New Welling United boss Jamie Coyle looking to step up to the task with shooting boots and new recruits

By Matt Badcock
JAMIE COYLE certainly knows what it takes to get promotion.
The defender has been sipping on bubbly at the end of the season on seven occasions having helped Gravesend & Northfleet, Dartford – three times – Leatherhead and Maidstone United to glory down the years.
Now the 34-year-old has made the leap into player-management with another former club, Welling United.
Last weekend the Wings picked up their first National League South win under the new boss following a busy summer of change.
Coyle has been busy putting his own stamp on a squad he hopes can get Welling competing at the right end of the table again. Former National League players like Joe Healy, signed from Maidstone, and ex-Bromley forward Bradley Goldberg are already making a mark.
So, how’s management?
“I was assistant manager at Leatherhead with Richard Brady and then I was player-coach at Maidstone with Jay Saunders, so I’ve been involved with the management the last three or four seasons,” Coyle tells The NLP.
“I’ve been speaking to players, talking budgets and managing that way but never being at the helm where results are on your head.
“It’s the first experience of that, but in terms of speaking to players and agents that’s not new. It’s just having a blank canvas and starting from scratch. It’s good because you get to build your own team and judged on the players you bring in.”

On the pitch, Coyle has started the season well personally too. Voted Maidstone’s player of the year the season they won the National League South play-offs, he also played a full campaign in the Stones’ debut National League campaign.
This season he’s scored four goals in Welling’s opening five games, including the opener in last week’s 3-2 win against Hungerford Town.
“In pre-season I half thought to myself I’m going to retire and concentrate on the managing side – there’s never been a really successful player-manager has there?” says Coyle, who is still a coach at Maidstone’s academy as well as an FA Tutor.
“There’s a reason for that because it’s so difficult to do the two. In pre-season I was finding it really hard. We had 15 or 16 players, I was having to do two team-talks as well as play myself, then cool down. To be honest, my head was spinning.
“My assistant manager Hugo Langton has been a major part of it. He said to me, ‘You’re in our best XI.’ He was the one who talked me around in the end because I was ready to kind of hang them up, maybe be a squad player and come on as and when needed.
“I started the first game of the season at Truro, scored two and although it wasn’t a good result, I’ve kept myself in.
“The performances are getting better game by game. I get judged on results so if it means throwing myself on the pitch I’ll do everything I can.”
Langton is the eyes on the side while Coyle and player-coach Jack Parkinson provide the insight from the thick of the action.
“You’re carrying the burden of so many things aren’t you?” Coyle says about being a manager who plays too. “You’re carrying the burden of your own performance, you’re carrying the burden of the result.
“Any player will always say they want to win, but there’s bigger pressures when the results are on your head.
“It’s no different in that I’ve always enjoyed the winning feeling, gaining promotion, and losing still hurts as much as it always has. Only in terms of tactics and shape does it feel different.
“We always go in at half-time and myself and Jack Parkinson discuss what we feel is going on from our perspective on the pitch as well as what Hugo sees from the outside. It’s quite beneficial to have both points of view.
“Jay Saunders did the same thing at Maidstone. He gets your opinion as you come off the pitch, he would ask how I felt things were going, and then the manager make the final decision. It’s been good to bounce ideas off each other – two guys in the management team who are on the pitch as well as the assistant off it. We’ve made some good changes at half-time so it’s worked so far. Long may it continue.”
As a former Welling player, Coyle says he’s enjoying trying to reshape the club relegated from Non-League’s top flight two seasons ago.
Like any fresh starts, Coyle knows it will take time – but he hopes his strength for man-management can help his newly built squad come together quickly.
“It’s good because you can call upon your experiences as a player,” he says. “I’m knocking on a little bit now and all the things I’ve seen as a player can be used in the management career.
“Man-management is one of the biggest things. If I can look after the players and manage them in the right way then you’ve got a much higher chance of winning games. That’s what I try and do to make sure we get the best out of the individual players.
“We’ve got a fantastic squad, we really have. But it’s like anything, when you make 17 changes it’s going to take a bit of time – no matter what level you’re at and how good the players are.
“It takes times to get an identity as a team, work on your organisation and set pieces. But you don’t get time in football. It’s got to click sooner or later.
“We’re seeing progressions every game and that’s important. It was important to get our first win last Saturday and hopefully that can give us confidence moving forward.”

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