THERE’S been a few Irish managers in the news this week, with Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane joining forces to boss the Republic of Ireland in what more than one newspaper called a coming together of ‘The Odd Couple’.
And then there is Harrow Borough‘s, Dave Anderson, who shared on the Radio 5 Live airwaves – and in this paper – how my glowing twitter and NLP reports on goalkeeper James Shea in the Needham Market-Cambridge game a fortnight ago forced him to move swiftly to sign the ex-Arsenal youngster.
“Cheers for making me work at this time on a Sunday,” Anderson texted after dashing round to the 21-year-old’s Islington home to get him on the dottedline before any managers saw descriptions of his star man performance and ten top-drawer saves in the Marketmen’s narrow 1-0 FA Cup defeat.
It’s Anderson’s former Hendon and AFC Wimbledon player, Dean Brennan, who has really caught my eye in recent days, however.
When a side wins ten league games in a row, draws the 11th and then exits the FA Cup having pushed a top side from the division above all the way to a replay – as the Dubliner’s Hemel Hempstead team did at Sutton United – you wonder how they will get over the disappointment.
Brennan would have asked the same question too. He’s been a player and knows that every season, in every league and every competition, the wheels can come off, especially when it’s the FA Trophy up next against a team fifth-from-bottom of the division below.
His young players’ response has been phenomenal. North Greenford United were smashed 9-1 last Saturday at Vauxhall Road, and it was even worse for the next visitors to Hertfordshire on Tuesday night, as Bashley were, err…bashed 10-0 on Hemel’s return to Calor Premier action.
It speaks volumes for Brennan’s transition into management that the first thing the 33-year-old says when I ask him
about the Tudors’ torrent of goals is, with that soft Dublin accent: “It was important we kept a clean sheet.”
You score 19 goals in 180 minutes, break your own club’s record home league win (previously 8-0 against Banstead in 1999-2000), and the manager wants to talk about the defence.
This flamboyant forward of old has changed – or has he?
“It was important, because we hadn’t had a clean one for seven games,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, you don’t score ten very often and we are an expansive side that can attack from all angles. I like the team to replicate me as a player and it’s great to see goals flying in.
“The boys have been excellent all season apart from the opening day against Hitchin, although when North Greenford went one-up and their keeper was making save after save for, I did think it was going to be one of those days. But once one went in we couldn’t stop.”
Summer signing from Stourbridge, Ben Mackey, scored a hat-trick – as did 19-year-old Port Vale loanee Wilson Carvalho, who was making his debut as sub. On Tuesday, Mackey went nap, taking his total to eight in two matches and 16 for the season, while Dave Pearce added a treble.
All this while previous top scorer, 15-goal Lewis Toomey, recovers from a hamstring injury that forced Hemel to play with ten men for the closing stages of the Cup defeat at Sutton.
It shows that their attitude is spot on, and their approach to killing off lesser opponents clinical, when many would see them as an easy touch and slacken off.
“We’ve got a few injuries at the minute, but the lads are flying and you don’t get many chances to challenge for titles and go on cup runs,” says Brennan. “I keep telling them to enjoy every minute, because when I won the Trophy with Grays at Villa Park in 2005, it was one of the best weekends of my life. I want them to sample it too.”
Just like his players, Dean of the dugout still has plenty of goals in mind!
FOR WILY HEADS, LOOK NO FURTHER THAN TEL
OF THE last 12 managers to win promotion to League Two from the Conference, all but one – Gary Waddock at Aldershot Town in 2007-08 – have had several years’ experience managing in Non-League‘s top-flight or below.
Just two of the other ten before that had come fresh into the Conference, with Paul Simpson and Jimmy Quinn leading Carlisle United and Shrewsbury Town back to the Football League at the first attempt.
So, from the introduction of the play-offs in 2002-03, over 86 per cent of promotion-winning managers have been able to recite the division and all its dangerous back streets like a black cab driver knows his Soho Square from Sloane Square.
They have the Non-League ‘Knowledge’. Forest Green chairman Dale Vince seems to understand this. If he wants the club to push his Ecotricity brand on a higher stage, he needs a man who can negotiate his way around Nuneaton, drive past Dartford and glide through Gateshead.
They may not have actually got as far as being offered the job, but Gary Mills and Steve Burr – two of the current top bosses in the division – have taken themselves out of the running to manage Non-League’s biggest budget after approaches to their clubs.
Steve Cotterill is a name from Non-League’s past who has been rumoured this week, and he will know the route more than a Robbie Fowler or Paul Sturrock. But having worked in the Premier League last season with QPR, I can’t see him dropping to the level he won in 1999.
Micky Mellon could still be tempted from Barnsley, and Adrian Pennock – the ex-Welling boss who’s coached at Stoke for six years – has also been mentioned to me.
But one remaining name stands out. He’s managed a ‘project’ through three promotions into the League, and he is available. Terry Brown had his interview over a week ago now and his CV with Hayes, Aldershot and AFC Wimbledon will struggle to be matched. At 61 he’s the experienced Conference head Rovers need to get their season back on track.
