TO frustrated out-of-work managers like Gary Brabin, Terry Brown, Gary Mills, Andy Sinton, Marcus Law and Liam Daish, came a message from above this week.
No, it wasn’t some sermon passed down by God the Gaffer, but from Mark Cooper – formerly of Tamworth, Kettering, Peterborough and Darlington parishes – urging them to keep the faith.
Cooper, in case you missed it, was named permanent manager of League One side Swindon Town on a two-year contract on Tuesday, after a month spent in caretaker charge following Kevin MacDonald’s shock pre-season resignation.
The 44-year-old is one of Non-League‘s most successful managers of recent years, reaching the FA Cup third round twice with Tamworth, the fourth round with Kettering – who he also led to the Conference North title – and winning the FA Trophy winner with Darlington in May 2011.
But when the Quakers started to implode the following October, however, the ex-Forest Green midfielder was sacked by chairman Raj Singh and, for 15 long months, seemed to have as much chance of landing a job as he did the £40,000 he was owed by the now defunct north-east club.
Ignore the one-game caretaker return to Kettering as part of the Imraan Ladak/George Rolls pantomime in the New Year of 2012, because everything going on at Nene Park at the time was one big game of charades.
If he was keen to get back in then, Cooper took the expenses-only job at virtually-doomed AFC Telford out of sheer desperation last January.
No-one could blame him when, 30 days later, he left with a record of one point from five games to accept a contract as
MacDonald’s number two at the County Ground.
“I’d built quite a decent reputation when I was at Kettering, and there were a few clubs interested, but Imraan would only deal with Peterborough for some reason,” says Cooper, who admits that although November 2009 was the right time to move, it was “possibly” too big a jump straight into the Championship.
“It knocked me back three or four years, and I’ve had to wait. It’s just pure luck of being in the right place at the right time, initially, with this job. Kevin took me in as his assistant and I got left holding the fort as caretaker when he left, but they think I’ve done well enough to get a crack at it.
“It’s just amazing how it happens. I had some low times waiting for the phone to ring, but you’ve got to keep going. If you’re out of work, you’ve just got to keep believing and something will turn up.”
Of course, the early fall of a manager from the Skrill Premier merry-go-round – even if Anth Smith’s week two exit from Gateshead was of his own doing – will have already got the gaffers going again, even before Cooper’s County Ground confirmation.
Brabin, who steered Cambridge United to runners-up spot in 2008-09 before losing the play-off final, and Luton to third before losing on penalties to AFC Wimbledon in 2010-11, has been out of work for 17 months – two longer than Cooper was – following his Kenilworth Road sacking.
His nemesis in Manchester in the latter showpiece, Brown, has been unemployed for 11 months now, while Mills – who won a play-off and Trophy double little more than a year ago with York – has been kicking his heels for nearly six months.
I’ve spoken to all three of them in recent weeks, and all are hungry, highly-experienced and qualified to return to such a job, with Brown and Mills updating their UEFA A Licences and Brabin completing his Pro Licence this summer.
They can all look to Cooper for inspiration, and even two names at the top of League Two – Chris Wilder and Justin Edinburgh – who both lost their Conference jobs at Halifax and Rushden & Diamonds through no fault of their own, when financial ruin proved their employers’ downfall.
Neither were as fortunate as Cooper, but after a short wait they both landed good Conference jobs, at Oxford and Newport respectively, and have flown the flag for young managers by leading their clubs back into the Football League via the play-offs.
Cooper’s message, as the appropriately named American band Journey sang in the Eighties, is clear: there is a route back fellas, so ‘Don’t stop believin’!
