Striving to win

I played more than 900 games before I got to the Premier League. 

The year before had been the best season of my life. It was 2008/09, and the Burnley squad I was a part of were favourites to get relegated at the start of the season. The club was in bother, financially, but we finished fifth and managed to make the playoff final against Sheffield United.

I was 37 and had played in every league match that season, but I was out of contract three weeks after the game. If we got promoted, I was expecting the club to tell me I wasn’t good enough for that level.

Despite this, I went into the game thinking: “I don’t care. I just want to win this final.” This was my seventh playoffs as a player, and I hadn’t won one. I needed that win.

When the whistle went and we had won 1-0, everyone was so excited: “You’ve made the Premier League!” I spent that night trying to get to Owen Coyle, the manager, to tell him he couldn’t leave me behind!

He didn’t, and I remember the build-up to our first game, away at Stoke. Our captain, Steven Caldwell, was injured, so as vice-captain I led Burnley for their first ever Premier League game. I had this thing that I wouldn’t be a Premier League player until I actually kicked the ball, so I made sure the kick-off came back to me. It’s mad, but I played it to the left-back and thought: “Now I’m a Premier League player.”

It was brilliant that I had that at that stage of my career. It wasn’t like I was a 19 or 20-year-old who wasn’t going to really take it in. I always competed and wanted to win, of course, but I knew this wasn’t going to last forever. I was just going to enjoy it.

"United were champions, but there was zero fear when they came to turf moor. we were there to compete"

Stoke beat us 2-0, and of course everyone had been writing us off. Our next game was Manchester United at home. We had a ridiculous confidence in ourselves at Turf Moor, bordering on absurd, but that was based on the season before.

We had reached the League Cup semi finals and knocked out three Premier League teams – Fulham and Arsenal at home, and Chelsea away – on the way to facing Tottenham in the semis. They beat us 4-1 down at theirs in the first leg, but we had amazing confidence. There was no question that we wouldn’t beat them by the score we needed to at home. We beat them 3-0 over 90 minutes, but they scored twice very late in extra-time to reach the final.

United were the league champions, but there was zero fear or trepidation when they came to Turf Moor. We had loads of respect for them – they were a brilliant club, with brilliant players – but these were the games we’d been promoted for. We scored a superb goal – Robbie Blake, a fantastic volley – and Brian Jensen saved a penalty from Michael Carrick as we won 1-0. It was no fluke, either. David Moyes brought Everton to Turf Moor four days later, and we beat them too. We were there to compete.

When Steve Cotterill signed me for Burnley in the summer of 2007, I was 35 and had played full-back for 10 years. Owen Coyle succeeded Steve that November, and around eight months later he took me aside. “I need your experience in midfield,” he told me. “Go in there and tell people what to do.”

I felt like, in my last years as a player, I’d been coaching to some extent. Not in training sessions; it was more like tactical input in games. I didn’t have great pace, so I played the game with my brain and had good tactical sense.

When Owen left to take the Bolton job in the January of that season, it was a big blow. We wouldn’t have got to where we were at Burnley without him. He was the pied piper, and when he went it was a bit like: “What do we do now?”

"eddie sent me a nice message when i became a manager – welcome to the nuthouse!"

I tried to take the lead with the younger players. I’d seen this before as a player, when David Moyes left Preston for Everton in March 2002. At Burnley, Brian Laws replaced Owen, but whoever took over was going to find it difficult. We didn’t have any money, we’d fallen into a winless run in the Premier League, and we had all been so enchanted by Owen. That was the reality. When our home form started to struggle, our chance to stay in the Premier League went out the door.

The following season, after relegation, I was excited when Eddie Howe came in to replace Brian. But he immediately dropped me, and I never started another game for Burnley. 

I was about 10 appearances short of 1,000 games, and being brought on in games for three minutes as a sub. I didn’t want to limp over the line with token efforts, so I spoke to Eddie. “The thing that gets me up in the morning is playing games,” I told him. “So I need to leave, even if I go down a division.”

It was a difficult position for Eddie (above), because other people at the club wanted me to play my 1,000th game at Burnley. I don’t think he understood my burning desire to play every single game at the age of 39, and I didn’t appreciate the situation he was in. I returned that summer to Preston, after getting over the 1,000-game mark in a way I didn’t particularly enjoy. It was good that I did it at Turf Moor, though. 

Eddie sent me a nice message when I became a manager – “Welcome to the nuthouse!” – and now I understand the position he was in. He had to turn a squad round from an experienced but ageing group, and bring in younger players.

In my first spell at Preston, I asked if I could take the youth team on my day off, because I wanted to learn how to coach. We started great when I went back to Deepdale, but we were in a bad patch when Phil Brown lost his job in December.

"i was getting up on a saturday without butterflies in my stomach. i missed that emotion"

I was summoned, with first-team coach David Unsworth, to meet the chairman, Peter Ridsdale. “We want you to look after the team together,” he told us. “But Graham will have the final say on whatever decisions you need to make.” That surprised me, because David had already been a coach there for two seasons. 

