KOA special: Tony Mowbray on his Town career, Wembley goal and cancer fight

0:08Ross Halls:Well Tony, Mogga, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the Kings of Anglia podcast. Appreciate you setting this up. How's things? Good. Things are exciting in my world, I think. Hoping to go back to work this summer. Obviously, I've had an illness for a couple of years now. I've had a few major operations, supporting my family and the football world. I feel I'm coming out of the other end of that and feel ready to go back to work. So, yeah, things are good. Football is coming to an exciting sort of climax. I think, obviously, for Ipswich, it's all done and dusted. They are there for Middlesbrough, where I live, and the team I supported as a boy.

0:57I suppose we're waiting today to see the outcome of Spygate, I suppose. But it looks, I would assume, they're going to allow Southampton to play in the final against Hull. But still exciting things going. Premier League still not quite finished. Arsenal still not over the line. Champions League, you know, it's exciting into the season, as it was for Ipswich, of course. There were fantastic scenes at Portman Road a couple of weeks ago. So, yeah, good. And as I say, I miss it badly and want to get back in. And hopefully this summer I will be back at work.

1:34Ross Halls:Definitely, mate. Yes, I'm sure it's been a rare sort of season where this is your probably first full season. You've not sort of been on the touchline and stuff until you've got itchy feet. Yeah, I think a couple of things. Obviously, my illness for your family, really. When you're ill and you hear the word cancer, you know, the word death in my mind comes to mind with cancer. it's been a tough couple of years and for me just to get well, to get ill to get myself back for my family really, you know, I've got young teenage boys you know, they look in their eyes and they want me to still go out and play golf with them and kick the ball in the garden with them and do the things that dads do, go on nice holidays so yeah, I've been getting myself in a strong position you know mentally but um physically as well and and i feel i'm at that point now ready to go back to work and um so yeah everything's fine as i say i miss football a lot when i'm not doing it i've done it all my life since i left school at the age of 16 i'm 62 now um but i still feel i've got the energy and the drive to do it and um so let's wait and see if the opportunity comes that'd be good and um it's okay if you can share some insight on you know the bowel cancer and stuff like that yeah so let people know what sort of no problem involved in it um yeah well i basically a change in your bowel movement is what first started me i figured i was managing sunderland we were doing extremely well we were at the top end of the table and we were you know competing with with town really with ipswich to try and get out of that league and um there was a change in my bowel movements really it's you know it was seemed to be a blockage and And without going into too much detail, I went and had a colonoscopy, which is basically a camera to check.

3:28And it's a little bit unpleasant, but it's what was required. And with that colonoscopy, through the League Managers Association, they discovered there was some cancer deposits in my bowel that needed operating on. I think they developed from being polyps for a while, polyps sometimes in your bowel, but then they develop into cancerous polyps. And so they needed removing. I had a major operation to get that done. It's a recovery time, I don't know, four or five months it took me to recover from that. I had chemotherapy over that period as well, which is very unpleasant. just drains your body of energy and drains you you know you're not the same person you were you you you're laying in your bed constantly you needed to lay down it was hard to even stand in a shower it was lots of lots of really negative things chemotherapy really takes everything out of your body um so you know my main goal my main aim was really to get fit for my family and i went through all of the treatments I needed to go through.

4:39Actually, yeah, felt pretty good for a spell. And then I had to go back at West Brom. And yeah, West Brom went well for a while. It was good to go back. I had been at West Brom 18 years earlier and won the league with West Brom and got to the Premier League and had some great times with a very good team. A bit different going back. American ownership wanting to use a lot of data as all clubs do these days a lot of data, a lot of artificial intelligence, trying to aid the manager I suppose but sometimes it doesn't always aid the manager I would suggest but anyway for whatever reason that didn't really work out for me and I discovered I needed a second operation I went for a scan as you do after you've had cancer you go for three monthly scans and showed another deposit had come into my groin area I had another major operation removed again didn't have any chemotherapy, they just removed it and I've been through that process the last six months sort of a bit longer probably of recovering and here I am feeling full of energy again playing golf with my kids I've just I've told you I've just been coffee shopping in Yarm High Street here on Teesside with Gary Palastir talking about all things football Middlesbrough what's going on there what's going on at Manchester United you know as people all around Ipswich will be in their coffee shops talking what is the what is the town going to do this year are they going to spend how much money are they going to spend how are they going to stay up this season and the season coming sorry and how's it going to how are they going to look this next year

