SOUTHEND UNITED‘S KEVIN MAHER
We need to talk about Kevin. More specifically, we need to talk about the job Kevin Maher, his staff and players are doing at Southend United.
Off the pitch, the club has spent the last few years bouncing from one crisis to the next, not least relegation from the Football League.
Winding up orders, transfer embargo after transfer embargo, reports of late wages for club staff, fan protests – even their GPS vests have had to be switched off.
But despite the backdrop, on the pitch there is real reason for optimism for the Shrimpers’ fans.
Sixth in the league, a recent return to winning ways with a 3-0 win over fellow promotion chasers Solihull Moors and into the last 16 of the FA Trophy.
It’s a far cry from when Maher and his coaches Darren Currie and Mark Bentley arrived through the door in October 2021 with the club staring another relegation in the face.
“I remember the first day we walked in and it was the lack of atmosphere,” Maher says. “The environment was wrong. Players just used to sit in the changing rooms. They wouldn’t come up into the canteen and the area they can go into. Staff were the same. There was a fear around the place.
“There had been too much losing for the last two or three years, continuously. That was the first part, to change it. You could almost smell the fear and defeatism. ‘Here we go again, we’re losing again’.
“It was a cycle we had to break. For me, it was making it an enjoyable place for the players and staff to come in. That was the important thing first and foremost before you then look at the playing squad and what needed changing with stuff like that. It was to get used to winning again.”
Maher did plenty of that as a Southend player. Successive promotions saw the Shrimpers reach the Championship. They also famously knocked a Manchester United side featuring Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo out of the League Cup.
Part of the reasoning for Maher – who has also been their U23 head coach – returning was knowing what the club can be.
“There was always that bit of maybe not going to a club and ruining your playing legacy, if you want – but it just felt the right time,” Maher says.
“Having a chief exec like Tom Lawrence was important and being able to get the people I wanted in with me. I felt it was what the club needed.
“I was ready for it as well in terms of my coaching, managing, career. I had enough experience working as a first team coach, an assistant manager. I felt ready.
“I knew the intricacies of the club and what, I felt, were the problems and a lot of stuff behind the scenes I probably knew needed to be worked out. But, also, what it would take to be successful.
“It felt the right time personally and for the club. I hoped it had bottomed out. The position it was in, it was in trouble in the National League, but I thought with the right people around us we could turn it around.”
That included the appointment of Currie and Bentley – while Non-League legend John Still is overseeing recruitment and former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker Stan Collymore, who played for the club, senior football strategist.
“The one thing we’ve all got is energy,” Maher says. “We all come in bright every day, a smile on our faces and want to work. The players appreciate that as well. We try and get them as organised as we can in terms of schedules, training programmes and make it consistent so the players know what they’re doing and where they’re doing it. That was important for the staff as well.
“We tweak things but it hasn’t really changed. They know what a week looks like. It was important to bring Daz and Mark in because they are good around players, good coaches – players appreciate that and feel like they’re learning.”
A big part of the turnaround was changing the age profile of the squad. Some older heads needed to be moved on along with some youngsters scarred and run down by the mounting defeats.
Players in the 24 to 26 age range were added, many like Callum Powell, Harry Cardwell, Noor Husin and Gus Scott-Morriss from lower levels eager to take their chance at Step 1.
They try to do things right. New players are given arrival packs to help them settle at the club, something that wasn’t happening before. Extra sessions are often laid on by the coaching team.
“It became a tough place for the Southend players to play,” Maher says. “If you were a club coming to Southend, you knew the problems, the losing streak and how long that had been going on for. I imagine you came and, if you got ahead in games, you knew you could break (Southend) teams.
“That’s what we’ve tried to change and now fans see some hope and see what we’re trying to do. Once we did some business in January with the players we brought in, it gave people and idea of the way we wanted to go. We went on a long unbeaten run and showed we can compete at the level.
“For the fans to see that was important. They see players who are desperate to play for the shirt and play for the team. Fans, in general, once they see that they go with you.”
While the fans have gone Maher, storm clouds still gather around Roots Hall and fan unrest with owner Ron Martin hangs in the air.
As we sit down in a hotel off the M25, the club are in High Court over unpaid tax bills – the reason they are under embargo now and the squad be added to, they also saw Sam Dalby leave for Wrexham on the eve of the season – while their rivals around them can.
The club get the adjournment they are seeking. A 42-day stay of execution is granted as they await a bridging loan they say will pay off the debt with the hope of a new stadium the ultimate aim. The next hearing in March is, however, marked, ‘Final’. For Maher, it’s out of his control. His focus has to be on the players and getting results.
“I’ve got to get the players credit,” Maher says. “They get on with things. They never want for too much. How they go about their work, they don’t let anything bother them. We try and create our own little bubble within what we’ve got to do and how we work.
“We’ve got to perform anyway because we can only control the football. There is stuff they’ve had to take in their stride and they’ve dealt with it ever so well.
“They are a tight group. They are very close and get on well off the pitch. That’s credit to them. The staff who work with them on a day-to-day basis keep them going and keep everyone’s spirits up.
“That’s why we recruited in terms of character as well as ability. We’ve got some good senior pros. Jason Demetriou has been at the club a while, Steve Arnold is a good senior pro, Rhys Murphy, Nathan Ralph, Jake Hyde. They all help.”
He leans on his coaching staff around him, as well as chief executive Tom Lawrence and, of course, the vast knowledge of Still.
“As a manager, it can be the end of the world when you lose on a Saturday,” Maher says. “John will say, ‘Listen, don’t worry, it happens to everyone’. He can take a step back and look at the performance. It takes that emotional side away.”
An insightful video emerged on social media in the week of former Cardiff City manager Mark Hudson. The first part shows him telling his kids he had a new job at the club – and a few months later explaining he had been sacked.
“That’s the bit that people don’t see,” Maher, a dad of three football-mad boys, says. “You go home to a family as well. Straight away the kids will be onto me – they’re at every game, wearing their shirts. They love it. They tell me about players I don’t know about!
“It’s hard not to bring it home. But you can get over it pretty quick because of them because they want to get outside and play football again and pretend to be the next Callum Powell, Harry Cardwell or Noor Husin!”
Or Kevin Maher?
“That’s long gone – I’ve got to convince them I used to play,” Maher laughs. “Let’s look at one of Daddy’s old videos! I’ve tried to put the (Manchester United) game on once or twice but they lose interest. They want to know what tricks I can do. But they’re getting more and more interested.
“There are days where you come home after a defeat and I feel like I can’t talk to anyone. But I’ve got to shake it off as quickly as possible for them. The more experience I probably get at this, I’ll learn to deal with that a lot better.”
For now it’s about ploughing on and trying to get results. It’s a long way off and there are issues at the club to be solved, but Maher is driven by knowing how good success would be.
“People said to me, ‘What if it goes wrong?’” Maher says. “Well, what if it goes right? You have to look at the positive side and think you can affect it for the positive.
“I think we’re on the right track but there’s a long way to go. We’re still building and I knew it was going to take time.
“If I look at it from when we came in to where we are now, it’s been an incredible turnaround in such a short space of time despite certain obstacles being in the way. We just want to continue building that forward momentum and see where it takes us.”
Kevin Maher
