HE’S the FA Trophy king who moved up the managerial ladder and won a Football League promotion, but has not been afraid to get his hands dirty again when it all went wrong.
Mark Stimson has been a gaffer for almost 12 years since taking charge of Grays Athletic, where he enjoyed his first two Trophy wins – as well as a Conference South title and Premier play-off qualification – before completing his historic hat-trick in as many seasons with Stevenage Borough in 2007.
His two-and-a-half years in charge at Gillingham proved a mixed bag, with two relegations from League One and a League Two play-off win at Wembley, before Tony Kleanthous’ axe swung six months into his next job at Barnet.
He had an ill-fated spell working under controversial owner Imraan ladak at Kettering in late 2011, and has spent the past couple of years back at the level it all began for him as a manager, in the Ryman League with Thurrock.
One thing drives the 46-year-old, however, wherever he is working – and that is developing top-class talent. Michael Kightly, Gary Hooper and Steve Morison are evidence, and as he tells us now, there are plenty more on their way…
First job?
I left Canvey Island to join Grays Athletic as player-coach in the summer of 2002, then Craig Edwards left in the September and I took over as manager about 12 games into the season.
Micky Woodward was the chairman and we’ve always had a good relationship. A lot’s been said about him, but maybe because we are from the same area, I get on great with him.
We had good times together, and it helped that the results we were getting were good. In the end I probably spoilt him, and then when I left, he went through a few managers because results probably didn’t go according to plan.
First signing?
I inherited a squad, so we worked with that to start with. But we weren’t scoring many goals so I reckon it would have been Wayne Vaughan, a young striker from my old club Canvey.
Best signing?
I can’t split two, for different reasons. The first is John Nutter, who was everything apart from his surname! He was fantastic to work with, he knew his position inside out and for the way I wanted my teams to play, I need the full-backs to be good on the ball and want it.
I signed him at Grays, Stevenage and Gillingham, and he was involved in all of my successful FA Trophy-winning teams and the play-off win at Gillingham.
A fantastic player who knew his job but also a good lad. I’m sure that one day he’ll go into coaching. He’s just got that nature and good manner about him.
The second is the best player I’ve coached by a mile in terms of technical ability. He went onto be an international footballer, but I think he should have played in the Premier League for a long time, and never did – Freddy Eastwood.
He is the only player I’ve ever come off the training pitch for, to go and ring my chairman and say ‘Get down here quick and get him signed on now’. He’d been let go by West Ham, hadn’t played for six months but I rang his dad to get him down to training.
Within 25-30 minutes, I told my assistant Scott Barrett to take the session because I had to go inside and call Mick.
He was absolutely phenomenal. He’s had a great career, especially at Southend. But if he’d had a little bit more of the desire that some of my other players had, he’d still be playing in the Premier now.
I’ve been fortunate to work with players like Michael Kightly and George Boyd, but technically Freddy left them all behind.
First promotion?
We made the split from the Ryman Premier to the newly formed Conference South in my second season by finishing sixth, and then the following year – 2004-05 – we won the Conference South title to go up to the Premier.
It was us and Hornchurch – the two Essex clubs – going at it at the time. We were the young side with all lads released from academies, like Kightly, Gary Hooper, Stuart Thurgood and Mitchell Cole.
Hornchurch had all the senior players, like Jamie Stuart, Lee Matthews, Ashley Bayes, Steve West and Johnny Martin.
Unfortunately it all went wrong there midway through the season, we signed those five players to add to our young ones, and really kicked on as a club.
Funniest player?
The lad who played the most pranks was Stuey Thurgood, but then not everyone might have found them funny! He was up to anything and everything.
I remember the coldest winter’s day you can imagine, and walking into the dressing room before training to find the players had so many layers on. I walked back into the office and said to Scott, ‘Go and look at them’ – they had hats, scarves, gloves, everything on.
Scott likes to wear his shorts even in winter, so he told them they needed to be in shirts and shorts to train.
We walked out onto the training pitch at Redbridge Sports Centre a few minutes later and no-one was around. I looked at Scott and said ‘They’re not coming out’.
We stood there for about a minute and they all ran round the corner with just boots and pants on – with Stuey shouting ‘Who’s ready for training then?’
Funniest incident?
I remember at Wembley for the FA Trophy final with Stevenage, against Kidderminster. I’d named my team, but I always tell my subs just to keep warming up because they’ve got more chance of getting on if you keep warming up than sitting in the dugout sulking.
Craig Dobson took it upon himself to warm up for near enough the whole of the first half. We were losing 2-0 and the ball went out of play. One of the players, John Nutter I think, went to get it but Dobbo was doing doggies on the sideline and he ran straight into him!
At the time it wasn’t that funny, but looking back now it just shows how eager he was to get on and when I put him on, he got man of the match.
Another funny one was in that Conference South season at Grays, we’d already won the league with six or seven games to go so I was resting players in preparation for the Trophy final against Hucknall.
Thurgood was sub and he said he’d fill the water bottles up. One of the boys came over and wanted a drink halfway through the first half – and it was filled with lager!
Biggest achievement?
That’s got to be winning the three FA Trophy finals in three years with two different clubs, the first two with Grays at Villa Park and Upton Park, and then moving to Stevenage and winning the first final back at Wembley.
It was incredible. There was 53,000 there – great numbers for a Non-League game!
Lowest moment?
Not being treated as a professional, as I did at the time I was there, but after the event – and still to this day – having to act like one after the incident. By that I’m referring to my time at Kettering.
I was sacked and have been to court twice to try to get my money, they didn’t turn up either time and I got absolutely sweet FA.
Best thing about Non-League?
Being able to give young players the opportunity to play senior football, and then seeing them move on.
Maybe a few have dropped down a few levels and thought ‘What am I doing playing here?’ But it’s given them the opportunity to jump up over the club they’ve been released by.
At the beginning of last season, I took Ricardo Santos from Dagenham & Redbridge. He was 19, came and played for me for three months and then went and signed a three-and-a-half year deal at Peterborough, making his debut on the last day of the season.
He’s a centre-half, six foot four, very strong and powerful – he’ll go onto play in the Championship at least.
Toughest place to go?
Tamworth. The amount of abuse from behind the dugout to members of staff and players is something I’ve not come across, even when I went into League football.
There’s not a lot of them, but the mobile changing rooms, the slope on the pitch – it’s a place I didn’t look forward to going to because you knew you had to be ready for everything on and off the pitch.
Toughest opponent?
My old manager Jeff King at Canvey. At Grays, we just couldn’t beat them for some reason, he always got the better of me. We played them three times and he beat us three times.
Favourite place?
Again, there’s two. I used to like going to York for the crowd, the stadium and the history. We were little Grays going to Bootham Crescent, and it was always a good trip because we used to come away with decent results.
The other one was Exeter, again because it was a big club. We used to go down the night before, stay in a decent hotel and to play at those sort of grounds when, no disrespect to them but previous to that we were playing at places like Heybridge Swifts, was something else.
Ambition?
To try and get Thurrock back to a level where I think they should be, and allied to that, keep trying to move these young players back up the ladder.
I’ve got another defender, Mark Onyemah, who I can’t believe is not in the pro game yet, but I think that’s going to happen very shortly.
I’ve got one or two others who I’m looking forward to getting back into pre-season training this Thursday and working on, getting our near play-off miss in Ryman One North out of our system.
We’ll be doing once a week in June, then cracking on in July. The lads are absolutely gagging for it!
