There is a passage in Sam Allardyce’s autobiography where he explains the draining nature of managing West Ham United.
His wife Lynne developed what Big Sam describes as a “morbid fascination” with the fans’ website “Knees Up Mother Brown” which she would check daily to see what they were saying about her husband. “It upset her but she couldn’t keep away from the screen,” Sam wrote. “I don’t understand why she put herself through it.”
There are some who will consider this and conclude that if Sam and Lynne can’t cope with comments on “Knees Up Mother Brown”, they’ll never last if Sam gets the England job, a possibility which increasingly is being seen as the only thing which can save English football.
This theory goes that a man as sensitive as Sam won’t like it when the pressure is on and the press is searching for scapegoats. But Sam has endured too much to let that bother him. In fact, the criticism as England manager may feel insignificant when he compares it to what he has endured at clubs like West Ham and Newcastle United.
Sam’s issues with criticism in the modern world doesn’t end with “Knees Up Mother Brown”. It extends to social media, an area which he sees as relentless and unforgiving. “Social media pummels you constantly. Even if you win three in a row, they’re on to you the minute you lose”.
As anyone who has read his fine autobiography knows, he is an old-fashioned man in some ways, lamenting the absence of corporal punishment in schools today which, he insists, has contributed to teenagers not respecting their elders.
But he is progressive too, a man who inspires loyalty in those who work for him and it would appear that one of the few things required of an international manager is to make the players enjoy being with the squad.
Some will never be happy, as was demonstrated in the summer when a few England players reportedly complained that their duvets could be a little plumper during their stay in Chantilly, but Sam’s attention to detail must surely extend to knowing which tog in a bedspread produces the optimum results in a footballer.
Sam’s difficulties with certain supporters emphasises a key point in the search for a new England manager.
In the modern world, the pressure is in club management with its relentless demands. The anger of supporters on social media brings to mind David Letterman’s line about Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins when he introduced them at the Oscars. “Here they come, and they’re bound to be pissed about something.”
Supporters on social media are bound to be pissed off about something, as Big Sam rightly identifies, but the things bugging them usually concern their clubs.
The entity Sam knows as social media doesn’t get too worked up by England during the season, while international breaks are seen by many people as a barren and gloomy interlude before the real football resumes.
It is only when a tournament begins that international football matches that intensity. It is only then when people become engaged and social media prepares to pummel a manager who has failed.
There are exceptions, but it may not have been the demands of international football which drove Kevin Keegan to resign in a toilet or led to Steve McClaren being ridiculed for standing under an umbrella.
The press savaging at major tournaments has evolved too and it may not compare with the ongoing and relentless struggles of a club manager who will deal with the press and the strange beast Sam calls social media. Most of the time, nobody cares about international football.
Roy Hodgson lasted four years in the calmer environment of international football, whereas it took only a few months for Liverpool supporters to work out that he wasn’t capable of doing the job, if they didn’t know it from the outset.
Whatever anger there was after the World Cup two years didn’t really last as the media accepted that Hodgson had laid some impressive foundations for the future. social media was more engaged, as it always is, with what was happening at clubs. There is no need to ask if Hodgson would have survived if he had produced the same results at club level. His time at Liverpool provides an answer.
Big Sam’s sensitive side, therefore, shouldn’t be an impediment. There is more stability too in international football compared to the average spell in the Premier League.
The European Championships have demonstrated that international football craves stories and certainly it helps if the nation at large can identify with the squad.
Conventional wisdom as advanced by Martin Glenn, the FA’s chief executive is that the England manager should be paid what a top club manager is paid.
“What is benchmark earnings for top quality football management?” Glenn asked. “I think you have to look at it in that way. So, to get a really good person and they are currently earning £4 million in a club, you have to be in that zone.’
The success of Chris Coleman with Wales would suggest that people are looking for the wrong things. Coleman’s record in club management is, eh, mixed, but with the help of one great player, he managed to unite a country behind his squad.
Maybe it would help if the manager was paid as little as possible, not as much as the FA can manage. A manager wouldn’t do the job for nothing – this didn’t work for Leonid Slutsky – although it would play well as a story.
But if the FA are looking for the intangibles that would make the country unite behind the team, then not paying the manager multiple millions for a job which many believe is pretty straightforward would be a good start.
Hodgson gets paid £4mill a year to make baffling decisions & then gets credit when he plays the team every England fan in a pub would pick.
— Niall McGarry (@MrNiallMcGarry) June 16, 2016
Glenn says the next manager’s salary will be performance-related, but England should reduce the salary significantly as well, removing one line of attack.
If people are drawn to the stories in an international tournament, it helps too if the public can identify with them. Sam, a boy who suffered with dyslexia growing up in Dudley and who made it in management, would have a story that would appeal to many.
While he is an unlikely figure for any romantic to adopt, it would certainly resonate and provide the emotional backstory that drove so many teams at the European Championships.
These factors may be the intangibles that a manager needs. This doesn’t mean you don’t go for the best candidate, it might simply make him the best candidate. As Martin Glenn put it, “It has to be the best man or woman for the job. More likely a man.”
Big Sam is that best man. He has been at the frontline for quite a while. This is his time. He could do the job and he might even appreciate a quieter life.
