Post by Macmoish on Apr 7, 2011 12:27:19 GMT
I thought Gorman showed a high degree of character when he chose not to stay after Magilton pushed out. I remember him as a Carlisle player who we were linked to - about 1972 era)
News and Star
Ex-Carlisle Utd ace John Gorman keen to be a manager again
Thursday, 07 April 2011
John Gorman is struggling to identify the time when football began to matter again. It must have come at some point over the last couple of years, but he struggles to retrieve a single moment of revelation from his memory.
Perhaps, more likely, it was a slow and steady path. “Time is a great healer,” says the 61-year-old down his mobile phone’s hands-free device as he drives away from another training session with MK Dons, where he is assistant manager to 30-year-old Karl Robinson, the Football League’s youngest boss.
Most sufferers try to run away from their addiction. Gorman approached his seventh decade wondering if he would ever get his back.
What disappeared from Gorman in the spring of 2006 was the internal kick that comes to most football men on a Saturday morning: the one that says what happens in a stadium from 3pm that day is the most important thing in your world.
What triggered this loss was the death of his wife, Myra, after a long struggle against Cancer. Gorman stood down from his job as manager of Wycombe, and then lasted only six months in his next post at Northampton before he quit again, consumed by a grief that would dominate all other emotions, especially the idea that thinking of ways to win three points at the weekend was remotely important.
A series of lower-key coaching roles followed. He was content away from the demands of the front line, and spent time writing an autobiography that was less a life story than an extended love note to his late wife (“God bless you darling” were the book’s closing words).
Two-and-a-half years after Myra’s death, he went to Ipswich to assist their new manager, Jim Magilton, who he later followed to QPR.
It was during this spell that the switch flicked back on. Now number two to the Dons’ youthful leader Robinson, Gorman is this week plotting ways to outmanoeuvre Carlisle United, the club he graced in the 1970s. And feeling a sight exasperated to be doing so.
“As much as I enjoy being an assistant and helping Karl, it gets frustrating,” he says. “You feel you could do things your own way. Especially when you’ve done it before.
“I feel there is unfinished business. It was my choice to step down [from management] when I did. But if someone turned around and gave me the chance of a job, I would definitely consider it. It would be nice if someone was interested in me again.
“I’ve got my enthusiasm back again. At the time, after my wife died, I was thinking, ‘What’s it all about – how important is it, really?’ But when I was assisting Jim, I felt my drive come back and it’s even stronger now.”
The last time we spoke, Gorman was in Wycombe promoting his book, Gory Tales. He reports that the publisher has since gone bust, leading to confusion over the destination of some royalties which he had intended to give to a charity for terminally ill children.
He also recalls feeling a certain edginess throughout that promotional process: travelling towns with his new partner, Denise, whilst talking at length about losing the love of his life, and all the while trying to adjust to an existence he now thought would always be spent away from the dugout.
Now he describes a greater contentment. “Believe it or not, I’m still with Denise,” he chortles. “She has been very supportive and she has been there for me. I enjoy her company.
“My family have accepted her as well. That has made a big difference. At the time they were saying, ‘Dad, it’s only been 18 months since mum died’. But things are better now.”
Gorman’s state of emotional well-being has been a lasting concern to Carlisle United supporters, who gave the Scot a stirring reception when he brought Northampton to Brunton Park shortly after Myra’s death, and who mark his name down in most all-time greatest Blues teams for his feats as a buccaneering left-back in the team that reached the First Division in 1974.
On Sunday, he took himself to Wembley to watch his old club win the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, partly, he says, as a scouting mission, but also as a journey born of old loyalty.
“I was quite proud of them,” he says. “The fans were great and they played well. It was a good day out and a great achievement.
“I’m a little bit surprised they are not higher in the league, because they gave us a good hiding up at Carlisle in August [United beat the Dons 4-1]. They are a good football team, with some impressive players, and I think they will be too professional to let their season peter out after the final. We are expecting a difficult game on Saturday, don’t worry about that.”
Among the more engaging stories to be told in this League One season has been the rookie Robinson steering his team into the heart of the promotion race. What is the 30-year-old’s secret?
