by Ian Holloway
Ipswich then came on the phone and wanted to interview me, but Millwall were still pressing for an answer, but I wanted to hear what Ipswich had to say. I’d met their chairman David Sheepshanks a few times in the past and I went over to Suffolk for a pre-interview, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I kept thinking of Millwall, but something was nagging away at me – something that made me wonder if problems might lie ahead in the future. They’d told me they were very keen to redevelop the ground, so much in fact that I wondered if it would be at the expense of the team. One of the Millwall directors had spoken about Barry Hayles needing to be sold on and that also set the alarm bells ringing because I thought he was miles away from being a good judge and if he was voicing concerns to me like that in an interview, chances are he would want an input in team affairs if I did take over. If we couldn’t agree on the basic issue of how good Barry Hayles was, then I doubted we’d be able to agree on a number of things. I told him that if I was offered the job, the first thing I’d do would be to sit down with Barry and say, ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? What the hell are you doing playing at this level and not scoring goals?’ I believed in Barry and I would use that knowledge that he was considered surplus to requirements at Millwall to my advantage in the months ahead. I wasn’t prepared to catapult myself into anything that I thought might be a nightmare scenario and ultimately Millwall wasn’t right for me at that time.
I spoke with David Sheepshanks again after I’d turned down Millwall’s offer and he said, “Look, Ian. We’re not going to interview you again. We’ve already decided on who we’re going to have as our next manager but I thought you were absolutely terrific and I’m delighted I met you, so thank you very much.” I appreciated the call and while I was disappointed that things hadn’t gone further because Ipswich have a fantastic tradition and I liked Mr Sheepshanks’ attitude, I felt very positive about everything. I decided to take Kim to watch Spurs play Fulham at White Hart Lane, but before I did, I called him back and left a message. I said, “I’m on a crusade and a learning curve and it would be helpful if you could tell me why I didn’t get the job – what aren’t I good at and what do I need to improve?”
He called me back and said I needed to get my badges. That was roughly it. He said they were employing somebody from within the club, which turned out to be Jim Magilton. He also said, “Basically, what we wanted was someone who talked about Ipswich with the same passion you talked about QPR to us. On your next interview, make sure you just talk about their club because they don’t want to hear about your last one.” It was very good of him to impart that information to me and it meant that I could take something from the experience and learn from it. The problem, I think, was that I’d been effectively gagged about speaking about QPR and after he’d fed me a bit of Trill I sang like a canary! Since then, I’ve taken my UEFA C and B badges and will complete my A badge shortly and after that I’ll take my pro-licence. So five jobs had come and gone and I probably could have had at least three of them if I’d really wanted, but something was keeping me back. Kim was her usual laid-back self and because of a dream she’d had about a year before, she said, “Oh don’t worry, you’ll end up as Plymouth manager.” She never lost faith in that dream and in her mum’s house there are lots of different pictures of animals, one of which is Caesar the pig and Kim told me, “You’ll be the pig of Plymouth, just wait and see.”
There were rumours Tony Pulis would be leaving Plymouth and going to Stoke City. When that became a fact, I was contacted by the Plymouth board, after they’d been given permission by Gianni, and wondered if Kim’s prophecy might be about to come true. I could smell it in my snout!
Argyle chairman, Paul Stapleton, invited me to drive down and meet club officials in Taunton for an interview – and after two years in Plymouth, I now know why – every taxi driver is an Argyle fan and there’d be no way they could have kept the interview quiet! I sat down and Paul Stapleton said thanks for coming down and that’s when I got my list of questions out! I said, “Well actually I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask you gentlemen.”
Paul said, “Well, that’s a bit unusual, but on you go – fire away.”
So I began and after a couple of answers from Paul, my general feeling of not really wanting the job and being happy receiving my wage each month and doing media work changed to, ‘Well hang on a minute, I could work for this fella.’ That’s when I became nervous and apparently I started swearing, though I wasn’t aware I was doing it at the time. I’d started out feeling relaxed and in control but the minute I realised I really wanted to be Plymouth’s manager, I changed and later Paul told me they nearly didn’t take me because of my bad language! That could only happen to me! Kim was waiting for me outside having doubled as my chauffeur – she hadn’t felt it was right to be in on the interview, plus I was banned from driving for six months after picking up too many points for speeding. She asked me how I’d got on and I told her I really wanted the job. She said, “Oh I told you you’d find somebody one day and I told you you’d be the Pig of Plymouth.”
Kim said moving to the south west would be great for our family because there was a very good deaf school in Exeter, so other aspects about taking the job were appealing, too. Then Paul Stapleton finally called me himself, after a few days of tricky negotiations between him and my agent Robert. The deal was done and he said I needed to come down to Plymouth and start work the next day.
