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Talking about the team spirit, taking on the role of manager and his time at Rochdale :
" I haven’t known a better team spirit as a manager or as player. That is in the whole of the club and I actually include the fans in that because they are a massive part of what we are trying to do at the club. I haven’t ever known anything like it. I have to say when I first came into Carlisle that I got such a shock after being at football clubs where there is always a good feeling around places.
" When I walked into Carlisle when Roddy Collins was manager and spoke to him and talked about coming in as a player I’ve never experienced a place as flat as the situation was then. Everybody was unhappy, there was a lot of bickering going on and backbiting. I’m delighted to say, it’s not me who caused that, it’s the whole football cub – supporters, directors, office staff and players that we have brought in have generated this good feeling about the place and hopefully we can keep it going.
" There was big doubt in my mind when I was offered the manager’s job here. I knew I was under a lot of pressure when I got another manager’s job because of what had happened at Rochdale. Everybody had this view of Rochdale that I was sacked and I wasn’t sacked. I was offered a two-year contract there but I was told by the directors that they felt somebody had to be made a scapegoat for the position that we finished in the league and I had to sack a member of my coaching staff.
" I tried to explain that that wasn’t the problem so I resigned on a principle more than anything and took a bit of a gamble. So I knew that in my next job I had to succeed because I would probably never get another chance, so when I was offered the job here I discussed it with a lot of people who I trusted with their view of the game. Managers, ex-managers, coaches of mine and I have to say there wasn’t one of them who said ‘yes take the job’ and I ignored them all and took a bit of a gamble and took the job.
" I could have quite easily carried on as a player but I took the gamble because I really wanted to have a right good go at trying to succeed and it all fell flat on it’s backside for the first part of the season. I was delighted that the directors showed faith and could see I was trying to do things. Now I just couldn’t be happier that I made that decision to take the job on.
" I think I was fairly sure I was going to take it. Anybody who asks Fred Story what sort of a person I am – he calls me a "stubborn little git" amongst many other things. I am stubborn and I have my own mind and I have my own views on what I want to do, where I want to go and where I want to take the team. It does take a lot of persuading me to go against those ways but as I say I’m glad that I was strong enough and stubborn enough maybe to take the job on. Looking at it now we’re in a stronger position than we were when I came in. "
Chatting about learning in the job and the standard of refereeing in general :
" I’d like to think the players who are still with us have learnt from the relegation and the feeling that you get the year after from Stoke, the feeling you are getting week in week out now is something that the relegation has helped them to achieve.
" Dennis, Billy Barr and myself are learning all the time as well. When things are going well the players get the credit and every now and then the manager does and people like Dennis, Billy and Neil Dalton and even Andy Horn who does everything at the club – it’s all for them this success because they all feel it when we lose games as well. They all go through the rollockings, they get me grumping at them morning and afternoon but it’s enjoyable at the moment for everybody at the club.
" I think a similar discipline system to Rugby League could work. I think if you lose a player into a sin-bin for five minutes or whatever it might be could be a good idea. I think there would be a lot of players in there early on but I think you’d realise you can’t do it.
" I’m all for being respectful to referees and making sure you don’t go abusing them, whether it’s foul and abusive language or with gestures. I think it’s something you should get out of the game because referees very rarely change their mind. Infact I can’t think of anybody ever changing their mind so it’s a bit of a waste of time and it does distract you from the next job you are supposed to be doing on the pitch.
" It could work, I’m not really sure whether we could go down the line of stopping and having video replays to see whether decisions should or shouldn’t have been made, I think that would be very disruptive to the game.
" I think the referees this season in general have been all right. I can only go off my marks that I give them and in general I am giving them 70-75 out of 100 for the areas that I have to mark them in and I think they have been half-decent.
" I thought the referee at Grimsby was good. I had him when I was at Rochdale once, a chap called Trevor Parkes. I was gobsmacked, he came out to warm-up and went into our goals while the substitutes took shots at him and that was his warm-up. I wondered what we were going to get from him really, he’s obviously a very frustrated goalkeeper who is having to take the referees line. "
Talking about moving the Macclesfield game to the Sunday and fixture movement in general :
" I can understand supporters complaining about the Macclesfield fixture being moved. I was asked about it though and they wanted to make it a Fans United day because they have got these debts, whether they are to blame or not – I do believe it was a previous board that caused the problem and have brought this debt on.
" I think the last thing though that any football fan would want to see is a club going out of business so if we can help them generate money then I’m all for that. I’d like to think that if we were in that situation then other clubs would rally round to help us and that was my only view on that.
" For the Northampton game we were given the option of a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon and I felt that in evening games we perform better and I hope that it is still going to be the case when we go to Northampton. I know it is going to be disruptive for supporters but we get our supporters travelling whatever time it is. I apologise if it a real inconvenience because it was me who made that decision to agree to it but again we are fitting in with the Northamptonshire police and there is a big Rugby game apparently on that Saturday. I think that if we can help clubs then hopefully if we had a problem clubs would rally round and help us as well. "
Chatting about the pressures of management and superstitions :
" Being put under pressure right after we score and early on is a problem. I was annoyed in the game against Rochdale because we didn’t do what I’d asked the players to do and that was follow in shots on the goalkeeper in a dodgy goalmouth. That gave me a little bit of a high blood pressure problem.
" In general though I do try to keep pretty quiet about it and a lot of other people rant and rave around. In the quietness of the dressing-room I rant and rave and let my steam off there. I sometimes watch managers on the sideline and I know I’m not talking out of turn when I say the Carlisle fans have experienced somebody like that in recent years. I think the ranting on the touchline is for effect and for other people’s observations and players don’t really take much notice so I try to say the things I want to say inside the changing-room. It’s not for anybody else to see or to watch how I go about my business really.
" A lot of people in football are superstitious, I’m not though. Maybe somebody might see it as superstitious I suppose, I try and prepare a way that I’m comfortable with and a way that I think works for me. People might say that is superstition, people used to say I was superstitious when I was a player because I never used to shave before a game but it was when I was younger and I used to get a rash on my chin when I started sweating. As I’ve got into old age and my face is as tough as old boots it doesn’t tend to happen now. It wasn’t a superstition, it was just something I did in my preparation. "
Talking about the festive period, the FA Youth Cup and his hopes for 2006 :
" The only disappointment has been that we lost out on the opportunity to go to Boston and get a result there but I think to get seven points out of nine then we would have settled for that beforehand. We’re in a good position and now we’ve got to make sure January is as good as December had been.
" The Youth team have done really well in the Youth Cup, they’ve had some difficult games to come through, the Macclesfield and Doncaster games were tough games. They have earned the right to go in this game and it is a long time since a Carlisle youth side has got through to the Fourth Round of the FA Youth Cup.
" Hopefully they will go and enjoy the night. It is a game that they are capable of winning. Russ (Richardson) – the scout – went to watch Huddersfield play against Leicester in the last round and Leicester were the better side. They created the most chances and it’ll be a hell of a game for them. Hopefully they won’t freeze under the spotlight and hopefully we will get a good crowd there which will be a good education for the players to learn how to do deal with that and they will all benefit from that experience.
" We’ve started 2006 how we want to carry on and we want to make sure we keep going. Everything inside the club is going right, we’ve got the backing of everybody outside of it – the supporters, local businesses and everything. We want to keep it going, there is a real feelgood factor about Carlisle United Football Club and about Carlisle as a whole area.
" We are aware of the influence that the football club has on the factories when the lads and girls are going into work. It makes everybody’s lives a bit better if we have won and hopefully we’ll carry on making everybody’s lives a bit better. "