“I’m his secret,” laughs Gorman, whose long touchline career includes stints at Glenn Hoddle’s side with England and Tottenham, and a Premier League management post with Swindon. “Seriously, he is a young, up-and-coming manager and a very good coach who has got some good staff around him. If he keeps his feet on the ground he will do very well.
“It’s gone better than we expected, I have to say. We try and play good football. The biggest influence in my career was Dick Young, who trained us at Carlisle. He taught us about push-and-run and we play in a similar way here.
“I have never changed my principles. People say we’re like a little Arsenal. We don’t mind winning a game roughly but the majority of times we try to do it the right way. We are a good, open team that plays with no fear, and while we sometimes lose goals, we score plenty as well.”
It’s a philosophy at odds with some of the more clumping methods employed by lower-league managers. Brighton, this season, have mounted the best intellectual challenge to the idea that hoofing and hoping is the best way to prosper down the divisions, while Peterborough and the Dons are probably next in the style stakes.
If this approach leads to an entertaining hour-and-a-half at stadium:mk on Saturday afternoon, then so much the better. And if it eventually takes Gorman back to his first management post for five years, then many in the game will cheer, although not necessarily Robinson.
“I love working with players, improving them as individuals,” says Gorman, who on Tuesday was working with the Dons’ defenders while camera crews were filming a certain Robbie Fowler, a Liverpool contemporary of Robinson, as he took a separate coaching session with the strikers.
“But when you’re assistant you take things on your shoulders as much as the manager. You feel just as responsible.
“I’m 61 and Karl is 30. A lot of clubs are going that way, with a younger manager and an experienced coach. But it can work the other way, too.”
In tabloid-speak, we might describe this as a come-and-get-me plea to chairmen. “Don’t take it like that,” he pleads. “I’m very happy in what I’m doing and I enjoy being here.
“But look at the likes of Roy Hodgson. He is still as enthusiastic as ever to be working and managing and trying to achieve things. Why shouldn’t you use that experience?"
www.newsandstar.co.uk/carlisle-united/latest/ex-carlisle-utd-ace-john-gorman-keen-to-be-a-manager-again-1.825598?referrerPath=/news_star_sport_latest_1_49999
News and Star
Ex-Carlisle Utd ace John Gorman keen to be a manager again
Thursday, 07 April 2011
John Gorman is struggling to identify the time when football began to matter again. It must have come at some point over the last couple of years, but he struggles to retrieve a single moment of revelation from his memory.
Perhaps, more likely, it was a slow and steady path. “Time is a great healer,” says the 61-year-old down his mobile phone’s hands-free device as he drives away from another training session with MK Dons, where he is assistant manager to 30-year-old Karl Robinson, the Football League’s youngest boss.
Most sufferers try to run away from their addiction. Gorman approached his seventh decade wondering if he would ever get his back.
What disappeared from Gorman in the spring of 2006 was the internal kick that comes to most football men on a Saturday morning: the one that says what happens in a stadium from 3pm that day is the most important thing in your world.
What triggered this loss was the death of his wife, Myra, after a long struggle against Cancer. Gorman stood down from his job as manager of Wycombe, and then lasted only six months in his next post at Northampton before he quit again, consumed by a grief that would dominate all other emotions, especially the idea that thinking of ways to win three points at the weekend was remotely important.
A series of lower-key coaching roles followed. He was content away from the demands of the front line, and spent time writing an autobiography that was less a life story than an extended love note to his late wife (“God bless you darling” were the book’s closing words).
Two-and-a-half years after Myra’s death, he went to Ipswich to assist their new manager, Jim Magilton, who he later followed to QPR.
It was during this spell that the switch flicked back on. Now number two to the Dons’ youthful leader Robinson, Gorman is this week plotting ways to outmanoeuvre Carlisle United, the club he graced in the 1970s. And feeling a sight exasperated to be doing so.
“As much as I enjoy being an assistant and helping Karl, it gets frustrating,” he says. “You feel you could do things your own way. Especially when you’ve done it before.
“I feel there is unfinished business. It was my choice to step down [from management] when I did. But if someone turned around and gave me the chance of a job, I would definitely consider it. It would be nice if someone was interested in me again.
