded one to make it 2-0. I let the officials have it in the press conference afterwards, the IFA have kept strangely silent after the replays showed I was correct on all three accounts.


By the end of the month we were still in 9th. We were the proud owners of the third best defence in the league, conceeding just five goals, however we also had the worst attack, registering just three goals in the same period.

 

[Dazz19]

October

October turned out to be a shockingly bad month for the club as we picked up just one win in five games. Not only that, the inability to hit the target is starting to get incredibly worrying and no amount of training seems to be solving the problem. Just to rub it in Ethan Mannion pulled up in training with a hamstring injury and will be out for another six weeks.

Glebe 0-4 Newry
Despite losing 4-0 we didn't play as bad as the result suggested. The first goal was an own goal that cannoned back off the crossbar and back onto our keeper, the third was offside and the fourth was another own goal. We also finished the game with ten men.

Larne 1-2 Glebe
Mannion
McComb

Mannion scored on his return for injury and McComb banged in a 25 yard free kick to help us onto victory. This was the only bright point in the whole month though

Coleraine 2-0 Glebe League Cup 3rd Round
And another cup competition has gone. At least this time it was to a team from the division above. The downside was that we didn't really put up much of a fight.

Glebe 2-2 Bangor
Moody
Elder

On the face of it, a good result. It wasn't. We were 2-0 up after 14 minutes, but then failed to register another shot on target for the rest of the game and were lucky not to lose after Bangor had a strong claim for a penalty turned down and a goal disallowed

Glebe 0-0 Tobermore Tobermore win 3-4 on pens Intermediate Cup 2nd round
Yet another game where we have failed to realise the aim of the game is to put the ball in the back of the net. 14 times we took aim at the goal, only once was the keeper forced to make a save. With confidence low, we bottled it in the shoot out.


By the end of October we'd slipped to 11th in the league and out of every cup we've entered. The first piece of silverware for Glebe and myself was looking a long way away. On the plus side, I was linked with the vacant Cambridge United job, but there was no official approach.

 

[Dazz19]

November

November only saw three games and some strides forward in terms of the team improving. A new formation yielded a couple of draws and the forwards are slowly starting to realise the ball goes between the sticks at each end of the pitch. On the downside, we set a new record for games without a win, at the end of the month it stood at six.

Tobermore 4-0 Glebe
What a shocking performance. After playing so well in the last match, we didn't even turn up against the same opposition. There's not really any more to say about this one.

Glebe 1-1 Dergview
A half decent performance against the side fourth in the league. The equalising goal was an own goal, but we put the opposition under enough pressure that we were able to force it. Still lacking in the shots on target department, but the signs in training are promising at least and the new 4-2-3-1 formation seemed to work well.

Warrenpoint 0-0 Glebe
A game we dominated and only our fourth clean sheet this season. The performance was much improved and we dominated the game and had it not been for hitting the woodwork three times and a blatant penalty being turned down we might have nicked the win.

 

[Dazz19]

December

Glebe 2-0 Institute
Ferry
Ewart

A quite frankly amazing win. Institute were sitting fourth at the start of the game while we hadn't won a game in six. The team that ran out today wasn't the same one that had played most of the season. They passed well, tackled well and hit the target, hopefully this isn't a one off.

Glebe 4-2 Orangefield - Irish Cup 3rd round
Mannion 2
Daniel
Mudd

Two wins in a row for the first time this season. Yes, it was against non league opposition and we had to come from behind to do it, but we won and even had the luxury of missing a penalty. Although it was a game we were expected to win, the victory will do wonders for morale.

Glebe 1-3 Ards
McCallum
The scoreline didn't really reflect the game. We dominated the first half, only to switch off at a corner. We made it 1-1 straight after half time and at that point things got a little nasty. The longer the score stayed 1-1 the harder the tackles were until we lost two of our back line through injury and Ards stole the win.

Glebe 0-1 Banbridge
It seems our luck is definitely out at the moment. Three Banbridge players were booked early on and all three of them received at least two more warnings through the game. Would we have won if they were down to ten men? Possibly. We need to start picking up results quickly though.

Ballinamallard 1-0 Glebe
Maybe our luck is in. We should have lost by a lot more than this. We were completely out played so I can't complain. This was by far our worst performance for a couple of months now. Still, new year is just around the corner, hopefully it'll mean a new start.

So, by the end of the year we were sitting 13th, in the relegation zone, two points adrift of safety. I knew this wouldn't be easy, but it was proving harder than I thought. Am I cut out for football management?

 

[Dazz19]

January

And I'm job hunting again. It turns out the board were less patient than they were letting on and after a draw and los in the next two games I was thanked for my time at the club and asked to clear my desk.

It was a sharp learning curve working at Glebe and it has given me a stark wake up call as to the daily stresses of running a club. Still, it hasn't deterred me and I'll diving straight back in and looking for a club again.

 

[Dazz19]

February to May

This was turning out to be harder than I thought. The Glebe job had been offered to me pretty quickly and I'd naively assumed that I'd find a new job just as quickly. Since being let go from Glebe I'd been linked with a number of sides in England and Northern Ireland and one in Scotland but I'd had no offers.

My application to take over at Glenavon had been met with interest but ultimately turned down and while Altrincham had publicly said they were flattered by my interest in them, that too ended up being a dead end. Undeterred I kept the applications going in, making my interest know to the chairman of Carrick, also in Northern Ireland, while at the same time I had again been linked to both Burton Albion and Stockport. Yet again, I was unsuccessful at Carrick, despite them being 'flattered by my interest'.

So, its now the middle of May and I'm still on the unemployed list. With the season finished in England and Scotland a few teams had decided to part company with their managers and go for a fresh start and so it was I ended up applying for six English vacancies and two Scottish. I was getting desperate.