6:27Ross Halls:fine enough that is actually one of our questions we've got from a fan, but we'll get into that later on. But I want to ask, Tony, where the nickname Mogger comes from. Maybe I should know this, but it's just good to hear from your site. You know, when you get a nickname, it sticks and it sticks, you know, ever since. Well, mine stuck from junior school, really. So under the age of 11, I think probably eight, nine, ten. I was like a five-a-side team we had at school, really. I lived on a council estate on Teesside in Redcar.

7:04And I was the goalkeeper, strangely enough, for that team. I think it was generally older kids, really. So maybe a year or two. So you go to junior school, what is that from the age of, what, six or seven till 11, isn't it? So I was the goalie. I was chucked in goal. I lived on a council estate in Redcar and went to Lakes Estate School. And I was the goalie in that team. And yet they called me Mog like a cat. because they couldn't beat me. Nobody could get the ball past me, and I was throwing myself everywhere. And so Mogger became a name from the age of maybe six or seven, and everybody called me Mogger.

7:40Even my parents called me Mogger sometimes. And, yeah, I'm not sure. I've had car registrations with Mogger on it and things like that. And, yeah, it seems a bit daft at 62. People call you Mogger, and yet as I walk my dog on the beach here at Redcar or in a park in Middlesbrough, everybody calls me Mogger. All right, Mogger, how's things? How's your health, pal? All right, go, blah, blah. You can see the butter match on Saturday. What's going on? You know, everybody stops and calls me Mogger. And, yeah, so it started from the age of five or six, basically because I was a goalkeeper and the reference of being like a cat.

8:15And that was Mogger. And here I am still today being called Mogger.

8:19Ross Halls:Yeah, I'm sure it's interesting maybe when you went to the doctors and they were calling you Tony or Mr. Tony Mowbray or Mr. Mowbray. it's difficult yeah yeah listen that does happen it's because most as I say I've been to my coffee shop this morning five or six Lenny Lawrence in there Gary Pallister's in there Eddie Vavash the assistant manager at Middlesbrough you know football people talking football in the coffee shop and they all call me mugger it's but that's fine it's part of my life I'm trying to think I don't think my mother calls me mugger she calls me Tone but apart from that everybody calls me mugger really I love it I want to take you back I'm always intrigued on early life Of footballers, how they first Got into football and the first memories Who got you into it Well, who got me into it Just Living on a council estate with loads of walls To kick the ball against really And I'd say to my kids For Christmas all I ever got was A bag of nuts and orange And a football, that was it That was my Christmas presents You know, when the kids are opening their 30 presents every Christmas, and I'd get a ball every year and a bag of nuts and a packet of Smarties, something like that.

9:31But, yeah, the environment that I grew up, really, football, was everywhere. My dad did take me to the Borough matches at Erson Park as a kid. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but we used to do a squeeze, so he'd only pay for himself, and I'd squeeze in as the little kid next to him, and he'd just push the gates as the rotating gates they go through. and yeah so I would get a squeeze with my dad and go and watch butter at Erson Park football's always been there I was I talked to my players about their inner child find your inner child because when you're a child and you're a football good at football in the school I never used to pass to anybody I just dribble and score loads of goals and basically I think when you're a young footballer you're the best player in your school you're generally the best player this is the inner child I talk about to footballers of today find your inner child because when I was that young footballer dribbling scoring goals enjoying the ball football was such a joy really when you're so young and you are you are better than the other kids at school who don't practice like you do every time you go home I used to take a ball to school every day of my life and just either keep it up or bounce it off all the walls or play it off the kerbs and control it off my chest.

10:50The ball was always at my feet every day of school. And, yeah, I felt as if I was the best player at school. I don't see that with any arrogance other than I was the guy who all I ever did was have a ball with me. Everybody would see me and I never didn't have a ball. And I feel as if most footballers that make it to be professional footballers in whatever route they go down, whatever route they've come from, have probably been the same, lived with the ball all their life and had it at their feet and can manipulate it and can do whatever they want with the football. And I had a career as a big centre-half.

