The making of a manager

When Roy McFarland left Derby County at the weekend he became one of this football season's more startling statistics. He was the 48th manager to leave his post this season. Forty of the 92 League clubs have a different manager to the one they started with pre-season.

Some managers, like Mark McGhee and Brian Little, thought they were moving on to better things, but the vast majority have left against their will, however much their departure has been dressed up with the tag of "mutual consent".

Many managers were in their first such job, most of these will not get a second. If you are a big name - an Alan Ball or Gerry Francis, who struggled in their first jobs - another chance may arise. If you are the loyal one- club lower division man, the obvious choice at your club but no one else's, and you fail it is off to the dole queue.

Quite a few of the departed had barely hung up their boots before switching to the dug-out, some still had them on, cost-effective player-managers being an increasing attraction.

There are a number of reasons for the acceleration in dismissals, notably the growing impatience of fans and chairmen. But two, inter-related factors, are now being addressed.

One is that, unsurprisingly, many managers are ill-equipped and under- prepared for the transition from playing to managing. One day the only problem is how to stop the opposition centre-forward; the next the new manager has to pick and prepare a team, negotiate contracts and transfers, deal with the press, sponsors and chairman, placate unhappy players and, sometimes, still find time to train himself.

It is like asking a schoolboy to teach the class, or a juror to prosecute a case. The teaching and legal professions have qualification requirements and now the Football Association has decided to follow suit.

It is not a new concept - it is common practice in much of western Europe - but it is a foreign one to England where increasingly, being qualified to manage a football club appears to mean possessing a cupboard full of medals and caps.

But for every Kevin Keegan and Bryan Robson there are a number of Peter Shiltons and Bobby Moores - great players who, for various reasons, were unable to translate their playing prowess to management.

Some failed managers would, in time, have succeeded but, in learning while doing the job, they made mistakes which cost them their position. Ending this haphazard form of training, and thus raising the standard of management, is the FA's aim.

Courses will be held at a new Football Institute, created in conjunction with Loughborough University and due to open in June, 1996. It is intended that the academy's diploma will be compulsory for would-be managers within 10 years.

The course will come under the umbrella of the proposed Uefa Professional Teacher Licence which is being introduced across Europe and would require a minimum 240 hours study (the FA's most advanced current qualification, the full badge, requires 120 hours over two weeks).

At present the FA are leaning towards one of the shorter courses, such as those run by the Dutch and Spanish, neither of which exceed a month. More impressive courses are run by Italy (seven months) and Germany - whose six-month residential course was completed by Tony Woodcock (see story right).

Alan Smith, one of the few Premiership bosses to have managed at non- League and youth level, is in favour of the longer course. The Crystal Palace manager, who still takes a keen interest in grass-roots coaching, said: "Six months is not much out of somebody's life. It would sort out the people who really want to do it. Lots want to get involved but some just think it would be a nice way to stay in football and play golf every afternoon.

"I can see how it would be frustrating if you are 33 and want to get on with it - but there is a lot to the job.

"At present you just come into it and it is a case of suck it and see - but you make mistakes. I was lucky, I managed at Dulwich Hamlet and Wimbledon youth and I made my mistakes there. I was here 11 years in various positions and could observe.

"Training should apply to all jobs, reserve and youth team as well. You are playing with people's lives and if you start as a youth coach and spend two years learning the ropes, you have messed up careers. A player only gets two years as an apprentice."

One notable managerial success, whose preparation appears to have been eight years playing golf in Spain, is Kevin Keegan at Newcastle. But as Smith said: "Keegan has done well but who is to say he would not have done better if he had done a course.

"But you don't want lots of pseudo-academics and managers with lots of letters after their name taking over from people like Keegan. You want practical experience, like he has got, and common sense.

"But this is not about hindering would-be managers, it is about trying to help them. I don't think the FA's intention is to produce a lot of boffins."

One by-product of creating professional qualifications for managers is that it should increase the respect in which they are held. "At present," said Smith, "my chairman could give my job to the milkman. He wouldn't, but the system in place allows him to if he wanted."

The milkman would probably accept. As Gerry Summers, a twice-sacked former manager of Oxford and Gillingham, once remarked: "Football management is one of two jobs everyone believes they can do - the other is Prime Minister."

As several rebel Tories have been relieved to discover, managers are easier to fire than MPs but, at present, neither position requires any qualification beyond powerful friends and an ability to influence them.