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Finally, after the disaster at Glebe, someone was willing to take a chance on me. Southport had offered me a one year contract on £500 a week. Again, being in the Blue Square Premier, I was starting at the bottom. Hopefully I would have more success here than at Glebe.

 

[Dazz19]

Pre-Season

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the set up at Southport. The ground and training facilities were better than they thought they would be and the squad seemed a decent bunch of lads. There were one or two players who stood out as being the ones to watch in the side, there were also one or two who looked like they were there just to make up the numbers. The only aspect I wasn't too sure about was the coaching team.

The first task I was given was to reduce the wage bill. I would need to trim £700 just to get us back on a level base. I managed that and then some, leaving myself £1,700 to put towards new players. This wasn't just a random cull either, I'd been careful abut not leaving the side short anywhere on the pitch.

I let the current coach, scout and physio run out their contracts and brought in, in my opinion, people who were better in each of these roles for significantly less money. In terms of the playing staff, no fewer than 14 were either let go, or refused to sign new contracts, this left me with the aforementioned wage budget as well as a £4,000 transfer budget.

Unlike my tenure at Glebe where I was a bit too keen to bring in fresh faces, this time I thought it through. I acquired Conor Grogan and David Greig on frees from Killymoon and Warrenpoint, both are players I'd admired while I was in Northern Ireland. Next came Lewis Davenport, a versatile wide man from Afan Lido in Wales, again on a free as well as bringing in Alassane N'Diaye from Barnet to add some steel to midfield. I also took advantage of our link with Burnley and persuaded them to let two youngsters, Wes Fletcher and Steven Hewitt, to join us on a season loan. The final signing was something of a coup and saw an increase in merchandise sales, at 41 some may think he's too old, but I was confident the free signing of Jari Litmanen would be a boost to the club.

We had some decent run outs in our friendlies, picking up wins against Wigan reserves, Darlington and Guiseley and narrow defeats to Rochdale and Stevenage. The only bad result was a 3-0 reverse at Fleetwood.

 

[Dazz19]

August

And so, my second season in football management began in the slightly more familiar surroundings of the Blue Square Bet Premier. I felt more relaxed after my adventure in Glebe, that was partly down to being in England and partly down to having more of an idea what to expect.

Southport 1-0 Newport County
Fletcher

I was pretty pleased with the lads. I started with all three loan signings, as well as both lads from Northern Ireland and I was impressed at how well they played together with five new faces in the side. It looked for a long time that we would huff and puff and get nothing from the game, but Fletcher popped up on his debut to ****** the points in the last minute.

Gateshead 2-2 Southport
Greig
Fletcher

My first televised game as a manager, and it was a corker. We took the lead early on through Greig, only to head in at half time 2-1 down. We were lucky not to fall further behind when Gateshead had a perfectly good goal ruled out, we rubbed salt into the wound two minutes later as Fletcher nipped in to get his second in two games and grab a share of the points.

Southport 0-1 Eastleigh
We started slowly and were one down after just five minutes. We picked up the pace and dominated the rest of the game, hitting the woodwork four times. Somehow Eastleigh held on for the win and our fans left disappointed and puzzled as to how we came away with nothing.

Braintree 0-0 Southport
Scoreline says it all really. A dull game, both sides were more worried about not losing than anything else. Still, a point away from home is still pretty good and five points from the first four games wasn't a bad haul.

 

[Dazz19]

September

Wow. I'd forgotten how busy the schedules of Non League sides in England can be. After the relatively relaxed three or four games a month in Northern Ireland, September saw us play a massive seven games but taking just seven points. Personally I was hoping to reach double figures, but we're improving with each game so that's something.

Southport 2-3 Stockport
Whalley
Fletcher

A topsy turvey one this one. We took the lead only to ship three goals in 20 minutes. One was a belter, two were goal keeping errors. We put up a brave fight, but ultimately came up just short against the promotion favourites.

Salisbury 2-3 Southport
Hewitt
Greig
Akrigg

Another absolute belter of a game. We were 2-0 up at half time, Hewitt's goal actually coming second in the goal of the month competition and two minutes after the restart made it 3-0 only for yet another error from our keeper to let Salisbury back in. We hung on though and picked up a vital win.

Southport 1-2 Barrow
Davis

It looked good for us, scoring after just 57 seconds. From there on we were battered. Barrow pulled level just into the second half before yet another goal keeping error let the nick the points in the last minute.

It was the final straw and I worked fast to bring in a new keeper. Two days later I was able to pull another rabbit out of the hat and announce the signing of Andy Marshall.

Southport 1-1 Forest Green
Davenport

We were robbed. There's no other way to describe it. We went 1-0 up mid way through the first half. We thought it was 2-0 after a mix up at a corner saw one of the Forest Green defenders put the ball in his own net only for the linesman to give it offside! Then to really rub it in, in injury time the same linesman signaled for a penalty. We still have no idea what for.

Kidderminster 3-1 Southport
Akrigg

We were poor. We lost two players to heavy tackles that went unpunished, but that doesn't hide the fact that we didn't turn up and were lucky to get the one goal. The biggest plus point is Akrigg is starting to look incredibly dangerous from set pieces.

Grimsby 3-1 Southport
Davenport

We had Marshall to thank for keeping the scoreline down. Again there was some definite home bias going on with some of the tackles flying in, but for the second game in a row we just didn't compete. Yes, the third goal was offside, but 3-1 flatters us

Southport 2-0 AFC Telford
Fletcher 2

Finally, we played to the best of our ability and ended the month on a high. At no point in the game did Telford pose a threat and it was only a case of how many we would score. In the end it was only two, but the second of Fletcher's goals won him the goal of the month prize.