11:31And so it's amazing to think about all the talented footballers, all the attackers and the dribblers, how they've toned their skills really and honed them to be the professional players they are. Because as a young guy, I just lived with the football Went to a secondary school That didn't play football Only played rugby But I played for maybe three teams One on a Saturday afternoon Or a Saturday morning And probably two on a Sunday I was always playing football My dad encouraged it And when I left school at 16 I went to be an apprentice I don't know whether this recorded before But I looked after David Hodgson I went to Liverpool Craig Johnson went to Liverpool.

12:15They were all at Middlesbrough when I was a young boy. Mark Proctor went to Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. I was looking after their kids at Middlesbrough when I was young. Grim Souness was there when I was very young. But yeah, it was a great upbringing for me, a working class upbringing. A young apprentice at Middlesbrough had to do all of the kit, had to clean the stands, had to mop the dressing room floors and learn to be a footballer. My youth team coach was Bobby Murdoch, who won the European Cup in 67. And so he just loved the football, Bobby. And I felt as if I had an amazing upbringing.

12:51Made my debut in 82 as an 18-year-old away at Newcastle, Kevin Keegan and Mickey Shannon. Yeah, and I was off and running, really. And the thing you always dreamt of as a boy, to play for Borough, to play at Essendon Park, it all came true for me. I'd like to think through hard work because, you know, I wasn't the super talented footballer. I was built on personality, character, steel, really. Teesside's a steel area and I feel my dad worked in the steel industry all his life and I think he gave me those values and the honesty and integrity that I hopefully carry with me today.

13:30Ross Halls:Yeah, and, you know, what a journey at Borough, you know, from a local lad to a club legend. I don't know how you feel about the legend word. I don't know, that gets chucked out a lot, I'm sure. What's that like as a sort of player manager, you know, when a legend is talking about? Yeah, again, it's like an out-of-body experience. You don't see yourself as a legend. Obviously, you deal with who you are, what you are. I'm a family man, really. I've got, as I say, three boys, 21, 19 and 16, and I try and be as good a dad and a husband as I can. and legend. It hits home whenever I walk my dog. I get stopped 50 times in the park or on the beach every day.

14:14People shouting, all right, Mogger, come on, butter. How's it going, Mogger? How's your health? I live that every day and that's fine. The club invite me back to watch their games. as you know I can go in the nice and watch games at the Riverside and yeah I don't see a legend I think the legend bit came because in 86 I'd been playing for the team for 3 or 4 years and it was a tough time because all of those players I'd mentioned Hodgson's David Armstrong went to Southampton Proctor went to Forest Craig Johnson went to Liverpool lots of they all sold the team and the team became a really struggling team and I was a young 18, 19 year old boy playing in a really struggling team and football is hard when you live in a town with a football team and that isn't winning and looking to survive every year, every game.

15:09Life's tough and in 86, 87 the club actually went into liquidation, they padlocked the gates at Erson Park, nobody could get any training kit, we had no training ground, everything was sold in fact we didn't play our first game of the season at Ayrson Park because the gates were padlocked, we went to Hartlepool to play the first game of the season this was in what is now League One because they got relegated the year before and what happened the youth team basically myself, Gary Pallister had signed, Bernie Slavin had been signed for a bag of balls from Scottish second division team, but basically the youth team.

15:52Stuart Ripley, who went on to win the Premier League with Blackburn, came out of the youth team. Colin Cooper got an England cap, came out of the youth team. It was thrown together and with Bruce Reock's guidance, we won back-to-back promotions as similar to what Ipswich did recently. We got promoted finishing second to Wigan in our first year in what was League One and then we won the second ever playoffs in the second year to get promoted. We beat Chelsea in a two-legged affair where we went to Stamford Bridge. And even though we got beat 1-0 in that second leg, we won 2-0 in the first leg. And so we got promoted and put Chelsea down.

16:33And that team, from being in the depths of despair of almost liquidation to actually, within two years, being back in the top flight of English football, playing Liverpool and Arsenal and all the big clubs, I think that team sort of acquired this legend status in Teesside. And whilst we try not to utilise it too much, it's there. And as I say, people remember that team probably more fondly than that amazing team of Giannino and Gascoigne and Merson and Ravinelli. That team was amazing for Burrard, who got to a European final. and yet the 86-87 team seems to be more revered a little bit on Teesside.