So I agreed to be announced as Plymouth manager the following day, travelled down on the train and was blown away by the beautiful landscape and coastal resorts as I approached Plymouth. Everything felt right and I met up with Paul Stapleton and his family, watched the World Cup final at his house, slept like a baby at the Astor Hotel in town and awoke to the sound of seagulls. For a moment I thought, ‘that’s not right – where the hell am I?’ Then it dawned on me. I was the Plymouth Argyle manager and I thought that any job where seagulls wake you up in the morning can’t be half bad, can it?
I was unveiled the following day and the players reported back the next day! It’s fair to say I had to get cracking immediately but in hindsight, I should have let the chairman get rid of Tony Pulis’s remaining coaching staff so I could bring my own people in but they were desperate to announce me to probably quell supporters’ concerns about going into the new season without anybody at the helm. Instead I was forced to start on my own with somebody else’s staff and no chief scout because the one we had was going to go with Pulis to Stoke and I couldn’t ask him to do anything because then Stoke would’ve known who we were after – it was a bloody nightmare. I was in the deep end and I either sank or swam and even the media attention threw me back a little. They’d got the Argyle carpet out and in the boardroom I had to field my first press conference which was packed with journalists, reporters and TV crews and that’s probably the first time it struck me how big this football club is. They’d handled everything fantastically well and seemed to be professionally run from top to bottom and I couldn’t help but be impressed by everything and they came across to me like a mini-Man United. I had tingles down my spine because I felt excited by what I was seeing and experiencing and I couldn’t wait to begin the job of putting Argyle where they belong – in the Premiership.
I had to hit the ground running and I hadn’t had time to think of anything, but I was back in management again, batteries fully recharged and raring to go, but as ever, there were casualties of sorts. Moving across the country would be good for the twins, bad for Hattie and Will, who’d had enough by that point. Relocating to Plymouth was a major upheaval and stressful for everybody, as moves generally are. Prior to taking the Argyle job, Chloe and Eve had already been accepted at Exeter Royal College for the deaf where they’d be taking equine studies and also be boarding there, too, all funded by Hertfordshire Education Authority, but within three weeks of starting my new job I had to move my wife, three kids and four horses and a dog to Devon. Fo
r Will, who by now was 18, this was one move too far and he refused to move with us. He wanted to stay in St Albans, but it just wasn’t possible so he said, “I want to go back to Bristol. How do you know how long you’re going to be manager of Plymouth? I’m 18 now and I want to live and work in Bristol and be with my family and mates and I’m not coming with you this time.” He just couldn’t take another move and within four weeks we’d helped move him back to Bristol, and he started working with my old mate Paul Lewton. Will wasn’t the only one with their world in bits. Hattie, now 14, had to leave a school she loved, her best friend Ellie and her boyfriend Tommy. She was broken-hearted and absolutely hated me because of it – I was not flavour of the month as you can imagine, and living up to my tag of ‘The Pig of Plymouth’. The consequences for my family were again quite shocking. It was also a very difficult year for Kim because the girls were all boarding which they absolutely hated, but were committed to do. She was left to deal with all the family angst and disagreements while I scooted off to work. It all comes with the territory, of course, but sometimes the terrain is rough and inhospitable, full of pot-holes and ditches.
In general, life was on the up, though, and Plymouth felt like the ideal place to lay down our roots. Isn’t it funny how clever people in life can sometimes see things coming long before you can yourself? My agent Robert and my wife Kim were telling me other things were on the horizon and, as usual, they were both absolutely spot on. Still, those bloody seagulls will take some getting used to!
Chapter 22: Bring on Los Galácticos
With Tim Breacker and Pen still on gardening leave at QPR, I was having to play the role of manager, coach and chief scout. I had coaches David Kemp and Mark O’Connor preparing to leave for Stoke but I had no other choice but utilise them so I met the lads and said, “Now you can either have me out there with you taking the training sessions, or you can work with these two lads while I go and try and get some new players in.” I trusted Mark and Dave to look after the lads and to a man they all said I should go and try to bring new players in. I was only adding to the squad and nobody was being replaced, so nobody was worried for their future. The physio and fitness coach Paul Maxwell – ‘Maxi’ – was out of contract and also looking to swap Home Park for the Britannia Stadium. It wasn’t the best way to start my managerial career with Plymouth but that had been my own fault so there was no point complaining. After two days of assessing the lads, I decided my first job was to keep Maxi at the club because, frankly, he was too good to lose. I had to convince him that we could really go places, despite Tony Pulis saying that it was all about money and we were really going to struggle to get out of the division we were in without a major investment of funds. There is some truth in what he said, but I felt differently about the situation and I told Maxi my thoughts and ambition for the club. I told him that I felt we could compete with the right training facilities and gymnasium work, which was his bag, and I told him that I thought we’d actually do very well.
I revealed the names of players I was hoping to bring in, one of which was Barry Hayles. I said that I felt I could talk those players into coming to Plymouth and Maxi said, “Well nobody ever has before,” and I said, “Well I think I can. I believe I can because I believe in the club and I also believe in you and I want to keep you here.” I proved as much by negotiating a deal that brought his money up to what I thought it should be at Championship level and Maxi signed a new contract, which I was delighted by.
