BINFIELD v W RYLANDS
IT’S 6.30pm on Thursday evening and Binfield joint-managers Jamie Mc-Clurg and Carl Withers are sat in the car on the phone to The NLP before training, ahead of one the biggest weeks of their footballing lives.
CARL WITHERS: We’ve got to try and get our lads as focused as we can. We haven’t put all this effort in to turn up there just to enjoy the day and not try and win the game.
JAMIE MCCLURG: We can say the word Wembley now! We were quite strict about that before the semi-final to try and keep our focus. To be fair, with the way the lads are we didn’t really have to be. It’s always hanging over you though, it’s not, ‘we’re going to a final’ it’s ‘we’re going to Wembley’.
CW: Covid has made our preparation very difficult as managers. We wanted to go up to Wembley beforehand with the team and have a look round, get it out of the system, all the social media posts and pictures, look at where Wayne Rooney has sat.
We can’t do that because of Covid so myself and Jamie are going to go with some of our committee members to go through the logistics of it.
YOU’VE HAD AN INCREDIBLE RUN TO GET THERE, PLAYING EVERY ROUND AWAY FROM HOME WHICH IS A VASE RECORD…
JM: Just to come back to football was a massive thing for us. When we were away we didn’t really contact the lads about football at all. We contacted them to see how they were coping in the pandemic because they’re our friends and we know all their families.
We like to get to know all of our players off the pitch so we get a better look at what they’re like on it. Our lads know we care about them away from football.
CW: We’ve both been players. If your manager shows you respect then you’re going to give everything on the pitch, I think you see that with them. That’s one thing we’ve prided ourselves on, we’ve always been honest with them.
JM: We just concentrated on that first game back at Deal. We had to get back on the coach to get changed as there was no dressing rooms due to Covid. No showers after which is a bit strange and we were on the coach happy, but with mud all over our faces. The journeys on the coach is only an added bonus. We’re a really close group.
CW: Fakenham was another one, a long way on the day of the royal funeral so it was a 12.30pm kick-off and we met at 6.30am. The lads were brilliant.
JM: All the games have been so different and we’ve prepped slightly different during the week. We’ve built a winning mentality, if we asked the lads to play Stuck In The Mud, they’d all be desperate trying to win it.
CW: It’s been a long six weeks for me and Jamie. Our coach Geoff (Warner) hasn’t been around too much through health reasons and being cautious about Covid. We found ourselves doing everything. We’ve been in the car ten minutes before sessions drafting it out or on the phone to him! Every week has been a hell of an effort by us and the lads and we’ve got our just rewards.
ALL THIS IN YOUR FIRST SEASON AS MANAGERS TOGETHER TOO, WITH JAMIE STILL PLAYING IN MID- FIELD. HOW DID IT COME ABOUT?
JM: Carl and I have had separate paths but always crossed from time to time over a ten-year period. I was playing at Bracknell and Carl ended up coming over. We wanted to play alongside each other. We had a really good group there and had success and loved it, but was never something that was just ‘ours’.
CW: Playing alongside Dodds we built up such a strong bond and friendship.
JM: He calls me Dodds, by the way, I don’t really know why!
CW: Management was something we always joked or spoke about on journeys to games. When the opportunity came to us both we felt it was the right time to do it. I made over 600 appearances for Binfield and it’s a club we know well.
JM: My uncle managed him here!
CW: It’s been nice going from playing into management.
JM: We both knew Roger (Herridge) who had been manager at Binfield for a long time. I started under him at 15. We both went in as assistants but he let me and Carl have the reins really.
If there was anything we needed to know or tweak he would tell us. He’s such a good bloke and knows the club inside out. When you’re getting tips from someone like that who’s so highly thought of by anyone who’s been here or played here, it does put you in good shape.
CW: Roger was fantastic in how he let us do it our way. He took the pressure away from jumping into management.
JM: We brought him back in this season. He’s in the dugout for Carl to bounce off because you can’t really do that while I’m playing on the pitch.
HOW DOES THE JOINT-MANAGER DYNAMIC WORK BETWEEN YOU? JAMIE’S ON THE PITCH AND CARL IS IN THE DUGOUT. DO YOU EVER DISAGREE ON DECISIONS?
JM: Carl, just says yes! But, no, we both see football in similar ways. We tend to agree on most things.
I back Carl when he’s on the sideline. We think of certain scenarios before the game. We speak at half-time and it probably works in our favour that I see from one view and he sees it from another on the side.
We know how players want to be treated, I think that’s the benefit of any young manager. Covid has probably levelled the playing field too as no one has had to manage in this scenario.
CW: With kids and our lives outside of football, it has really helped doing it with somebody, but also your best mate.
DANNY AND NICKY COWLEY CAME THROUGH NON-LEAGUE AS JOINT MANAGERS AND THEN THERE’S ANTHONY JOHNSON AND BERNARD MORLEY AT CHESTER AND NEIL BAKER AND JON UNDERWOOD AT SLOUGH TOWN…
CW: If you look around joint managers do work. If you look at what Bakes and Unders have achieved at Slough…Dodds knows them well.
JM: Yeah, I met Bakes at Bracknell when he was captain and Jon was assistant. I jumped at the chance to play for them at Godalming when they phoned me because I knew them as people. I’ve always my decision on wanting to play for people I trust.
Then I followed them to Slough and ended up scoring the winner in the play-off final at Kettering which meant everything to them.
When I look at joint management, that gave me a really good insight and the way me and Carl have spoken and treated other people.
CW: We’re very lucky Bakes and Unders are at the end of the phone. Dodds speaks to Bakes probably every day and they couldn’t do enough for us. They’ve been brilliant in the run up to this. We look at them and would love to achieve the success they’ve achieved.
JM: Even half of it would be deemed a success.
CW: We look at them and think they’re the benchmark. Lots of other managers out there too have helped, Dan Brownlie at Basingstoke Town, Anthony Millerick at Hartley Wintney. We’ve built up such a great rapport with them.
We’re not about making enemies, it’s all about respect for us and if you can build those sort of relationships with other managers you’re well on your way to being successful.
JM: But all the plaudits goes to a special group of lads in this. They put faith in the two of us who couldn’t offer them much but enjoying football.
CW: When you look out at the pitch at them, most could be playing the level above. Touch wood that will be with us next year if everything works out with the promotion. They make our job easy