“I’ve got my enthusiasm back again. At the time, after my wife died, I was thinking, ‘What’s it all about – how important is it, really?’ But when I was assisting Jim, I felt my drive come back and it’s even stronger now.”
The last time we spoke, Gorman was in Wycombe promoting his book, Gory Tales. He reports that the publisher has since gone bust, leading to confusion over the destination of some royalties which he had intended to give to a charity for terminally ill children.
He also recalls feeling a certain edginess throughout that promotional process: travelling towns with his new partner, Denise, whilst talking at length about losing the love of his life, and all the while trying to adjust to an existence he now thought would always be spent away from the dugout.
Now he describes a greater contentment. “Believe it or not, I’m still with Denise,” he chortles. “She has been very supportive and she has been there for me. I enjoy her company.
“My family have accepted her as well. That has made a big difference. At the time they were saying, ‘Dad, it’s only been 18 months since mum died’. But things are better now.”
Gorman’s state of emotional well-being has been a lasting concern to Carlisle United supporters, who gave the Scot a stirring reception when he brought Northampton to Brunton Park shortly after Myra’s death, and who mark his name down in most all-time greatest Blues teams for his feats as a buccaneering left-back in the team that reached the First Division in 1974.
On Sunday, he took himself to Wembley to watch his old club win the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, partly, he says, as a scouting mission, but also as a journey born of old loyalty.
“I was quite proud of them,” he says. “The fans were great and they played well. It was a good day out and a great achievement.
“I’m a little bit surprised they are not higher in the league, because they gave us a good hiding up at Carlisle in August [United beat the Dons 4-1]. They are a good football team, with some impressive players, and I think they will be too professional to let their season peter out after the final. We are expecting a difficult game on Saturday, don’t worry about that.”
Among the more engaging stories to be told in this League One season has been the rookie Robinson steering his team into the heart of the promotion race. What is the 30-year-old’s secret?
“I’m his secret,” laughs Gorman, whose long touchline career includes stints at Glenn Hoddle’s side with England and Tottenham, and a Premier League management post with Swindon. “Seriously, he is a young, up-and-coming manager and a very good coach who has got some good staff around him. If he keeps his feet on the ground he will do very well.
“It’s gone better than we expected, I have to say. We try and play good football. The biggest influence in my career was Dick Young, who trained us at Carlisle. He taught us about push-and-run and we play in a similar way here.
“I have never changed my principles. People say we’re like a little Arsenal. We don’t mind winning a game roughly but the majority of times we try to do it the right way. We are a good, open team that plays with no fear, and while we sometimes lose goals, we score plenty as well.”
It’s a philosophy at odds with some of the more clumping methods employed by lower-league managers. Brighton, this season, have mounted the best intellectual challenge to the idea that hoofing and hoping is the best way to prosper down the divisions, while Peterborough and the Dons are probably next in the style stakes.
If this approach leads to an entertaining hour-and-a-half at stadium:mk on Saturday afternoon, then so much the better. And if it eventually takes Gorman back to his first management post for five years, then many in the game will cheer, although not necessarily Robinson.
“I love working with players, improving them as individuals,” says Gorman, who on Tuesday was working with the Dons’ defenders while camera crews were filming a certain Robbie Fowler, a Liverpool contemporary of Robinson, as he took a separate coaching session with the strikers.
“But when you’re assistant you take things on your shoulders as much as the manager. You feel just as responsible.
“I’m 61 and Karl is 30. A lot of clubs are going that way, with a younger manager and an experienced coach. But it can work the other way, too.”
In tabloid-speak, we might describe this as a come-and-get-me plea to chairmen. “Don’t take it like that,” he pleads. “I’m very happy in what I’m doing and I enjoy being here.
“But look at the likes of Roy Hodgson. He is still as enthusiastic as ever to be working and managing and trying to achieve things. Why shouldn’t you use that experience?"
www.newsandstar.co.uk/carlisle-united/latest/ex-carlisle-utd-ace-john-gorman-keen-to-be-a-manager-again-1.825598?referrerPath=/news_star_sport_latest_1_49999