Then I had the small matter of convincing our Player of the Year, David Norris, to commit to a new deal because he was out of contract at the end of the 2005/06 season and there was no way I could let a player of his quality walk away from the club on a free transfer. I talked with him about my plans for the future and though it was by no means straightforward, I managed to get his money up to what I thought a player of his ilk at that level should be getting and he signed a new deal. It was like wham, bam! – 2-0 to Holloway with not even two weeks on the calendar.
Next, I called Sir Alex Ferguson because Pen had given me a list of strikers he felt were worth pursuing during our time at QPR. I’d kept the list and one of those players was Manchester United youngster Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Pen had suggested a loan deal for him. There was also a kid called Campbell and Pen had suggested United might be willing to sell him and it was worth trying. So I spoke with Sir Alex and asked him about Ebanks-Blake – he’d already said no to loaning the player a year before, but there was no harm in trying. While we were chatting, I also asked him about the availability of Campbell, John Evans and another youngster and Sir Alex said, “My God. Who’s telling you about those lads?” I told him it was Gary Penrice and he said, “Well tell him he’s got a good eye.” Then he proceeded to say no to the lot! I wasn’t going to give up so I said, “Well you’ve got this lad called Campbell coming through and you’re bound to want to play him in the reserves, why can’t I buy Sylvan?”
It went quiet at the other end, and then he said, “Er, well how much are you thinking?”
“So you would think about selling him, then? I don’t know, how much were you thinking?”
“About £200,000?”
I said, “What, £200,000 guaranteed?”
“Well there’d have to be a few bits and bobs if he does things...”
I agreed, depending on how it was paid and he said, “Well I
might, then.”
“I think you should...”
“Well I might.” I told him I needed to speak with my chairman and that he should think about the bits and bobs he wanted attaching to the deal and I’d think about ours and then we could try and meet somewhere in the middle.
I felt excited about the deal and then left the fine print of the deal to Michael Dunford and got back to Sir Alex to say why we couldn’t agree to some of the things he’d wanted including, but we ended by agreeing the deal in the most amicable way imaginable. I then said that while it was all well and good us agreeing his transfer, I needed to actually speak with the lad because he might want to remain a Manchester United player or might not fancy moving to Plymouth. I knew Sylvan’s agent was keen for him to play for me and Pen because of the reputation we had with strikers, which was half the battle, and Sylvan wanted to learn, too. He wanted a piece of what Bobby Zamora, Nathan Ellington, Jason Roberts, Barry Hayles and Jamie Cureton had had, so I arranged a meeting with Sylvan and his agent Paul Martin near St Albans and I thought the lad was fantastic. I can always tell by the eyes and he looked straight back at me and he was strong and he said the right things so I told him I liked him and I wanted to sort the deal out.
I began talking with his agent and while we were chatting, his phone rang and it was Watford and after speaking with Sir Alex, they also had an option to speak with the kid. They had been promoted and were now a Premiership side and had matched the offer we’d made so his agent told me Sylvan would want to talk with them. I cursed my luck, but asked Paul to make sure he didn’t make a decision without at least coming down to see us in Plymouth and he more or less guaranteed he’d do that.
I called the chairman to tell him how things had gone and that Sylvan would be coming to have a look around. I said, “Look, all we’ve got to do is make sure that he gets the same kind of reception I got on my first visit to the club and told him we needed to pull out all the stops – put him in a top hotel and show him around the city and what Plymouth was all about. I added that I would sort out one or two other things but I’d leave it to the chairman to show him around and look after him.
I got a Plymouth shirt with Ebanks-Blake and No 9 on the back and put it in a frame and presented it to him when he arrived at Home Park and said, “There you go, son. How do you fancy wearing the No 9 shirt, then?”
I’d briefed all the staff what his name was and to address him accordingly so he’d feel straight at home and people were saying things like, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Sylvan, I hope you sign
for us,” and I think it all worked a treat because he did sign for us over Watford. Several other clubs came on the scene at the death, all of them bigger than us, but he wanted to work with us and learn more about being
a striker.
Scoring is a special skill but it is something you can learn. It’s about technique and focus, but most of it’s in your mind and because Pen had lived through his own barren patches and lived through it, he has empathy with strikers and though they might not always like the way he gets his point across, they accept it because they know he cares about them by the encouragement he gives out.
I think Sylvan was keen to work with Pen, too, who wasn’t even with us at the time, but he is my centre-forward guru and I wouldn’t have considered taking the Plymouth job if I hadn’t been able to bring him with me at some point.
Basically, strikers need their self-esteem building and they need to be boosted, moulded and given assurances. A striker is always worried about his place and whether he’s scoring or not but I don’t know what that feels like, as Pen took pleasure in telling me once after I’d made a throwaway comment about a striker we had and he went for my throat.
