Gaffers (27 page)

The 2009–2010 Premiership season saw Mick do something he had failed to do with previous clubs and keep them in the League. Wolves had been among the favourites for relegation, but against all the odds, Mick led the club to a fifteenth-place finish, their best finish since 1981.

In a career that has to date lasted four decades, McCarthy has shown himself to be man of honour and commitment, and
above all loyal to a fault. He fully deserves his place as one of the heroes of Irish football.

MICK McCARTHY’S CLUB MANAGERIAL HONOURS RECORD:

Football League Championship 2005 & 2009

MICK McCARTHY’S IRELAND RECORD:

Total number of games in charge: 68
Total number of wins: 29 (ratio 42.65%)
Total number of draws: 20 (ratio 29.41%)
Total number of losses: 19 (ratio 27.94%)
Biggest win: 5–0
v
. Liechtenstein (twice) and Malta
Biggest defeat: 4–2
v
. Russia
Longest unbeaten run: 16 games

The best players do not always make the best coaches, nor do less accomplished players automatically make bad coaches. José Mourinho is the best modern-day example of this, having started out as a player before moving into coaching. Many club chairmen seem to think the bigger the player, the better the manager. The Premier League and the Championship in England are good examples of Leagues in which big personalities often start their management careers at the bigger clubs without first learning the traits and skills that make a good manager.

However, it can also be said that some people are simply born to play, while others are born to manage. Mick Meagan once said that he never actually liked managing, that he preferred to be one of the lads and that one of the hardest things in his life was finding out that he could not play any more. Brian Kerr, on the other hand, was destined to be a manager. Whether it is coaching Dublin inner city junior teams, Irish youth teams, League of Ireland teams or the Irish national team, Brian lives and breathes football – anyone who has met him will tell you that. More importantly for Irish soccer fans, he is also the only manager to have led an Ireland team to a win at a major tournament at any level.

EARLY YEARS

Brian Kerr was born in 1953 in Drimnagh, an area which over the years has been the birthplace of a number of famous sports-people, including Kevin Moran and Tony Dunne who both played for Manchester United, 1983 Athletics World Champion Eamonn Coghlan and Olympic gold medal boxer Michael Carruth. In fact Brian’s father was a coach with Drimnagh Boxing Club, but it was football that interested Brian the most and as a youth he played with Crumlin United, progressing to Leinster League football with Bluebell United. However, despite his love of the game and a determination to succeed at the top level of the game in Ireland, Brian failed to make the grade at League of Ireland level and instead made his mark on football in this country as a successful coach and manager. Kerr recalls those days well: ‘In and around Drimnagh we would play in street leagues during the summer [these were games between other streets in the area]. I also played youth-team football for Rialto. The street leagues were for kids who were under thirteen and a half. While I was playing for the Under-13-and-a-half team, I also set up and managed an Under-11 team.

‘I was a St Patrick’s Athletic fan in those days, and I followed the managers of the team almost as much as the team itself. The likes of Charlie Walker, Jack Burkett, Barry Bridges and Gerry Dolan were gods to me and big influences. My dad coached boxing, and although I did not follow down that road, I think his passion and hard work transferred over to me. I loved managing players, and I loved the fact that I could influence teams and results. I played under a lot of coaches who were enthusiastic and dedicated, but I wanted more. I wanted more control.

‘I was frustrated by the level I played at. Like all kids, I wanted to play professional football in England and for Ireland, and I think at about eighteen I realised that it was not going to happen. Thankfully, I was cute enough to have started my coaching badges at the age of sixteen, although in those days there were not a lot of courses around. I also got some lucky breaks along the way, from the likes of Gerry Moran and Liam Tuohy. Over the years I have been given opportunities, although generally those opportunities arose when there was no money or teams were struggling or both.’