17:18Ross Halls:Yeah, and I'm sure was it hard to leave because you went on to sign for Celtic? Yeah, well the manager changed, Bruce Leehock left, Lenny came in, I sat and had coffee with Lenny Lawrence this morning in Yarmouth Street and what happened, I think I'd had 12 years in the first team playing, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday for 12 years non-stop and I left around Christmas time in Lenny's first year. I thought it was the right time. Bruce had left. Pallister had gone to Manchester United two years earlier. The team was breaking up a little bit and I basically asked Lenny if I could go and I didn't know where I would go.

18:03I felt as if I was getting tired, almost bored of playing another game, another game, another game with the same team, the same fans they were top of the league when I left so around that Christmas time Celtic the day after I asked Lenny he called me back in the office the next day Celtic offered a million pounds and I went up to watch them play that midweek in a European game against a Swiss team in a Europa League it was UEFA Cup then there was 60 odd thousand in the stadium when it was still standing and stuff like that.

18:40Ross Halls:And it was just an amazing atmosphere, the colour, the noise, the excitement. It was just, it sort of rekindled the fire in my belly really. And I signed for Celtic. Left, was it a wrench to leave? Yeah, of course it was a wrench to leave. But Celtic is an amazing football club with amazing fan base all over the world. And I went there for four years. um sorry about these noises mate that's all right it's the doorbell but um yeah so i signed for celtic four years i had a difficult time at celtic because rangers were on top and if you know anything about football in glasgow if you're not number one you might as well be nothing you might I played at Celtic.

19:32I had an amazing time. Some amazing players, John Collins, Paul McStay, Peter Grant, Charlie Nicholas, Frank McAvenny, Gary Gillespie, lots of, you know, it was an amazing time and a great experience for me. I lost my wife, my first wife. I lost her to breast cancer and I spent six months, you know, going to every breast cancer charity event and stuff. And around that time, George started phoning George Burley. He'd obviously seen I wasn't playing. I'd had a loss in my life it was difficult I'd spent three months sitting on a bed sitting in a chair by a bed in a hospital watching my wife with her away really and and I think George did phone me, I don't know, he phoned me every day almost for a fortnight and in the end he wore me down I would suggest because I didn't want to leave this environment I felt as if I was leaving the situation I'd found myself in really not the football but my personal situation I didn't want to leave but George persuaded me to get on an aeroplane and come and have a look and again I suppose I was seduced by the club, the history I love football and my managerial career why did I sign for Coventry because I watched the 87 Cup final, I saw the diving header of Keith Auchin against Spurs why would I go to Wip Switch because I'd seen it, I saw Roger Osborne score in a Wembley Cup final i'd seen them tyson and muir and i love the romance of it really and um and so i signed for ipswich i got as far away from the west of scotland as i could and went down southeast and went to ipswich and um it was tough for me at the start again i hadn't played for six months um i picked up an injury or two you know i remember driving home from training one day in a rented house down at Cape St Mary and the local radio saying, oh, Mowbray, it'll be a cold day in hell when I think Mowbray's a good player, get rid of him.

21:32And I heard it, it hurts really. But as I talked earlier on, I feel as if I'm built from the stuff of the Northeaster steel industry. I feel as if I've been given the right ingredients by my family, my father. Integrity, honesty, hard work is my core beliefs really. and I dug in and kept going. And I'd like to feel that my period at Ipswich, it turned into nine years at the end, you know, after a difficult start. I felt as if I played my part in helping the club get to where it wanted. George was an amazing manager, amazing enthusiasm for the game and love of the game. I'd obviously been a part of Bobby Robson's era and I went for lunch a few times with Sir Bobby and with Charlie Woods and sat and moved the pepper and salt pots around and moved about where the back four should play and when, how high they should be and stuff.

22:30And I used to love them occasions, sitting with Bobby and talking about football and sitting with Charlie and George. You know, when Dale got ill, of course, I sort of stepped in and helped in the coaching and sort of it was a very smooth transition for me from playing to being a player coach to actually coaching. and yeah, I had an amazing time. When I look back at the whole Ipswich thing for me over nine years, whilst the start was very difficult, I think it was positive. I think it was good. I look back on an amazing time at Ipswich and been fortunate enough to have worked with George Burley, an amazing, enthusiastic football coach who drove his players, you know, every drop out of them and felt fortunate to have played with...

