'Managing Macclesfield is much harder than playing - everyone wants to see me fail'
Robbie Savage is doing 90-hour weeks in his role as manager of Macclesfield, who currently sit top of the Northern Premier League, despite the many challenges they face
by Robbie Savage · The MirrorInternational breaks give fans a chance to go out and support their local non-League teams.
And this weekend is a great opportunity to enjoy the magic of the FA Cup, with the fourth qualifying round the last hurdle before the first round proper – and a potential tie selected for live TV coverage. With £9,375 in prize money for winners of each tie, no non-League club is going to turn its nose up at that kind of income.
But for managers, including new ones on the block like myself, the excitement translates mainly into stress. A lot of people seem to think being a manager in the Northern Premier League is a part-time job. Let me assure you it’s much harder than anything else I’ve ever done in football.
The pressure, the anxiety, the lonely hours scouting, watching videos, taking training sessions, dealing with players one-to-one, organising ticket allocations and prices for cup ties (which I’m required to agree as a director) and the games themselves can take up 90 hours a week.
At least, as a manager, I know it’s down to me if we fail on the pitch. When I go home and look in the mirror, there’s nobody else to blame but myself if I pick the wrong starting XI, make poor substitutions or devise the wrong tactics.
If I had my time again as my previous role at Macclesfield (director of football, with ultimate responsibility for hiring and firing managers), I would not have changed the 24/7 intensity. But now I know how hard it is to be a manager, I would have cut down on the gesticulating, shaking my head and being a back-seat driver.
The only person who probably gets an easier time from me now is the missus: When I get home, I’m less argumentative, less moody and I don’t need to complain about anything but my own decisions.
And now I’ve tasted life in the dugout, I can say, hand on heart, that a win as manager is far more rewarding than any win I enjoyed as a player – and that includes winning the League Cup final at Wembley.
You realise that, as manager, you are responsible for results which will dictate the futures of players, management and club staff behind the scenes. It’s a huge burden, but I wouldn’t swap all the pressure for anything and I believe I will be a League manager one day.
And here’s the bottom line: It’s not about playing out from the back, it’s not about 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 formations… it’s all about results. End of story.
My sons keep telling me to get my heart-rate monitored, and they are right. At times I fear it must go through the roof. I’m lucky that, having captained four Premier League clubs as a player, I can count some well-known managers as friends and lean on them for advice.
For example, I’ve learned that if you shout and scream at players, you are only doing it for yourself. If you spend your half-time team talk, or post-match chat in the dressing room bawling out young, ambitious athletes and telling them where they have gone wrong, they will switch off. Messages have to be short and on-point.
I’ve also learned that a lot of people out there want Macclesfield to fail because they want me to fail – but that is fuel to my fire. Yes, we can attract good players who could operate in a higher division because we get crowds of 3,500 or more every week.
Where some clubs at our level live beyond their means, we break even – whatever we spend, we recoup at the turnstiles or through commercial revenue. And I’ve discovered there’s a ‘Macclesfield tax’ in the transfer market. If we go in for a player who’s been quoted for sale at £5,000 to other clubs, we’ll get quoted £50,000.
In the other direction, clubs will offer £2,000 for one of our players who’s worth £30,000 “because we don’t need the money.” Here’s the news: We need to be treated as fairly, on and off the pitch, as any other club.
But I won’t stand for the often-repeated misinformation that we’re a full-time operation because it’s nonsense. We try to run the club along professional lines, but only what we can afford.
Lots of people, myself included, have other jobs away from the football club – in my case hosting Six-0-Six phone-ins every weekend and working as co-commentator for TNT Sports on their live coverage of European football.
Fortunately, the season has gone well so far: We are top of the table and now just 90 minutes away from a place in the FA Cup first round.
I’m trying not to think beyond Tamworth, our opponents in the fourth qualifying round, because they are a very good side. I went to watch them beat Gateshead in midweek and went through the video again, as well as studying the footage of their game against Halifax twice.
For non-League clubs, the FA Cup first round is one of the biggest weekends of the year – it’s the gateway to glamour. If you can get out to support your local part-time club this weekend, please get behind them.
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