At Home Away
Woodfield A Wanderer In Both Senses
Some of the large gaps in Dave Woodfield’s post-Molineux life have at last been filled in – and confirmation received as to his current whereabouts. But it sounds as though anyone hoping and expecting to see him rushing back to these shores when he turns 65 in October should brace themselves for disappointment.
An Adventure Well Worth Undertaking
No Regrets For Neil in NZ
His Home Counties tones are now littered with a trace of Kiwi and he has an unmistakable Southern Hemisphere tan. This week, what’s more, he plays for the second time in the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.
Hegan: The Missing Years
I’ve No Regrets – Danny
He walked in 20 minutes late, which was no surprise. I had been warned that there was British Summer Time, Greenwich Mean Time and Hegan Time. “Sorry, Dave, I’ve had the plumbers round. Can I get you a drink?”
‘An Overwhelmingly Positive Impact’
The Football Life And Times Of Les Wilson
For what he did in taking a small football country to the World Cup finals, there’s a bit of Jack Charlton or even Mick McCarthy. For the way he later used his coaching talents when adopting a measured and highly respected overview, he is seen as a sort of Stateside Trevor Brooking. And when offered the job as CONCACAF deputy secretary in 1999, he did what Roy Keane would no doubt love to do again and told the federation’s outspoken president Jack Warner to sling his hook.
Ahead Of His Time – Or Asking Too Much?
Mark Burke: Coach In Waiting
He talks a great game and, in the coming years, Mark Burke is confident of showing he can also coax one out of players. For now, he divides his time between working in England in land property and seeing his girlfriend and seven-year-old son in Holland. The long-term plan, though, is to move into coaching – a door he firmly believes will open.
Hugh Immortalised In Stone
A Wanderer Returns
I felt like I’d been waiting ten years to track down Hugh McIlmoyle, so it hardly seemed to matter that I was ten minutes late pulling on to his drive in a village that might have been called Middle Of Nowhere.
But this legend of Cumbrian football greeted me by saying he had been asked by Border TV to do a live interview into that teatime’s news programme from outside Carlisle United’s Brunton Park ground. Bang goes another ten minutes.
I Think We’ll Manage
An Eye-Opening Trend
Much has been said, with Paul Ince’s return to the Premier League, about how many of Sir Alex Ferguson’s former Manchester United stalwarts have followed him into management.
Steve Bruce, Roy Keane and Mark Hughes already occupied top-flight hot seats while, from the Aberdeen side he led during his pre-knighthood days to the greatest era in their history, Gordon Strachan, Alex McLeish and Mark McGhee have embarked on similar journeys.