23:23George was brilliant at signing good footballers. And I don't say that because he signed me. I say that because he signed Magilton and he signed Matty Holland and he signed Jermaine Wright and he signed Mark Venus and he signed John McGreele. You know what I mean? I signed because of them. And then we had the fortune of Kieran Dyer coming through and Titus Bramble. You know what I mean? It was an amazing time and we had an amazing team. The four years I actually played for Ipswich, we got to the playoffs every year, lost in the three of them, some heartbreaking moments. But got there and got over the line in that last ever game.

23:58My last ever professional game at Wembley in 2000, fortunate enough to score. somebody actually strangely enough before i left the coffee shop this morning somebody actually showed me a picture um of me holding up a man of the match um trophy in the tunnel with my medal around my neck and um i don't know why that they did that today it's um fun enough it was basically

24:22Ross Halls:i was asking fans for questions and that was a picture i used so maybe that's that's what that's what that's what it was the lad showed me on his phone he said you because he said you're going to do something with Ipswich today, aren't you? And I said, yeah, because he must be one of these people who know everything on the internet. I don't do any socials or social media or anything like that. But he knew and he showed me the picture, yeah. So, yeah, that was my last ever game of professional football. It wasn't intended to be. I was ready to start. The week we played Tottenham, I think, was it the first game of the following season in the Premier League?

24:53I was in the team until Friday and I was so poor in training. We had a full 11 v 11 walkthrough sort of thing on the Friday on Portman Road and after training I went to see George and George I think was thankful I'd come to see him because I said listen I can't do it George you know he's talking about the Premier League I was 37 I was struggling to turn and run as I always would do but still I could always use my brain and hold the line and play offside but we were going to the Premier League and we agreed that Herman should play and that was off they went Herman played with Vino and John and yeah I was happy as can be I was 37 I couldn't go on forever and and it was a great way to go out Kevin Keegan in my debut and Wembley scoring a goal to finish my career and all the years in between it was pretty special yeah

25:45Ross Halls:and I want to get some more insight on that I want to quickly get your memories of the playoff games against Bolton I know we lost against them in the previous year but those games you know the Marcus Stewart day with these two great goals and of course the Jim Magilton Knights score that hat-trick what was that like playing in it as a defender because yeah you got the pound blinds attackers screwing the goals but as a defender there was goals conceded and it was just yeah yeah well i came off in the first game didn't i got i was concoast i got smashed really in the first game i think i don't know it might have even been two nil down will we and then then the goals you've got the equalizers but um yeah the first game was tough i mean both had a good team then sam allardyce was on on the up wasn't he and his team were there was a bit of investment there i had a good johnson appeal like this word they were good footballers and you could feel them, their hunger, they'd been driven and again, I go back to George, really driving, we had a team that were so tightly knit and so ready for it and yet you played against a team that you felt were warriors and would kick their granny to get over the line and they had a few sending-offs didn't they and we had a few penalties and that second game lives long in the memory only for me, only because I'd managed to get a header on knocking one down for Jim to volley in, didn't I?

27:04But yeah, it's amazing. It had been a tough, them three years previously of losing them semi-final playoff games is not easy to take. You work hard, so hard all season to get into that position. And then for it to be taken away over two matches, it was tough. And yet all made up for on that, on that day at Wembley really. And yeah, it was, when I think back of my Ipswich time I think of Wembley, I think of that game I think of the celebrations afterwards and going back to Ipswich in a big marquee and the celebrations and all of them lads from that team are still close it's like anything it's like the team of 86, 87 here at Borough the team of that 2000 will always be good mates and always be in touch with each other and yeah, happy times Football's an amazing sport that can bond and gel people together for lifetimes.

28:02Yeah, I love the goal scorers that day as well, because, you know, Marcus Stewart had a great, you know, just sign.

