Memories Aplenty Down In McCarthy Country

Quite what Mick McCarthy made of us turning up on his patch for a pre-season friendly is hard to say. He was not going to Bromley’s home game against his former club, Millwall, preferring the thought of hitting some balls at his local golf course instead.

Football people have generally been to the venues they want to go to at his time of life and are happy to leave the practice of ground-hopping to others.

That said, we are familiar with one highly experienced coach who surprised us by saying he planned to fill in the gaps in his tour of the 92 as retirement beckons. More on him and his travels in due course.

In my case, going to the homes of all the clubs in the top four divisions has been a back-burner project for decades. Thanks to the Express & Star having employed me to cover Walsall in the Third Division and then Wolves for two years in the Fourth, I was within three of the full set in the late 1980s, only to see the ‘still-to-visit’ list expand in subsequent seasons through the glut of new-build stadia and the more open pathway from non-League to bottom division.

Now, with more free hours in semi-retirement, I’m down to four again (Harrogate and the new(ish) grounds at Barnet, Wimbledon and Everton) and crossing Bromley off the list in the company of fellow traveller John Lalley provided the chance to spend some time with Mick before kick-off.

Despite his postings to Sunderland, Wolves, the Republic of Ireland twice, Ipswich and elsewhere, the 66-year-old has had a home in Kent since playing for Millwall in the mid-1990s and, having offered bits of train-travel advice in advance, quickly confirmed he would be happy to come out to the high street to meet us.

The expected half an hour with him became an hour and then an hour and a half, with much to discuss…..the transfer market, Scottie Scheffler and The Open, Terry Connor’s appointment as assistant at Solihull Moors, Stephen Ward’s all-round competence, George Elokobi, Jody Craddock, Kevin Doyle, Carl Henry, Wayne Hennessey, how he (Mick) had flown in off holiday in Portugal in 2006 to be interviewed for the Wolves job and, hilariously, how his right-hand man, Ian ‘Taff’ Evans, had been less than impressed by the performance in a pre-arrival friendly at Swansea of the Wolves players they would be inheriting.

McCarthy also revealed he and Sir Alex Ferguson had very recently spoken by phone and in the process underpinned the healthy regard they have for each other. We have no intention of treading on any toes here and giving away the brilliant stories the Yorkshireman shares when on after-dinner speaking duty but he still has clear memories of the time he sent a shadow team out for a Premier League game at Old Trafford in December, 2009.

“Sir Alex thought I did just the right thing and, 16 years on, I hope the reasons for me doing what I did are more understood,” he said. “We had just won at Tottenham on the Saturday and the players were shattered after putting in all that effort.

“We had United away on the Tuesday night and then a huge game the following weekend at home to Burnley, who were down towards the bottom. United were champions and were pushing hard for the title again. Even with what was recognised as our very strongest side, we would have had an extremely difficult night up there.

“I thought that resting a number of players and having them fresher for the weekend gave us a better chance of taking more points. We lost at Old Trafford but then beat Burnley, so we had taken six points out of nine, which was a pretty good return.

“It didn’t stop me having to explain my case to some guys from the FA, though, and also having some criticism more locally.”

A holiday clash means McCarthy won’t be on pundit duty at the tasty opening-day Wolves v Manchester City Premier League fixture but fans of both clubs can rest assured he is still an avid top-flight watcher.

He keeps an eye on Vitor Pereira at Wolves, among others, and you suspect that the manager in him makes him particularly interested at present in the progress of Thomas Frank at Tottenham and Keith Andrews at Brentford.

In the light of the Lionesses having been on the prowl again, I enquired whether he had ever coached those in the female game. 

“No, I have only ever coached men’s professional teams,” he replied. “I haven’t even done any coaching of kids. Terry Connor is brilliant at all that, though. Give TC a bag of balls and a few cones and he could pick 12 people from this cafe now and put on a great session.”

We were meeting barely 200 yards from the railway station from which a couple of Millwall fans dropped in and, upon recognising Mick, asked if they could shake his hand.

He is no stranger either to Bromley’s Hayes Lane ground a mile or so away, although he hasn’t been there since their promotion to League Two a year ago. The Premier League clearly does a better job in pressing his buttons.

More than 18 months on from when I interviewed him at length in Central London for Backpass magazine, he cuts a relaxed figure, full of entertaining thoughts and recollections and keen to see what unfolds in the coming season.

He’s still very much Mick…..candid, funny and interested in others, too, not just in talking about himself.