by Ian Holloway
I told the lads after we’d been relegated that they’d set an acceptable standard that day at Stoke and that was what we expected from now on in terms of work rate and effort – but also questioned where that type of performance had been in certain games we’d played in the previous few months? I told them the fans would stick with them but to make sure they gave performances that merited the shirt next season because if they didn’t, they’d be replaced because League One was not going to be a nice place to be.
I still didn’t know for sure whether I’d be the manager or not, but I suspected my future may lie elsewhere. I didn’t feel fresh and my relationship with Milan didn’t feel fresh so ultimately a parting of the ways was inevitable and both Milan and I agreed that it would be best for Leicester City if I moved on but I have an awful lot of respect for the man and the way he handled himself at that final meeting and maybe it will all come right for him at Leicester. Time will tell but I wish the club all the best – I’d just bit off more than I could chew by taking the job and eventually I got spat out.
Chapter 30: Tangerine Dreams
I’ll always think of the time between leaving Leicester and becoming Blackpool manager as my ‘gap year’! It was a kind of crash course in DIY, making bespoke chicken coups, media work, watching games and a hundred other things I did while I worked out which direction I was heading for.
I felt jaded and totally drained after my Leicester experience – a bit like Austin Powers when he had his mojo extracted. I think I’d fallen out of love with football for the first time in my life and I needed to step back for a while and take stock of my life and career. I still looked for work and just a week after leaving Leicester I was invited for an interview with Hearts, but I didn’t have my UEFA A badge at that point so they didn’t follow up their interest, even though I was starting my course a week later. I was totally pissed off with the system and called up Sir Trevor Brooking and was a bit angry with him, almost shouting at him at one point but just stopping short, thank goodness. I was angry and frustrated and I’d probably brought a lot of it on myself by saying what I’d said while I was at Plymouth – all of which I’d meant, but then I chose to move to Leicester and everything went wrong. There are times when you think you can do this or that and feel like you’re invincible, but really you are anything but – you’re just as vulnerable in football as you are anywhere else.
I was on something of a learning curve and several weeks later had an interview for the Huddersfield Town job. I spoke with one of their old managers, Stan Ternent, and he said I should definitely speak up if I wasn’t happy about anything, so I did and I never got invited back!
I went in there warning the chairman that he’d had a lot of managers in a relatively short space of time and one bloke had been a common denominator throughout that period – Gerry Murphy – and I said “Are you sure you’ve got him right?” I never heard from them again. Murphy had been caretaker manager three times and I was led to believe he had almost as much influence as the manager so it probably wasn’t a good move to go in and tell the chairman this guy might be a problem, especially if he liked him to begin with.
It makes me wonder how much, sub-consciously, I actually wanted that job at that particular moment in time. Even as Kim and I drove towards Huddersfield we were asking each other whether we really wanted to live there and the honest truth was we didn’t, so I can’t say I shed too many tears about not getting the job. I must admit, I did think my past experience and reputation might actually get me the position, but it didn’t and the same happened when I went in for the Swindon Town job, which put me in a difficult situation at one point – one I wouldn’t like to be involved with again.
Kim suggested we go and take in a game and the nearest one to us that weekend was Swindon Town versus Huddersfield. We were going to see some of Kim’s family who lived just up the road from the County Ground and it seemed like a good idea. Both teams were struggling but, perhaps a little naively, I didn’t expect what happened that day to happen. I went into a pub at the back of the ground and chatted with a few people who came up to say hello before we left for the match. As we walked across the car park, a reporter put a notepad under my nose and said, “I hear you’ve been saying you’ll have the job within two weeks.” I got a bit leery and asked him which job and asked him what he was on about – it was a bit weird and at half-time, Swindon were 2-0 down, some of their fans must have spotted me in their end and started singing my name. I was completely embarrassed by it all and so I left realising I couldn’t go to a match anymore unless I had a reason to be there. People were adding two and two and getting 156.
A fortnight later and I didn’t even get into the last four with Swindon where I again had gone to the interview, been honest and told them the direction I’d need to move in if I got the job – obviously it wasn’t what they wanted to hear and they looked for somebody else. I think you either suit people and a club or you don’t and this was another case of me not being right for that particular club.
The scary thing was starting to think about the possibility I might have to consider doing something else for a living. I’d been in football all my life but despite all my experience as a player and a manager, I came to the conclusion that none of that was much use in the outside world. I couldn’t adapt managing a team into any other walk of life because the job is a specialised area of employment, isolated from most other work. I was thinking, “What if no other chairman – ever – likes the way I talk, can I change my outlook or way of expressing my concerns in order to find a job?” There are 92 chances to manage a League team in this country and I’d already used up four of those with Plymouth, Leicester, Swindon and Huddersfield.
We were renting a house near Bristol and were in a kind of limbo – I had no job, we were renting a house on a farmer’s land and the money I’d been paid off with from Leicester was dwindling away fast. I’m not one of these managers who gets millions of pounds as a pay-off – it doesn’t work like that at my level. I was looking after my family, paying rent, renovating my house in Plymouth so we could let it out to students and there was a time when I wondered if anybody would want me as their manager. I think people looked at me and thought, “Oh, there’s Ian Holloway. He’ll be alright because he’s done this and that and is in the limelight” but the truth is I was just the same as anyone else. Nobody asks your opinion and football, I believe, is something you almost have to start from scratch at every day.
