Cowleys sacked | Page 21 | Vital Football

Cowleys sacked

The proposition at the Cowley's former Clubs was different to that at Huddersfield. All were smaller non-league clubs, including ourselves, where a ‘manager does it all’ approach has a positive impact. Huddersfield were the first established league team they moved to and their desired management model isn’t tolerated by those footing the bill - the expectations and stakes are much higher. They will need to change or manage lower in the pyramid. We’ve moved on, and while I’ll echo others in saying that the Cowley’s gave us the best of times, it wasn’t perfect (their gamesmanship was embarrassing times but largely successful, lower down the leagues), but I’m very happy that we’ve now got MA at the helm.
 
If Michael Appleton just wanted to be a highly successful well thought of under 23's coach to simply develop young players I'm sure he could have obtained any number of well paid, low risk jobs at top end Championship Clubs (West Brom) or Premier League clubs.
The fact he is here tells me that he has a hunger, determination and desire to succeed as a manager taking all the risks associated with that.
I can't wait for the new season even if I will be stuck watching it on ifollow.
 
If Michael Appleton just wanted to be a highly successful well thought of under 23's coach to simply develop young players I'm sure he could have obtained any number of well paid, low risk jobs at top end Championship Clubs (West Brom) or Premier League clubs.
The fact he is here tells me that he has a hunger, determination and desire to succeed as a manager taking all the risks associated with that.
I can't wait for the new season even if I will be stuck watching it on ifollow.

Watching it in your front room with a tray of Tomatoes Hully ?
 
Piece from The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...nd-and-told-him-i-d-prove-him-wrong-278xk2thh

When Danny Cowley was sacked as Huddersfield Town manager by the chairman, Phil Hodgkinson, he reacted calmly but firmly to the decision that shocked football. “I said to Phil, ‘You’ve made a mistake and I’m going to look forward to proving you wrong,’ ” Cowley recalls. “I just looked Phil in the eye, shook his hand and said, ‘You know I will prove you wrong, don’t you?’ I think he felt that I might.”

Cowley, 41, is in reflective as well as typically determined mood when we meet, socially distanced, in his home on the edge of Lincoln. He and his assistant, brother Nicky, are widely admired for their inspirational work at Lincoln City and also keeping Huddersfield in the Championship despite inheriting a disheartened squad in 23rd place when arriving on September 9.

“Football’s a great game but a terrible industry,” Cowley says. “If I wanted fairness, I’m in the wrong industry. From this experience it’s easy to get bitter but I want to get better. I’m going to forgive people that maybe haven’t treated me in the right way. I’m not going to waste any energy. I shook Phil’s hand, wished him well, and said to him his heart was in the right place.”

By the end of that day, July 19, Cowley had received 132 messages of support. “My address book’s improved! I was so thankful for people, managers contacting me. It was about 3am when I finished but I was going back to every single person.

“My dad sent me two poems, The Man In The Glass and If, about the doubters and making sure you never doubt yourself. It [self-doubt] is rife in football. I call it football depression because I’m not sure it’s real-life depression. Players have it to a massive degree.

“I’m lucky, I’m really tough mentally, resilient. I believe in my work ethic and skill set. I’ve managed in eight of the top nine divisions and I’ve got a real motivation to find a way to the ninth one.

“I’ve got good perspective because I’ve lived a normal life. My grandad was on the coal van delivering coal and worked incredibly hard. My mum worked at McDonald’s when we were babies and she ended up vice-president of JP Morgan. She worked there for 27 years and never had a day off.

“My dad was an A licence coach, coached us all the way through.” He also took Danny and Nicky to West Ham United. “We had a few seasons where we’d go home and away. Good fun, the fans are crazy. I bet on Mike Marsh every single game for a whole season to score the first goal and he never did. £1! He’s coach at Swansea, and when I saw him, I told him he owes me £42. But I can’t go back to West Ham. I’ve only been back once, they’re playing in a shopping centre [the repurposed Olympic Stadium now known as the London Stadium]. It’s got no soul.”

Cowley played non-League, taught and ventured into management. “Our first ever budget would have been about £800 at Concord Rangers, everybody in.” His reputation, along with Nicky, grew further at Braintree Town before Lincoln beckoned. “When we arrived at Lincoln the club had been relegated [out of the Football League] for five years and it felt in mourning. It just needed direction and enthusiasm, which we’re able to do.”

