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The Role of the Football Manager
From: Cambridge University Press
| By:
Stephen DobsonJohn Goddard |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 How important is the manager in professional football? For many years economists have recognised the importance of the manager in the production process, but they have rarely looked at how this translates to the context of team sports. In this feature Stephen Dobson and John Goddard study the historical development of the football manager's role as the principal planner and co-ordinator of team affairs. Taken from The Economics of Football the authors show how two professionals, Herbert Chapman and Major Frank Buckley, started a new breed of professional, hands-on team managers. |
 he football manager needs to perform some of the functions typically attributed in the management literature to his business counterpart. According to Mintzberg in The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), there are three broad managerial functions: interpersonal relations, information processing and decision making. Interpersonal relations include the roles of leadership and motivation, perhaps the most important managerial attributes. The way in which the football manager treats his players can affect not only the performance of the individual player, but also the performance of the team. In the information-processing role the manager will use match reports and videos to analyse and assess the performance of players, in order to formulate plans and strategies. It is also likely that the manager will delegate responsibility, by employing coaches and scouts, to help disseminate information. Finally, the decision making role involves determining the organisation of the team (team formation) and the role of individual players both before and during the game (pre-match and half-time team talk and strategic substitutions). The manager's ability to respond rapidly to situations such as a player suffering a loss of form or an injury can of course make the all the difference between the team achieving success or failure. |
In a more recent management text entitled Management, Robbins (1994) identifies four main managerial functions: planning, organising, leading and controlling. Planning involves formulating broad strategies to achieve organisational objectives; in many clubs the chairman and board of directors are likely to play a major role in the planning function. Organising involves assigning responsibilities to players and other subordinates (such as assistants and coaches) for both on-field and off-field tasks. Leading involves inspiring and motivating players and other subordinates to contribute maximum effort in pursuit of team and club objectives. Finally, controlling involves assessing how effectively the organisation is meeting its objectives, and taking remedial action wherever it is required. |
Most football managers are ex-professional players. A playing career is the only source of previous work experience for many managers, although some enter management having previously been employed as a coach or assistant manager. There are very few managers who come into the job without some previous professional involvement in the sport. The careers of most professional players start at age 16. Many players therefore have only limited educational attainment, and relatively few study in further or higher education. There is a marked contrast with the typical educational attainment of managers in other business sectors. Furthermore, while the majority of managers in industry or commerce are likely to have had some formal training, only limited training opportunities exist for the football manager. The Football Association organises coaching courses, but most managers still rely primarily on their playing experience as preparation for a career in football management. |
The role of the modern-day football manager as the person responsible for team affairs first started to evolve during the inter-war period. Previously, in the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries, responsibility for team affairs rested primarily with the club's directors and chairman. Throughout this period, it was quite common for a manager to see his players on match days only. During the rest of the week, the manager would undertake scouting missions, watch other teams play and carry out administrative duties. In The People's Game: The History of Football Revisited, Walvin (1994) identifies the growth of a stronger ethos of professionalism within football during the 1920s and 1930s as instrumental in encouraging directors to begin shifting responsibility for performance on the pitch towards the professional manager. |
Two individuals from the inter-war period, Herbert Chapman (Huddersfield Town 1921-5, Arsenal 1925-34) and Major Frank Buckley (Wolverhampton Wanderers 1927-44) typify the new breed of professional, hands-on team manager. Before Chapman's arrival, Huddersfield and Arsenal were both under-achieving clubs. Having enjoyed only a modest career as a player himself, Chapman steered Huddersfield to the first two of three consecutive championships in 1924 and 1925, and then won further titles with Arsenal in 1931 and 1933.The latter was also the first of three consecutive championships; tragically, however, Chapman died during the course of the 1934 season, aged 55. Chapman's success at Arsenal (in particular) was based on a regime of physical fitness, strength and skill previously unseen in the English game. Chapman's tactical acumen was also impressive: Arsenal are widely credited as the first team to adapt tactically to the introduction of the present-day offside law in 1925 (A player is offside if, when the ball is played forward to him, fewer than two opposing players stand between him and the goal line. Before 1925 a player was offside if there were fewer than three opposing players): |
Arsenal came in with the idea of a stopper centre-half. Previously centre-halfs were allowed to wander, and it now became a pendulum. The stopper centre-halves stayed there and then the two full-backs were like pendulums on a clock. If play was on one wing, one full-back would take it and the other one came back to cover behind the centre-half. You had three forwards up front, two in the 'V' point of the 'W' with a lot of alternatives. One of those men had two men in front of him and one at the side. He'd got three alternatives with the ball. (Jack Curtis, quoted in Taylor and Ward, Kicking and Screaming: An Oral History of Football in England, 1995, pp. 27-8) |
Although he won no major honours with any of the seven sides he managed (though under Buckley's management Wolverhampton Wanderers finished runners-up in both the league and FA Cup in 1939), Major Frank Buckley is one of the best-known managers of all time. His military background, disciplined approach and personal demeanor seem to belong to a bygone era (Buckley characteristically wore 'plus-fours' and brogue shoes, and could easily be mistaken for a farmer. His military record included service in the Boer War), but other aspects of his style, including his dealings in the transfer market and his astute handling of the media, mark him clearly as an early prototype of the modern-day football manager: |
I soon realised that Major Buckley was one out of the top drawer. He didn't suffer fools gladly . . . his style of management in football was very similar to his attitude in the army . . . Major Buckley implanted into my mind the direct method of playing which did away with close interpassing and square-ball play. If you didn't like his style you'd very soon be on your bicycle to another club. He didn't like defenders over-elaborating in their defensive positions . . . Major Buckley also knew how to deal with the press. (Stan Cullis, quoted in Taylor and Ward, 1995, pp. 31-2) |
In modern-day professional football, the remit of most managers is the selection, supervision and coaching of playing staff, and devising the team's tactics and strategies. During the post-war period, most managers have also taken responsibility for the buying and selling of players, wage negotiations and a wide range of administrative duties. This multi-functional role of the manager still predominates in many clubs in the lower divisions of the league. Among a number of leading clubs, however, as the scale and complexity of the financial and administrative aspects of club management has increased, there has been a shift towards the division of responsibility between teams of specialists in the various functional areas of management. The modern-day manager of a large club typically takes full responsibility for playing matters only. The extent of the manager's influence over player transfers and contract negotiations seems to vary quite considerably from club to club at present. Even within the remit of playing affairs, the manager is likely to delegate duties among a team of subordinate coaches and assistants, responsible for first-team, reserve-team and youth-team affairs, as well as specialised positions such as goalkeeper. |
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