The plight of the unemployed manager is a curious phenomenon, one that lurches from loss to loneliness and quite often a long, hopeless struggle to get back in. It can last forever, or for no time at all, but it is always challenging and usually it begins with a sacking.
Mark McGhee has been dismissed frequently enough to know it shouldn’t be taken personally, but he will never forget the first time. After four uninterrupted years as the manager of Reading and then Leicester City, his three years at Wolverhampton Wanderers came to an abrupt end when, after successive failures to win promotion, he presided over just two wins in 12 matches.
First, there was the meeting at which he was told to pack his bags, then there was the introduction to “real life” for the first time in his long career as a manager and player. But what McGhee remembers most is the feeling a few days later when he saw first-hand that Wolves would carry on perfectly well without him.
“The following week, I got a phone call from big Mick [McCarthy] who was the Republic of Ireland’s manager at the time,” McGhee says. “He asked me to go to a game at Blackburn, watch the Irishmen who were playing and send him a report. He was doing me a favour really, getting me out of the house and keeping me involved.
“So that was great. But in order to go from where I lived, out near Bridgnorth, to the motorway, I had to drive on the stretch of dual carriageway that goes behind Molineux. And when I drove past, there was a game on, an early kickoff presumably. It actually brought tears to my eyes. Literally a week earlier, I had been king of the castle down there. And here I was, driving along, with it all going on in my absence. It was so emotional.”
This, then, is how it feels for former managers: sad, dispiriting and a little surreal. The sudden jolt from an all-consuming, 24/7 obsession with who to pick and how to make the team better is replaced the following morning by walking the dog and watching Homes under the Hammer.
It’s alright for José Mourinho, who is thought to have received £82m in compensation over the years. McGhee feels for managers further down the food chain who wonder if they can afford to keep chasing the dream. “They have not accrued vast amounts of money. They need to pay the mortgage and feed their families. Some of these young guys go straight into management, lose their job and suddenly they’re out on the street. It can be brutal.”