The Cowleys’ story at Lincoln is more a fairytale, a magical mix of promotions, FA Cup thrills, and constant learning. They visited elite clubs, spending time with John McDermott, Tottenham Hotspur’s then head of coaching and development, who is now at the FA. “We were there the week they’d just beaten Ajax away to get to the [Champions League] final and Mauricio Pochettino came in the next morning. We just saw his relationship with the other staff, how tactile he was, unbelievable, the emotion between his staff.

“We were doing some analysis on them and talking about Son [Heung-min], and how he’d scored this goal against Everton, how he’d used the defender as a shield, bent it round him and how he’d used his touch.” All very technical. “As we were talking, Son walked past. John McDermott, a great guy, said, ‘Come on, Sonny, what were you thinking?’ He said, ‘I just smashed it!’”

They also went to Arsenal’s academy. “Per Mertesacker, what a man. Humility is the quality I value most and he’s the most humble man I’ve ever met. He said he lived with pressure every day. I said, ‘You won the World Cup with Germany. You can’t tell me there was still pressure after that?’ He went, ‘I woke up the next day and I felt I’ve got to win it again in four years.’ He just had such a world-class mentality.

“When you’ve come from my humble beginnings in football you don’t think about being world-class but Mertesacker changed my mindset. If I don’t believe I can be world-class I’m never going to be world-class. I might never, ever be world-class but I owe it to myself to strive towards it.”

He and Nicky kept pushing, and last autumn Hodgkinson kept calling. “We love Lincoln, we didn’t want to move,” Cowley says. “Money’s never been my driver. We turned the [Huddersfield] job down three times. But I got seduced by the challenge. They were in freefall.

“The staff had been really affected by one win in 37 games. We had one group of players who cared deeply about the club and another group, smaller, that probably signed to the Premier League and not to Huddersfield and didn’t want to be there. The dynamic was difficult.

“We started to build a culture. Christopher Schindler [Huddersfield captain] had fallen out of love with the game, so you try to go back to the place where he did love it. He told me a story about being on a grass patch by an airfield in Germany as a boy with his mum kicking a ball with him. He loved it. Christopher’s one of the nicest human beings.”

Schindler proved an important ally. “When we first came in the culture was so sloppy. They’d come out to training in dribs and drabs. Christopher was like a shepherd: he’d get the group together and all come out to train together. We’d do a passing pattern, sloppy. Some of them, a small amount, had lost their focus and lost their way. They were going against our values and you have to stand for something.”

The Cowleys acted in January. Seven players were loaned out and in came the likes of Andy King — “an unbelievable professional” — from Leicester City and Emile Smith Rowe — “he’s going to be a top player” — from Arsenal.

“Our budget when we arrived was £22 million. We got it down to £18 million in January. What is important is we have the final say on recruitment. We’re not magicians. There were issues over recruitment. It’s the club’s job to tell you what’s affordable and it’s my job to tell you what’s the best value for the money you have available.”

In late June, they began hearing rumours about their future. “We knew after Wigan, which was our first game back after lockdown, that they were very close to appointing someone. Football talks. Nicky and I felt it really unfair and you have that decision: walk away or suck up the disappointment.”

They sucked it up, stayed and kept Huddersfield up. “I was proud of how we conducted ourselves. What drove us is there are a lot of good people at the club who’d have been greatly affected if we got relegated again.”

When the Cowleys were dismissed, Hodgkinson talked about having a “different vision” to them. “Phil has been an agent, a non-League chairman, he’s got some coaching badges. He says that he doesn’t interfere, but he spoke to the players regularly. Phil just wants to help the club. But you have to be careful. It can undermine the manager. He will be better for this experience. I’m still grateful to Huddersfield for the opportunity. Nicky and I are better managers now.”

It was invaluable experience managing against the likes of Marcelo Bielsa. “Let’s be honest, only certain people have got a philosophy, most of the rest of us copy,” Cowley says. “Pep Guardiola’s got a philosophy. Bielsa has a philosophy. He gave us some time after our game. Bielsa’s incredible, just how he trains the players’ behaviours, it’s all about constant repetition. If you watch the intensity that they play with and without the ball, so much purpose.

“Bielsa has five types of forward runs, like ‘blind side runs’, ‘corridor runs’, ‘corner runs’. Look at the work of [Patrick] Bamford, always at defenders. It was the intensity, aggression and power they played with against the ball. They never gave us any time to turn.

