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It started with a horse. SKA Runner, 15.10 at Newmarket. “Yea, 15 big ones Yuri”, I said nervously to my back-street bookmaker.

Yuri was a hardened survivor of Communist Russia, a man whose reliance on chain-smoking, narcotics and alcohol had aged him considerably beyond his 42 years. “You sure friend?” Yuri queried, cocking one eyebrow. “Let me be clear – my boss has taken a lot of hits on people not paying recently. It’s tough for him…though it keeps me busy” – he smiled a toothy grin and rested his hand on an iron bar lying in front of his books. “If you can’t afford these monies, you can pull out now if you wish…”

“I can pay Yuri – put me down for £15,000 on SKA Runner, 15.10 at Newmarket”. Of course I was lying. £15,000 was a lot of money for a 25 year old failed footballer. However, this was a sure thing…right? “You’re the boss”, Yuri smiled, and noted down my wager in his books.

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After a three day vodka-fuelled drinking binge, I was awoken by my phone ringing. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled across the lounge to the vibrating handset and slid my finger across the screen to answer the private number. “Aah, friend!” chirped the Russian accented voice at the other end. “It’s Yuri here – it’s been three days since the race and you’ve not been to see me?”

Fourth. SKA Runner finished fourth, possibly weighed down by my £15k riding on top of it. I muttered some excuse to Yuri but he ignored it. “Look friend, I like you, so I have a proposal – pack yourself a suitcase and meet me in Moscow, I have flights booked for you.”

I had nothing to win and everything to lose so I packed a suitcase and headed for Belfast International Airport. After a connecting flight from London, I made it into Moscow in the early hours. Yuri, as promised, met me at arrivals. “Hurry my friend, we have another flight to get!” Tired and hungry, I couldn’t muster the energy to ask questions and followed Yuri back through to departures.

After getting through security we sat on the seats situated at our gate. I was shattered but Yuri was chattering constantly about my “career” in football and how I’d started my coaching badges. After 10 minutes or so I finally had the presence of mind to check the English section of my ticket to see where we were flying to now. “Yuri – where is **** is Kha-bar-o-vsk?” I struggled through the pronunciation. “Aah Khabarovsk!” Yuri exclaimed, “it is a city in the far east of Russia, close to China. It is where my boss is situated; he wants to ask you a favour”.

“Could he not have asked me on the phone?!” I shouted, irritation, caused by the tiredness, in my voice. Yuri laughed. “No friend, you can’t manage the local football team without being here! He is a big fan of SKA Khabarovsk, the local football team – they are struggling this season and we need someone with a bit of…professionalism to guide them.” I assume Yuri had ignored the stench of stale vodka off my breath when making that last part of his statement. I put my head in my hands “Fine – just let me sleep until we get there”. Managing a football team was certainly a better option than getting an iron bar round the back of the skull.

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The meeting with the boss was short and sweet. In order to pay off my debt I would manage the local football team, SKA Khabarovsk. I would apply for the job and ,with my (limited) experience in football so far, would be a shoe-in for the job. As predicted, SKA chairman Dennis Sergeev offered me my first job in football management.

With the Russian League being a summer one, SKA were half-way through their season when I arrived in mid-July. On top of working with players I knew nothing about, who spoke a language I didn’t speak a word of as well as using a different alphabet, the club was entrenched in a relegation battle from which the owner expected me to be able to pull the club clear of.

SKA Khabarovsk were no sleeping giant. In fact they were no giant, they were just sleeping. Under Soviet rule, they never played in the Soviet Top League nor have they yet to play in the Russian Premier League. In their 58 year existence, their best finishes were 6th​ in the Soviet First League and 5th​ in the Russian First Division along with a quarter-final place in the 1963 Soviet Cup. It seemed I had my work cut out for me, but hopefully long-term expectations were low.

After a brief tour of the decrepit stadium and my office (including a trophy cabinet propped up with four bricks and containing nothing more than dust and spider webs), I retired to the rented apartment that the club had sorted for me for the night. I dreaded the first training session scheduled for the next day, mentally preparing myself for a group of overweight, out-of-sorts players attempting to train with antiquated equipment.