I started doing all kinds of things including making chicken houses for the hens we’d bought and did a bloody good job, even if I do say so myself. Soccer AM came down to the house to mock-up an advert and made up a load of jokes about it that were quite funny in a way, but I did think I’d get one or two orders from football supporters around the country, but there wasn’t one single taker.
After that, however, I started working on the radio for the BBC and did some TV work for Sky. I really enjoyed the radio work, I have to say. It was nice being sat high up in the stand chatting to people, giving my opinions on tactics and suchlike with no pressure at all. I just said things as I saw them, did it my own way and thoroughly enjoyed myself and got great feedback, too. It was also good to be watching football again and, more importantly, to have a reason to be there other than leaning on someone’s shoulder thinking “Christ I could do with your job”. It made me care about football again and it was hilarious to mix with both sets of fans and hear what they had to say. I was working for BBC 5 Live and having a ball – it all felt right and I did a few Friday night shows, putting a manager’s slant on various discussions and because of the new connections I’d made, I was given two tickets to the Champions League quarter-final between Chelsea and Liverpool. I’d always promised to take Kim to a top match one day so we decided to make a night of it. We stopped off at a bar in Knightsbridge and got chatting to some Liverpool fans and by the time we left, I was adorned with LFC badges – I was in the Chelsea e
nd so I took them off before I went in so as not to get filled in and then sat down to watch one of the greatest games I think I’ve ever seen.
We saw the whole range of emotions football supporters can go through that night in a magnificent 4-4 draw. It could have gone either way with both sets of fans up one minute, down the next and to hear some of the things that were being said at different moments during the game up close was enlightening. As we left the ground I said to Kim, “Please don’t ever let me listen to what another supporter thinks” because I’d seem them boasting, panicking, boasting, panicking before ultimately being relieved. It was an education that I felt privileged to have witnessed and I vowed to take all the additional knowledge I’d learned back into football with me. Mixing with the fans and commentating on games from the stands made me realise this game is all about entertainment and I think it’s really important to tell supporters exactly why I make certain decisions and get my message across clearly. I’ve realised a lot of choices I was making during certain points of my managerial career were because I was acting on raw emotion like the supporters do and I couldn’t do that again. I sat down and thought about all the things I’d learned during my year out of football and how I would handle things if I got another crack at management, though I wondered if that chance would ever arise having been turned down by a couple of lower league clubs.
Our home life began to settle down after Kim and I found the perfect home to renovate near Bath, with enough land for my family and our chickens, when out of the blue I get a call from my agent saying Blackpool were interested in talking to me. I told him I’d be happy to talk with them, but the next call I got was a day later from Blackpool Chairman Karl Oyston saying, “Good luck, you’ll get another job but I’m not choosing you. Goodbye.”
He put the phone down and I thought it was all a bit odd. I was driving on the M25 and I carried on for about three miles before thinking, “Hang on a minute. I’m not having that,” and called him back.
He asked who it was and I said, “Ian Holloway – you just rang me.”
He said, “Oh yeah?”
I said, “I want to know what the hell that was all about. How the hell can you decide you don’t want me without at least meeting me?”
He went on to tell me that he’d had a conversation with my agent and that he wasn’t happy with one or two things. I said my agent didn’t speak for me all the time and asked what it was he wasn’t happy with? Karl Oyston explained the situation and, basically, my agent wanted a payment before Blackpool could talk with me and because Karl wasn’t prepared to do that, as far as he was concerned, the deal was dead.
I told Karl that I would sort things out at my end and we arranged to have a meeting after ironing out one or two minor problems. We spoke frankly to each other and I was impressed with his attitude and outlook. I drove up to Blackpool the next day, we had a four-hour meeting that seemed to pass in about 10 minutes. There were still one or two things we didn’t initially agree on but we’d got on really well, I liked what he’d said and he seemed to like what I’d said. The chairman called me later that day and offered me the job, which, after a little negotiation, I was delighted to accept. I was just glad I’d called him back after the initial phone call.
Blackpool reminds me very much of when I took the Plymouth job only there’s more tradition at Blackpool, not meaning any disrespect to Plymouth. As soon as you walk in Bloomfield Road there are reminders of Stanley Matthews everywhere and when your club has had one of the best players in the world play for them and who has an FA Cup named after him, you can’t help but immerse yourself in history and feel excited about everything.
Blackpool reminds me of me and my career. Certain things aren’t finished yet and we’ve got a lot to do to get where we want to be, but I believe we’ll get there together. I’ve got a lot of fresh ideas having been out of the game for the first time in almost 15 years and I probably needed a rest in all honesty. I’ve got that buzz back again and have realised where I’ve gone wrong in the past and first and foremost, I want to get back to doing what is right for the football club. I’ve inherited an honest bunch of lads who want to work for the shirt and while we might not be the wealthiest club around, there are solid foundations in place that make the future look very bright – orange in fact… make that tangerine! I’m back by the seaside with those bloody seagulls waking me up in the morning again… and I’m loving every minute of it. As we say in Blackpool, let’s rock…
