For success in English football management, see the West of Scotland!

When Alex McLeish ascended the 39 steps of the world football’s famous Wembley stadium with his successful Birmingham City team after Sunday’s 2-1 win over Arsenal in the Carling Cup Final, he was not only placing himself in Birmingham’s football folklore but beside a large number of fellow kinsmen who were brought up on the hard-nosed streets of Greater Glasgow, West Scotland and for many decades taken English football by storm.

In Scotland, the west coast is known as the locality of Greater Glasgow in the county of Lanarkshire, Scotland’s largest city area with the hardened reputation and an average population of 1.5 million, which is less than Amsterdam, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Munich and Rome, all other well-known football cities.

Whether brought up in the City of Glasgow itself or on the outskirts in areas such as Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire or Dunbartonshire which span an approximate 25 mile radius of the city centre, there has always been a requirement that survival would depend on your wits, your mental toughness and your shrewdness. And for most young men growing up in such surroundings, the game of football was never far away and of course dominated by Glasgow’s famous football clubs, namely the Old Firm, Celtic and Rangers.

In England where football carries an overwhelming tradition and passion for success it can easily be proven the football player or manager born in the West of Scotland is a unique specimen and part of the great English footballing history. With too many players to mention coming from the West of Scotland and going on to succeed in England, I thought it would be more relevent to mention the football managers instead who were raised in the area.

Indeed numerous English club chairmen have surely recognised the importance of appointing men from this background when you consider the current crop now plying their trade amongst England’s football elite. Can it just be coincidence?

When we can look at the West Scottish heritage of Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and George Graham who all created domestic and European success for their respective clubs alongside, although only briefly in management south of the border, Jock Stein, the first British manager to bring home a European Cup, we can see the foundations were already in place!

Today, where the English Premiership is regarded as world football’s most competitive and compelling league, the Glasgow born leader and ubiquitous daddy of them all at Manchester United is Sir Alex Ferguson. But delve deeper and you can clearly see ‘Fergie’ is not alone.

Also from the West of Scotland, Kenny Dalglish now back at Liverpool for a second time, Davie Moyes at Everton, Steve Kean at Blackburn, Owen Coyle at Bolton and of course McLeish himself were all born in the deep tradition of west Scotland football where the ‘no mean city’ Glasgow attitude gave many a backbone needed to compete with the best.

Even Scotland’s most successful domestic manager internally for the past 20 years in Walter Smith at Rangers started out on these same streets!

If you wish to consider further this influence amongst the management team of English clubs currently playing in the Premiership, look no further than Steve Clarke at Liverpool, Joe Jordan at Tottenham, Eric Black at Sunderland, Gary McAllister at Aston Villa, and of course Peter Grant, part of McLeish’s Birmingham set up who are all from the West of Scotland.

Drop into the Coca Cola Championship and currently 2 out of the 5 highest placed clubs are managed by West Scots, namely last season’s Division 2 winner Paul Lambert at Norwich and serial promotion challenger Billy Davies at Nottingham Forest. Add Malky Mackay who has stabilised the Watford ship and Dougie Freedman striving to bring Crystal Palace back towards stability after their financial woes and we see a healthy respect for Scots shown by their respective club chairmen.

Currently in this season’s European competition there is seven British clubs still involved, each led by an Englishman, a Frenchman, two Italians and three Glaswegians.

Although the support for England has not always been reciprocated north of the border by Scottish football supporters keen to get one over on our southern neighbours, the same cannot be said in England where Scots have generally been made to feel very welcome within the national game.

And thankfully this is still the case. Indeed it could be suggested that any football club chairman who wishes to find someone in football management who will help build a structured, disciplined and hard-working team, they could do worse than seek out a football manager with that famous west of Scotland dialect.

Written by David Gibson

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