ON hearing that Phil Babb had taken over at Hayes & Yeading, most people will have asked the same question: Why?
This is a man who played the Premier League with Liverpool, in World Cups with Ireland and won a title in Portugal. Who rubbed shoulders with Robbie Fowler and John Barnes.
Who, nine years on from his retirement, is making plenty of money as an agent. Why would a man like that throw himself into the maelstrom of football management?
And why at Hayes & Yeading, a club that, while set for a new home, have haemorrhaged fans and finished the season 17th in Blue Square Bet South?
“The more I was doing agency activity, the more I was being drawn back to a life on the grass,” he explains. “And everyone I talked to about it said ‘It’s probably the right time’. So I took their advice and here I am.
“As an agent, you’re going round clubs, picking up pearls of wisdom from a lot of managers. Then you go to see other managers and they obviously aren’t as good as they think they are. You come away thinking ‘Maybe I could do a better job’.
Criticism
“Now, I’m not Bill Shankly by any stretch of the imagination. And I know I haven’t got a lot of experience. But if you ask people in the game I’d like to think they will tell you I’m studious, I’m intelligent and that I’ve learned a lot in my time.
“I’ve gone into the real world, been involved in business. I’ve been an agent so I know how to negotiate and operate at boardroom level.
“On the man-management side, I’ve been doing that for two years anyway with my clients. I had a broad spectrum of players right from Ryman Premier up to Championship level, and foreign players. And I know how to deal with players because I’ve been one.”
That he certainly has. A trainee at Millwall and a rising star at Coventry, Babb became the most expensive defender in English football when he joined Roy Evans’ Liverpool for £3.6m in 1994.
Babb – who reached the second round of the 1994 World Cup with Ireland – would spend six good years at Anfield before leaving to join Sporting Lisbon.
It was an era when Liverpool’s glamorous but trophyless players were branded ‘Spice Boys’ by the media – encapsulated by those Armani Suits at Wembley – but Babb feels they were harshly treated.
“The tabloids and the hacks labelled us Spice Boys,” he says. “But people forget that we were also called ‘the entertainers’.
“They say ‘Oh, that Liverpool side underachieved’. Well, I don’t think we did. We achieved plenty and played good football. It was just that Man United achieved greater things than us.
“They’ve since proved themselves to be arguably the best club in Europe over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, that is who we are compared to.
”Not that the criticism could ever tarnish Babb’s memories of his time at Anfield.
“Going to Liverpool at that age (23) was unbelievable for me,” he says. “Ian Rush was still there, John Barnes was still there, Jan Molby too. These were players I’d watch on Match of the Day, not play alongside.
Magician
“One great thing about having that experience is that you can captivate an audience of young footballers with anecdotes – how Robbie Fowler used to train, what Michael Owen was like when he first came through. Young players engage with that so hopefully that can be a tool for me.”
Babb also learned at the hands of myriad top managers, from Jack Charlton and Bobby Gould to Gerard Houllier and Mick McCarthy. But it was his time in Portugal that truly shaped his philosophy.
“I went over there as a 30-year-old and I probably played the best football of my career,” says Babb, 42, who was crowned Portugal’s defender of the year as Sporting won a league and cup double in 2001-02.
“I was also the fittest I’ve ever been. People talk about Arsene Wenger bringing in continental methods and putting emphasis on nutrition. Well all those elements that I hadn’t been privy to in England, I learned in Portugal. It was a completely different way of training and playing.”
Of course, this job is a million miles away from the Stadio Jose Alvalade. Indeed, Hayes & Yeading have recently been miles away from either Hayes or Yeading.
Exiled in Woking while they await construction of a new stadium at Beaconsfield, the club have seen crowds drop to the low hundreds since relegation from the BSB Premier in 2011-12. But with their new home set to be ready for the start of the season, Babb is hoping to reverse that trend.
“The roof went on about three days ago, which is great,” he says. “They’ve started the internal brickwork so you can see the shape of the dressing rooms. Once the cladding’s up and it’s weather-proofed – which it should be shortly – it will really kick on at a rate of knots.
“The ground is an integral part of why I took the job. This club needs a home, needs an identity. The sooner we can get into it, the better.
“I’m not naïve. I don’t think it’s going to be easy. I’ve still got a limited budget. But I think I will be able to bring an energy to the club that it’s been missing. Maybe I have gone in at the deep end but sometimes that’s the best way to learn.”