“Bielsa’s really good to us, just a professor of football isn’t he? Steve Cooper at Swansea, he’s a good coach in possession. I really like Brentford, I’ve got a lot of respect for Thomas [Frank]. He coaches

“We spoke to Wayne Rooney after we played Derby and you could tell he just loved football and so he should with his ability; his understanding of space and how to pass on time to team-mates is remarkable.

“It’s always nice to listen to the players that played right at the top. Jack Grealish said pressure is a privilege. That resonated with me. I’ve managed in eight of the nine top divisions and I don’t think it’s the players that are so different, it’s that their entourages are bigger. I’d still say 95 per cent of players are motivated by winning. Then they are motivated by money, days off and girls. Most people want to get better, be successful.”
 
He and Nicky have been busy working on their library of training routines. “I’d be half the manager without Nicky,” Cowley says. “I need him. Whatever we earn, we put the two salaries together and halve them. We can both coach, both manage, I can be good cop, he can be bad cop, and change.” And what if Nicky got offered a job? “Then I’d be his assistant.”

He’s also fortunate to enjoy the good advice of his wife, Kate (née Brewington), the former Great Britain athlete. “She’s got total understanding of what it requires. She won the European Cup, the same [2003 heptathlon] team as Denise Lewis, Kelly Sotherton and Julie Hollman, and I supported her all the way.”

Cowley was concerned about the impact of his dismissal on his children, Isabella and George, who had become fervent Huddersfield fans. He admits the job had consumed him. “This hurts me saying this but you’re an average football manager and a terrible parent. Issy reads social media and she used to show me pictures of the Lincoln people saying I walked on water and now she can’t quite work out why I am the devil!”

So what of the future? “Kate won’t want me at home for too long, I’d be driving her mad. I want to take some time for a bit of self-care, something I haven’t done well enough. You spend your whole life worrying about everybody else as a football manager, everyone else except yourself.” But a manager as talented as Danny Cowley will be back soon enough
 
Nice interview. Thanks for sharing. Interesting comment about West Ham. Am expecting his next choice of club to be a smart one with proper potential to be a premiership club (ie a Bristol, Birmingham etc.) as seems to be a real determination to make the premiership.

And looks like myself and many others were wrong about the budget (although he probably shouldn’t be saying numbers like that) being the cause of him leaving Huddersfield.
 
Thanks for sharing- difficult with stuff behind paywalls.

Henry Winter is probably the best football interviewer writing at the moment, I always like to read him anyway, he always gets the essence of his subject.

Good to read DC being so positive, still learning from as many influences as he can.
 
Fantastic and fascinating read. It is also interesting to be fed things from the horses mouth that perhaps were not apparent otherwise.
It is also good to hear Danny talking positively and honestly about things. As someone who watched their rise locally from Concord Rangers to where they have been it has been an astonishing journey, and I wish he and Nicky well.
 
Curiously (or not, space limitations in print) I read the printed version, then saw some of the comments above re budget, which I didn't recognise; the on-line version Luke Imp has here is a longer article, the budget figures, more detail on the culture, Schindler's role, the loans brought in don't make it into print.

"Walk away or suck up"? Pull the other one on that 'choice', though, Danny!
 
I see that the Bristol City job has been given to Andy Holden, who was the assistant to the previous boss. Bournemouth have given Eddie Howe's job to his former assistant.

An interesting, possibly financially driven trend, which might mean jobs at clubs will come harder and harder to pin down as an outsider.

The Brothers might be kicking their heels out of management for a bit longer than they and many might have expected
 
I see that the Bristol City job has been given to Andy Holden, who was the assistant to the previous boss. Bournemouth have given Eddie Howe's job to his former assistant.

An interesting, possibly financially driven trend, which might mean jobs at clubs will come harder and harder to pin down as an outsider.

The Brothers might be kicking their heels out of management for a bit longer than they and many might have expected

It may only be a trend at clubs where the previous regime has largely been a success! Both the example clubs had good spells with the previous regimes and perhaps want to continue as they are, with a slight new set of eyes. If you get a club relegated without scoring a game I doubt your assistant has much chance of a job!
 
It may only be a trend at clubs where the previous regime has largely been a success! Both the example clubs had good spells with the previous regimes and perhaps want to continue as they are, with a slight new set of eyes. If you get a club relegated without scoring a game I doubt your assistant has much chance of a job!

Perhaps its because appointing within is the cheaper option in difficult times even for Championship Clubs, plays a part in their thinking.