As I was unable to sign players for another fortnight (the window opened on 1st​ August), I concentrated on working with what I had at my disposal. The first training session went surprisingly well with a number of players impressing. Daniel Balan – a 31 year old Romanian right-back – certainly looked the pick of the bunch. On-loan striker Aleksandr Yarkin was the best option going forward and there was a current international in midfield in the form of Moldavian Valeriu Andronic. The rest weren’t bad players but could surely be replaced with better options.

Staff-wise, my only advice (and translation) came in the form of assistant manager Alexey Poddubskiy and coach Ramil Valeev. I’d have to ring round a few contacts in order to boost the numbers – as well as expanding the club’s limited scouting network.

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After the initial training session I sat down with my assistant manager and worked through a tonne of letters and DVDs from agents representing players that could possibly improve the squad come 1st​ August. Russian First Division rules state that only 3 non-Russians are to be in the first XI with at least one Russian under-21 in the match day sixteen. This scuppered my plans of creating a squad of cheap Brazilians, looking for a way into Europe.

Instead, I concentrated on Eastern Europe and we both rang round the various agents in attempt to recruit some serious talent. A proposed change of formation from the standard 4-4-2 to a more modern 4-2-3-1 (and other variations) shepherded our search into looking for holding midfielders, wingers and target men. We were also lacking in the left back, back up goalkeeper and attacking midfield departments.

Sergeev had generously set aside a wage budget of £43k a week – an astronomical figure at this level. With the current squad only eating up £29k a week of this, this left me a very workable budget of £14k a week to attract a few key players to the club. Within days positive replies to our contract offers came flooding back.

The defence was boosted with the signings of Ronald Siklic, Goran Drmic, Jerry Christian Tchuisse and Vladimir Rzhevskiy. Siklic would fill the void at left back while Rzhevskiy would steady a wobbly centre back pairing. Drmic and Tchuisse would, however, battle it out for right back – a position filled by our current best player, Balan. This freed Balan to leave for some much needed transfer funds (and with Tchuisse having a Russian passport, a foreign slot in the team).

Two Russians filled in the central midfield slots – the aging Maxim Demenko and former Borussia Dortmund youngster Vladimir But (now a not-so-sprightly 33). As with Balan, these arrivals allowed Andronic to be offered for transfer to free up wages and a precious foreign-national spot.

These two spots would be taken graciously by two new wingers; Croat Denis Glavina and Slovenian Nejc Kolman. These were the men who would hopefully provide the ammunition for Yarkin and also chip in with goals themselves. The problematic “trequartista” role was also filled by journeyman Rafael Zangionov – who, like Glavina and Kolman, expected to chip in with goals and assists.

After a marathon 47 hours starting at TV screens, emails, YouTube clips Alexey and I exchanged a loud high-five before assembling the squad for my first match in charge.
 
really good start looks like you put in alot of effort
 
Good start. It is nice to have something different as most stories are in one of the big western European countries. :)
 
11.07.2011
Yenisey Krasnoyarsk 0-0 SKA Khabarovsk
Attendance: 5,761
Despite the away match against Yenisey Krasnoyarsk being my first match in charge, it had all the feel of an end of season damp squib.

Most of the players knew that the club had been in advanced talks with potential new signings and as a result, the train-ride to central Siberia was a quiet one. Alexey and I talked tactics, drawing lines and shifting circles about a tactics app on my personal iPad. Despite the lack of quality in the squad we agreed to persist with a 4-2-3-1 formation. Short passing and a counter-attacking style were actively encouraged with a deep-lying playmaker being protected by a ball-winning midfielder.

We arrived in Krasnoyarsk the night before the match and staged brief team meeting, during which Alexey translated my instructions. As with the train journey, the match itself was quiet, drab and consummately beige. A few players certainly impressed – keeper (and captain) Anton Kozorez, centre backs Sergey Nesterenko and Alexey Semenov and stand-in left back Dmitry Kudinov – but no-one could provide the spark to break down a sturdy Yenisey defence with the match ending 0-0.

As the Trans-Siberian express trundled out of the Krasnoyarsk station after the match, I reflected on my first match in charge of SKA. It was a pleasing start – despite the players’ doubts over their own futures with the club, they embraced the new strategies, formation and playing style that I had introduced. We’d enjoyed the majority of possession and had created plenty of chances (though arguably none more than half-chances)

12.08.2011
SKA Khabarovsk 2-0 Gazovik Orenburg
Rzhevskiy (57)
Rzhevskiy – Sent off (61)
Yarkin (90+3)
Attendance: 3,608

The Yenisey match was the last match before the transfer window opened and also preceded a near month-long break in matches. The return to Pervyj Division matches would see me take charge of my first SKA Khabarovsk match at the VI Lenin Stadion.

