The Accidental English Football Manager: From a 12–0 Thrashing to Beating the League Leaders

This is a Guest Post

Psst. Psst. Come closer.

Closer.

Now listen carefully, because what I’m about to tell you, good reader, is a secret. A secret so humiliating that, even after all these years, it should probably remain buried somewhere in another EU country beneath several tonnes of concrete.

Please keep it under your hat.

When I moved to a small village somewhere in the European Union, I thought the best way to integrate would be to join the local football team.

It seemed a perfectly sensible idea.

Meet the locals. Learn a bit of the language. Get some exercise. Drink communal beer with like-minded people. Perhaps discover the subtle cultural differences which make Europe such a rich and fascinating continent.

That sort of thing.

After discovering the training times from the parish council office, I set off one evening with my football boots in one hand and considerably more enthusiasm than ability in the other.

Everything went swimmingly.

My partner was delighted. Here I was, integrating. Becoming part of the community. Making friends.

Brownie points were accumulated at an impressive rate.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take the football team very long to discover I was English.

This, as events were shortly to demonstrate, was a catastrophic development.

After three training sessions, they asked me to coach them.

Now, before we go any further, I should explain something.

I cannot organise my dog.

I cannot organise my children.

On particularly difficult mornings, I struggle to organise myself.

Yet, after several beers and a quantity of the local spirit whose precise number has been lost to history, I apparently decided I was perfectly qualified to organise eleven grown men into a coherent footballing unit.

Not merely coach them.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHOVJINRD8&list=RDzkHOVJINRD8&start_radio=1

Manage them.

Somewhere between beer number four and the glass containing something that could probably have cleaned a tractor engine, I accepted.

This seemed an excellent idea.

The following morning something strange happened.

As I walked to work, people I had never met greeted me.

Old ladies smiled.

Men nodded respectfully.

At the bus stop, someone offered me his seat.

I remember thinking: Good Lord. Word has obviously spread that the Englishman is integrating successfully.

I was wrong.

Word had spread that the Englishman was now in charge of the football team.

Around lunchtime my mobile rang.

A young man explained that the entire team would be waiting that evening for their first training session with their new English manager.

There was a silence.

“Manager?”

“Yes.”

“English manager?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

I nearly dropped the telephone.

I explained there must have been some dreadful misunderstanding.

Surely everyone knew that I had accepted the job after several beers and enough local rocket fuel to interfere with the decision-making processes of a rhinoceros.

Apparently this made no difference.

“You said yes.”

There are moments in life when the consequences of your actions suddenly become terribly clear.

This was one of them.

I hung up.

Panic arrived almost immediately.

What was I going to do?

I briefly considered leaving the country.

Unfortunately, my passport was back at the house, which meant returning to the village, where eleven footballers were already waiting for their new tactical genius.

Escape was impossible.

So I did what every completely unqualified football manager would do.

I searched the internet.

“Football tactics.”

“Football training exercises.”

“How to manage football team.”

“How does offside work.”

Within two hours, however, something extraordinary had happened.

Fear had disappeared.

Confidence had taken its place.

I had diagrams.

I had formations.

I had arrows pointing in different directions.

I had discovered 4-4-2.

Then 4-3-3.

Then something called a high press.

By mid-afternoon, I was no longer wondering whether we might survive the season.

I was wondering how many trophies we could realistically win.

The league seemed achievable.

The national cup certainly wasn’t beyond us.

Europe, frankly, would have to wait.

My first match finished 2–2 away from home.

A draw.

But not merely a draw.

A magnificent tactical draw.

People congratulated me.

Players praised the formation.

The village was proud.

I walked home feeling like a man whose appointment at Real Madrid was only being delayed by administrative formalities.

Over the next few matches, the team and its English managerial mastermind enjoyed what might politely be called a steep learning curve.

Then came The Match.

Even now, I hesitate to speak of it.

Children may be reading.

Sensitive readers should perhaps look away.

We lost.

Twelve–nil.

Yes.

12–0.

Twelve.

At one point I stopped worrying about tactics and began wondering whether the scoreboard had enough numbers.

We were hammered.

Slaughtered.

Destroyed.

Annihilated.

There are military defeats that have ended with less comprehensive territorial loss.

By half-time, my complicated tactical diagrams had become largely irrelevant.

By the tenth goal, I was considering whether changing my name might help.

At twelve, I began wondering whether political asylum was available in a neighbouring country.

This, good reader, is why the whole business must remain secret.

There are some things an Englishman abroad can admit to.

Ordering the wrong meal.

Driving on the wrong side of the road.

Accidentally insulting someone’s grandmother because you used the wrong grammatical ending.

But 12–0?

There are limits.

For the next game, I changed tactics.

This produced an immediate improvement.

We lost only 5–0.

Progress.

At that rate, I calculated, another two or three matches and we might actually touch the ball.

Afterwards I became reluctant to appear in public.

I imagined angry villagers gathering outside the house carrying pitchforks.

Perhaps there was an ancient local custom involving failed football managers, a cart and a ducking stool.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

The village stood behind me.

So did the players.

“Give it time,” people said.

“You are new.”

“The team needs to understand your system.”

This was encouraging because, at that stage, I wasn’t entirely certain I understood my system.

Nevertheless, we persevered.

Slowly, very slowly, things began to click.

Players started moving where I expected them to move.

Defenders defended.

Midfielders tackled people.

Strikers occasionally kicked the ball towards the correct goal.

And then came the match against the team at the top of the league.

They were flying.

We were bottom.

Nobody gave us much chance.

Perfect.

We beat them 2–0.

Two bloody nil.

Suddenly the English tactical revolution had arrived.

The same villagers who had witnessed the 12–0 apocalypse were smiling again.

The players believed.

I believed.

For approximately 48 hours I genuinely believed I had discovered a revolutionary footballing philosophy previously overlooked by generations of professional coaches.

The league, I decided, was ours for the taking.

Obviously there might be the occasional hiccup.

A defeat here.

A tactical misunderstanding there.

Perhaps another result requiring the scoreboard operator to remove his shoes in order to continue counting.

But that was merely detail.

We were going places.

So there you have it.

The secret of moving on up in a small European village is surprisingly simple.

Join the local football team.

Allow everybody to discover you are English.

Drink several beers.

Agree to become manager despite possessing absolutely no relevant qualifications.

Lose 12–0.

Follow this with a morale-boosting 5–0 defeat.

Then beat the league leaders and behave as though the entire thing formed part of a carefully constructed long-term strategy.

And whatever you do, never admit otherwise.

Because, as M People once put it, we were “moving on up”.

Admittedly, after losing 12–0, there really wasn’t anywhere else to go.

The Shepway Vox Team

Journalism For The People NOT The Powerful