A job not even Jesus wanted

In your FACES, doubters

Imagine, if you will, 92 bits of fruit and veg. Actually, be a bit less ambitious – it’s the end of the week and you might be tired, or an idiot. Imagine 92 apples and onions. Quite a lot of fruit and veg that, isn’t it? Only it isn’t. Not when just six of the 92 bits of fruit and vegetables are apples. Then it becomes rather more like a massive pile of vegetables with little to no fruit in there at all. What happened? Did you forget to write out your shopping list properly? Aren’t you in favour of a balanced diet? DO YOU WANT TO SMELL LIKE ONIONS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

Probably not, would be my guess.

Here’s another one for you. Imagine a man who never played professional football getting a job as a football manager, and later declaring himself the ‘special one’ having won a few trophies. One was a Champions League title with an unheralded club, so maybe fair enough, he had something on which to base a fairly arrogant claim. And what's this? We all fall in love with him anyway and fawn over him and it’s all very unedifying.

Now imagine a different man is talking about getting a job as a football manager, and declares himself one of the ‘greatest minds in football’ when talking about his ambition, having won a few trophies. Two of those were Premier Leagues, and two were FA Cups. He also played 73 times for his country, for which he became the second-youngest captain after its World-Cup winning captain, played over 500 times in the Premier League and had completed all the available UEFA coaching qualifications, so maybe fair enough, he had something on which to base a fairly arrogant claim. And what's this? We all have a good old laugh because he’s obviously a bit weird and why would you hire someone so arrogant.

I think you can see where this is going. But let’s make the comparison slightly more contemporary. Another man, who made the exact same number of appearances in English football and played more times for England, who won a Champions League, UEFA Cup and two FA Cups also wanted to be a manager. He’s done all the relevant qualifications, now at least, because he didn’t finish the ‘Pro’ one until after he’d been appointed manager of one of the biggest clubs in the UK.

Here’s one more. ANOTHER MAN (I’ve got lots) who made more appearances for both clubs and country, won more, but DOESN’T have the Pro licence you need to coach in the Premier League. Got a job in the Championship immediately and then after one season went to one of the biggest clubs in Europe, who are about to spend the GDP of a small country on new players ahead of the next Premier League season.

Now this is absolutely not Steven Gerrard’s fault, or Frank Lampard’s fault, and good luck to them, and well done so far, and all the rest of it. But it seems a bit out of order to us to call Sol Campbell a ‘shit manager’, or suggest that there aren’t differences in these respective routes into management, despite the anecdotally similar qualifications in terms playing and ACTUAL better qualifications in terms of managing of all those involved. And denying it is fucking stupid.

We will not be hearing a bad word about Sol Campbell’s managerial record in this parish, or the very obvious and stark fact that he has been made to start at the very bottom of the professional football system, when scarcely believable opportunities have been offered to his less qualified and untested peers. Especially given he achieved a major miracle with Macclesfield… and had he been handed Christian Pulisic and Mason Mount upon arrival, then been able to sign Hakim Zyech and Timo Werner, we might even have scored a few more goals (I’m kidding, Elliott Durrell and Harry Smith, I still love you).

If you didn’t already know, Campbell had to do everything himself. And that’s not ‘everything’ in a Premier Leaguey way, which might include having to wash your own socks (not even sure it does, actually), but almost literally EVERYTHING* - including paying for stuff, training at a school when the club got kicked out of the facility they were using, foregoing wages, even leaving without the bonus he should have had for keeping Macc in the league. All that just to get a chance at a first job – I feel bloody sorry for him that it had to be with us, the worst-run club in the fucking universe, as evidenced by how completely tits-up things have gone since he left.

Jesus Christ wishes he had a miracle on his record as good as keeping Macclesfield Town up, but even he thought it a little audacious and ended up doing something with loaves of bread and fishes somewhere that presumably had better training facilities than Macc and could actually afford bread and fish.

When Campbell left Macclesfield, having made some quality signings in the summer SOMEHOW, we were seventh and our shirts were covered in blood from the nosebleeds. And where did he pitch up next? Southend, a club more or less relegated in October and getting drilled by four or five every week. I can’t imagine it was his overriding fetish for baskets and cases that meant he went off to another shambles.

So what is the difference between manager A, manager B and manager C(ampbell) then? Is it any wonder that if Lampard goes to Chelsea, Gerrard to Rangers and their black contemporary’s first job is at the lowest-ranked club in the footballing pyramid, questions might just be asked? As we all know, Twitter can be a swamp if you delve just below the surface. Using win percentages as a stick to beat Campbell with is an absolute false equivalency to, well, just about anyone who hasn’t managed Macclesfield when they were five points adrift at the bottom of League Two.

Oliver Holt pointed out the disparity between the scorn being poured on Campbell as a manager and reality, adding: “attitude towards Campbell is a golden example of way black managers are treated”. It’s worth pointing out Campbell didn’t get sacked from Macc. He left because it was a shitshow. Then linked with Sheffield Wednesday, you only have to look at some of the comments flying around in August 2019 to see that one was destined to never get off the ground.

So what is good enough? Is the only way to close the gap to perform a Champ Man-esque ascent and take Welling United to the Champions League final? Even then someone on Twitter would ask to see how many saves he’d made.

Sachin Nakrani mentioned this in response to Holt, and he’s absolutely bang on: “Prior to Macclesfield, it was claimed he was too arrogant and aloof to be a successful manager, which is precisely the type of character tests that only BAME coaches have to pass to secure a job in football. Essentially - “he’s got above his station”.

Now, this is not to say that the people doing the hiring at the numerous football clubs that have rejected Campbell and other BAME managers are overt racists who haven’t given them a chance because they’re not white men. But it is to say that the bar is different, no matter how subtle the difference, and that professional football is not set up to encourage diversity. If Campbell doesn’t have any experience on his CV, how can he gain any? If there aren’t routes into jobs for aspiring people, how can any of them expect to find opportunities at all? It’s unfathomable that this is even up for debate, and it’s even more unfathomable and deeply troubling that Raheem Sterling should be subject to yet more abuse for having to articulate as much.

Oh, and if anyone was wondering why we’re a bit late on this, we’ve been quiet for a few days because we’ve been building a statue of Sol Campbell for Peter Shilton’s garden. And it’s the promptings of Shilton – along with, it must be said, more than a few ignorant Tweeters – behaving like a man entering a shit insight competition and winning ‘most improved’, that a) make us despair and b) give us the momentum to write rebuttals like this when you have Wayne Whataboutery and Eddie Extremeexample spouting undiluted shite about ‘playing race cards’, with the unmistakeable scent of onions in the air.

*And as you well know, we don’t use the word ‘literally’ lightly, which is why we’re still keeping it at arm’s length here.