It would also see home debuts for eight of SKA’s summer signings – Jerry Christian Tchuisse, Vladimir Rzhevskiy, Ronald Siklic, Vladimir But, Maxim Demenko, Nejc Kolman, Denis Glavina and Rafael Zangionov all pulled on the red strip for the first time. Only Kozorez, Nesterenko and Yarkin remained from my first match in charge.

The match itself was an untidy affair with SKA playing, unsurprisingly, like a team of strangers. However, after words of encouragement at half time two new signings linked up to fire SKA into the lead – Vladimir Rzhevskiy looping his header over the goalkeeper from a Denis Glavina corner.

As Gazovik kicked off I cast a glance up towards were the SKA ultras gathered and aimed a fist of determination towards them. There was little to no response – they’d seen many false dawns before and weren’t prepared to be sucked into another one.

The relief I felt coursing through my body was to be short-lived though. Hero Rzhevskiy was caught in two minds over a long ball launched deep from the Gazovik half and, as the ball sailed over him, he turned into Cale, the Gazovik striker about to race past him, tangled with the Brazilian and brought him down. The referee deemed the centre back had a prevented a goal scoring opportunity and issued the obligatory red card. Cries of derision rang round the VI Lenin Stadion as Rzhevskiy trudged off.

I reshuffled my pack slightly bringing off Zangionov and throwing centre back Sergey Golyatkin on to fill the gap vacated by Rzhevskiy. Rather than the expected backs-to-the-wall performance required for the last 30 minutes with 10 men, SKA pushed forward and were deservedly rewarded with a second goal – a sublime solo effort from Yarkin – three minutes into injury time.

My relief at the final whistle was palpable. The team had picked up three vital points and had kept a second successive clean sheet, this time with three debutants in the back four. Chairman Sergeev greeted me halfway down the tunnel with a beaming smile. “Great result, great performance!” he chimed in broken English. I nodded in agreement and shook his hand warmly and before carrying onto the dressing room to carry out the post match analysis with Alexey.

16.08.2011
Khimki 1 - 2 SKA Khabarovsk
Mavletdinov (75) Glavina (45 +3)
Navruzov (87)
Attendance: 2,362

This match would provide a much sterner test for SKA, Khimki were in and around the promotion chase and had given us a 4-1 pasting at home in the first game of the season.

However, that was the old SKA. The SKA that crumbled after that defeat and only picked up one point from their first five matches. The SKA that would then go on to only win one of their first thirteen matches. This SKA could give Khimki a game and I knew it.

With most of the new signings missing out on a proper pre-season, tiredness and lack of match practice began to bite after only completing their first 90 minutes some four days previous, and some of them needed rested. In came Drnic for his debut at right-back, Navruzov for the suspended Rzhevskiy and Nikiforov for Kolman.

After a long, long trip west towards Moscow I admitted to Alexey that I was fearing the worst. With most players complaining about tiredness (especially after playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men in the previous match) I thought they were looking for excuses before we started. However, within minutes at arriving at the Rodina stadium myself and Alexey had the players fired up believing that we could win this.

Denis Glavina was again the star man; firstly expertly planting a cushioned volley into the roof of the Khimki net for our first goal seconds before the half-time whistle before drilling a late corner across goal for Gadji Navruzov to slide in what turned out to be a winner.

While the players had sloped into the dressing room pre-game in a quiet hush with iPods blaring in their over-sized headphones and Blackberry phones bleeping, the scene at the final whistle couldn’t have been more different. Yells of delight rang out amongst the chanting of the official SKA club song as the players danced in the middle of the changing room, still kitted and booted.

I smiled to myself as I left the changing room and headed to the press conference. This had started off as a nightmare, launched into a job for fear of losing the ability to walk over an unpaid debt. After my first three games in charge, however, I’d picked up seven points and the team looked as tight a unit as I’d seen in all my days in football. Maybe this was the start of something big for both myself and SKA?
 
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