My first chance as a manager came in the summer of 1992 with Bournemouth.
At first I wasn’t thinking much of anything beyond my first game – a draw on Preston’s plastic pitch, by the way – and neither, it seemed, was my chairman, Norman Hayward.
I was given a club car, which was about 20 years old, and a few months into my first season, we went to watch a Grimsby game one night.
We went there in his Mercedes and while returning, he dropped me where I had parked the car. There was snow on the windscreen, so I started my engine, and Norman took out his credit card to try to clear it.
While he was doing this, I heard him yell, “Oh no, I can’t believe it!” I thought he took away his credit card, but he actually went through my tax disc. “They gave you 12 months. I told them six months!”
I laughed and said, “Thanks, Norman, that’s given me a lot of confidence!”
Still, I was lucky to get my chance at Bournemouth, and I was also lucky to get some good advice about how to survive.
I always remember the late Alec Stock—another member of the 1,000 Club who was in charge of Leyton Orient, QPR, and Fulham for long periods, as well as Yeovil, Roma, Luton, and Bournemouth— phoning me up one night and explaining why I should be working on a three-year plan.
The first season was to assess the players and staff and become familiar with all the other aspects of running the club, he said.
The second season was meant to reset the team, work through issues on and off the pitch, and win all the battles to achieve his vision for the third season; according to Alec, this was the season when everyone – supporters, directors, and himself – should see progress.
He also told me that any manager will be considered successful only by producing a winning team.
During my time at Bournemouth, I discovered how true this was – no matter how hard you worked or how much you did to keep your club financially secure, management was all about winning.