When Brian took over as manager of St Patrick’s Athletic in December 1986 they were one of the forgotten sides of Irish football and had not won a League title since 1956. However, under Brian, St Pat’s was transformed and within three weeks the team won the Leinster Senior Cup. St Pat’s continued to progress and a return to the heady days of the 1950s, when they’d won three titles, was on the horizon. For Brian the initial success was a dream come true and a sign that the tough work was starting to pay off, for as well as managing St Patrick’s Athletic, Brian also had a day job at UCD where he was part of the technical staff of the Department of Food Science. Brian’s job with St Pat’s was even more remarkable considering the lack of resources that he had at his disposal. With a small budget Brian did not have the option to buy the best that the League of Ireland had to offer and instead he scoured junior and schoolboy football for hidden treasures. Curtis Fleming and future St Pat’s manager John McDonnell were some of the success stories from Brian’s transfer activities.

The 1988 season nearly saw St Pat’s and Brian win the League when, in dramatic fashion, they drew 1–1 with Dundalk in the last game of the season – all that was required for St Pat’s to claim the title was a win. The following season saw St Pat’s finish fourth, losing only six games and having the best defensive record. Then in 1990 Brian delivered the League of Ireland crown to the Inchicore faithful, losing only three games in the process. While at St Patrick’s Athletic in the early 1990s, he had a team that on paper should never have won the title from Shelbourne, but the mentality Brian instilled in the players ensured that they believed that they could win every match.

Despite the success that the club was enjoying on the field, off the field the club was in financial trouble and as a result Brian was forced to sell off the majority of the team he had created to raise money to keep the club afloat. In fact Brian went even further in his efforts to help the club, joining a group of investors who raised funds to save the club from liquidation in 1992. The financial troubles coincided with a return to mid-table mediocrity for St Pat’s as Brian was faced with the task of rebuilding the side from scratch. However, by 1995 the club was showing signs of improving as they finished fifth in the League. The following season Brian once again showed his extraordinary talent for creating fairytales as his new look St Pat’s side won the League by five points.

Dave Campbell, who was a member of the St Patrick’s Athletic side that won the title under Kerr’s stewardship in 1996, recalls: ‘Brian was one of a kind. He was way ahead of his time. Looking back now they seem like simple things, but we had sports physiologists when nobody had them. He was very tactical, and his training sessions were never repetitive. I remember he was managing a League of Ireland representative side that was playing against Manchester United, and the evening before the game we were practising defending set-pieces. Brian was telling us, “Now Pallister, he likes to make his runs to the back post.”

‘Brian lives and breathes football. At training sessions he’d ask one of the lads, “Do you have the
Evening Herald
in the car?” When he got it he would open the fixtures page and plan out his weekend. And not just League of Ireland matches. If he heard there was a player playing in the junior leagues who had slipped under the radar but who with a bit of coaching could be a diamond, he was off to check him out. He would circle the fixtures and say, “If I leave that game at half-time, I can make this game” and so on. Pure dedication to the game.

‘His preparation for matches was second to none. In the build-up to games he would get the local papers from where we were playing the following weekend and pull out quotes and put them on the walls, saying, “Do you see what they have been saying about us?” He really built us up for games. He lived football twenty-four hours a day and knew everything about every player. He could tell you the ones who might have had a pint during the week or the blind spot of a player who was making his debut and no one had ever heard of. That was his way.

‘The season we won the League we lost only four games and, although we had good players, our success was more down to the sum of all the parts producing a good team, with the main part being Brian and his organisational skills. One time we were in Drogheda, and Brian started telling us a story. He had seen a play the night before, and the premise of the play was that a man was tied up in a room. Although he was tied up he could move himself a little bit. In the middle of the room there was a pair of scissors, and the man knew that if he got to them, he would be able to cut himself free. We were all thinking to ourselves, “What is he talking about? Has he been drinking?” Undeterred, Brian explained to us that the League was like a rope around us and only by winning it would we cut ourselves free. With that, Brian left the room. He came back a while later, and there was loads of laughter in the room, so he asked, “What’s so funny?” He was getting pissed off, so one of the lads told him to look up. A pair of scissors were hanging from the ceiling. Brian shouted, “Ye fucking bastards” and stormed out of the room. He was good for a bit of banter and along with Noel O’Reilly, who was a great coach, they made an entertaining pair on the guitar for singsongs.

‘One of the biggest gambles Brian took during the season we won the title was to persuade Liam Buckley, who he had signed to be his assistant, to also register as a player. Liam was about thirty-six or thirty-seven at the time, but, to his credit, he still had it and was an inspiration that season.