Our first game was MK Dons away, live on Sky, and they were unbeaten at home. We came up with a game plan that stopped them playing and won 1-0. The flame inside me was lit.

We had five games in charge and got good results in difficult circumstances, but I never committed to saying I wanted the job. Graham Westley came in as manager and I went back to being a player for about a day. After that, I told the club: “Now that I’ve coached and managed, that’s going to be my life now.” 

I said I’d help out with coaching, but that was it for me as a player. At the end of the season, the manager gave me a sub appearance as my last game. It was probably the most special 10 seconds of my career, to score with my last ever touch at Deepdale. Then they made me head of the academy.

I did the academy job for six months, and I’m so grateful to Preston for that opportunity. But I realised I was getting up on a Saturday without butterflies in my stomach. I’d been a competitor since the age of eight, and I missed that emotion. At 40 years old, I didn’t want to coach behind the scenes for the next six or seven years. I was in a hurry to prove that I could be a manager.

When the Fleetwood job became available, I went for it. My first game was against Paul Sturrock’s Southend, and after the game he came in for a chat. He talked about the difficulties of management: “I’ve experienced management, this is your first game, the word on the street about your team is this…” I sat there and drank it all in. It was priceless.

"we specifically targeted players who had won promotion before. we wanted leaders"

When I took over at Fleetwood, there was a big turnover that had to happen in the squad. I showed my naivety by letting the players know that. A lot of them downed tools and results turned really quickly. Whatever I did, I couldn’t get them to mould.

Fleetwood’s owner Andy Pilley told me: “You won’t be judged on this, this is not your squad. You’ll be judged from the summer onwards.” A lot of young managers might not have gotten that opportunity after a difficult few months. We changed the squad around in the summer, but if Andy had judged me after those first four months it could have been the end of my managerial career.

Promotion from League Two was the aim in my first full season, though. Andy had told me when I arrived that the club got promoted every two years, so there was big pressure. We specifically targeted the recruitment of players who had won promotion before, and we wanted leaders. Steven Schumacher and Mark Roberts, who had both captained teams and earned promotions, were particularly big for us that season.

After finishing fourth, we reached the playoff final. There, we would face Burton for the fifth time that season. “Flipping hell,” I thought. “You again!”

The first league meeting of that season had been a mental game at Fleetwood. The wind was with Burton in the first half and they went 3-0 up, before we got two goals back in the second. We had a beer afterwards with the Burton manager, Gary Rowett, and he mentioned that we left space they had exploited to score from a short corner. He was really confident and talkative; we thought maybe he was being a bit clever because they’d won.

In the reverse league fixture at their place, we beat them 4-2. Afterwards, Gary was exactly the same as he had been when they beat us. I know how difficult that can be, after you’ve lost. I really enjoyed the conversation with him about the game, and thought: “You’re a proper guy.”

In our previous games against Burton, we noticed that when the screener in our midfield diamond came across the pitch, they would miss him out by hitting a diagonal into their second striker. At Wembley, for the playoff final, we adjusted so that our outside man in the diamond dropped in to stop that. 

"sean dyche rang me. it had happened to him at watford, and he told me exactly what i needed to hear"

We edged a tight final 1-0, and at the end of the game I recalled something David Moyes had said to me: “If you don’t win in your first job, you might not get a second.” So my first thought at full-time was: “Now I might get another job at some point!” Everyone was jumping on me at the final whistle, but I wanted to shake Gary’s hand and commiserate with him. He knew the fine line between winning and losing, and how tough it is for us all.

Surviving in League One wasn’t enough. The ambition was a top-half finish and to show we had the potential to get promoted the season after. This was a new level for Fleetwood, although the infrastructure was probably the same as they had had in non-league – so it was about building up the club as well as getting results on the pitch. I was getting exposed to everything: starting an Under-20s team, trying to get a new training ground, building a recruitment database. 

We finished two wins off the playoffs, in 10th,  but in the summer the running of the club completely flipped on its head. Fleetwood had been heavily reliant on Andy Pilley financing everything, so there was an ambition to make the club more self-sufficient. The budget was stripped 30 per cent, and they wanted the average age of the squad reduced from around 27 to under 23. We did both in the space of two months. It was way too quick to do it all in one go, but I was assured my job would be safe. 

After 10 league games of the 2015/16 League One season, I lost my job. It was a bolt from the blue after what I’d been told in the summer, and for the first time since I was eight I wasn’t attached to a football club. It was a really hard time, and I think I slept for a week. There was a bit of me moping, but I think I was also just knackered.

I was an absolute slob for a week, but that didn’t sit right with me and by the end of that week I was ready to crack on. I had some really good phonecalls from people within the game, too. Sean Dyche rang me, because it had happened to him at Watford. He told me exactly what I needed to hear. 

I went for a couple of jobs which I didn’t get, but six months later I got the Scunthorpe job – something I was delighted with, because it had been my first club as a player. 

I’ve had a lot of good times in football, and some difficult times, which gives me perspective. If you want longevity and success, though, you have to take the hits and still come back tomorrow, striving to win.