28:09Ross Halls:Then Richard Naylor came off the bench and had a great time. And then, you know, Martin Royce scoring that goal, you know, Royce the premiership. But I want to focus on your goal because what a header, you know, leaping like a salmon. Thank you. yeah well listen heading I said right at the start there my dad had worked in the steel industry all his life he in my back garden at home where we lived he'd he'd got a scaffolding tube and bent it in the the heat of the iron works and um and we ran a football through it on a and put it in a net and I had it hanging off the washing line very high up and then I could drop the ball to whatever height i wanted it so i practiced heading all my life um from the age of maybe 10 and where that trot and traction was put onto the washing line and if you can picture it it bends up and then bends around and the wire was put in and the ball was dropped and we could adjust the height of the ball and um so from the age of 10 i felt heading was something i was good at and could do and and I think back to the last ever game of my football career and think all of that work I put in through from the age of 10, every day going home, even when I was a professional, I would still go round my mum's and head that ball.

29:32It all paid off on that last day for me, that ball coming in again, Magilton put it in, I think, didn't he, Jim? And yeah, and it was all there for me to timed my jump, timed my run you use a bit of leverage off a defender and I bullied it into the corner and all of that practice all of that work paid off it's great memories happy days, great for Bam Bam to score great for Martin Royce to score amazingly different characters, different people Stewie, everybody loves Stewie, obviously he's going through his own issues at the moment as well but it was a great day, great team seeing George and seeing Dale celebrate, seeing the chairman, Mr Sheepshanks, so happy afterwards in the marquee.

30:18And it was just great to be together, really, all the families together. And all that work that I felt that for four years I left Glasgow for all came and all culminated on that day and was back in the Premier League.

30:32Ross Halls:And, yeah, and, you know, the last ever competitive game at Wembley, I know they played a few other games after that, but that must have been amazing as well. You know, the old Wembley, the Archers, everything. thing. What a way to end your career. Although I know you said earlier in the chat that it wasn't going to be your last game, but in the end it was. It was, yeah. Yeah. No, I feel for me, it's fitting really. I enjoyed my whole career and finishing it at Wembley was yeah, they put in the cap on the head really. it ended it perfectly, bookended it. You know, using Kevin Keegan for my debut, as an 18-year-old playing against somebody who'd won the European Footballers Footballer of the Year and won everything, you know, watched him as a kid growing up, an iconic captain of England, felt like an amazing start to my career.

31:26And the end was just as amazing, if not greater. And yeah, I really, I can sort of bookend them, really. that was my career from 82 to 2000 and everything that went on in between Definitely, and did you always plan to go into coaching, was that always something in the back of your mind

31:46Ross Halls:I know some players weren't interested in it, but there's some that are like, yeah, that's what they wanted to do Yeah, I think we're in the age of 22, brutally I'll come to Middlesbrough, because as I said to you there, football had been really hard then for three or four years for me, Middlesbrough were the bottom half always of what is the championship now and it was always a struggle to stay up um they'd sold all their life in my eyes were great players you know as i say david hodgson proctor craig johnson david armstrong the players i'd watched growing up as a kid they'd all gone all moved on and um middlezburg were downsizing they weren't paying the salaries we were taking loans and freeze and it was the team was just thrown together really it was really hard to win football matches um and it was only like the rebirth through 86, 87 of all the youngsters being thrown in and Riojic arriving that sparked this love of the game for me really Bruce was the first coach ever who talked to us where the space on the pitch was if the right winger comes inside can the right back use the space that he's leaving, can you arrive in that space and how the midfield Ipswich do it brilliantly well down their left don't they with with clark and philajeen with your left back like a rocket flying down there and sometimes the wide place stays wide and the fullback drives inside of course but it was about space and and when i was 22 first time a coach had ever talked about where the space was on the pitch and how you could fill it and how people would move into positions to create space for somebody else and so from 22 year old i used to watch football differently from how I'd ever watched it and then when I was playing I felt as if I could almost coach on the pitch really you know at Ipswich I know they had a song about they had a song about arm up flag up your offside but it was only built on how to press the ball and how to condense the pitch really and it helped me as well because I didn't have to turn around and sprint 50 yards back chasing long balls over the top bring your goalie out of the box a little bit and you know you don't have to turn and run because if you bring your goalie out and all that you're killing the space and the strikers have to stay on side it worked so yeah I knew pretty early on from the age of 22 that I wanted to coach and wanted to be a football coach and yeah and it panned out my life my career panned out and here I am as I say at 62 hoping to go back to work this summer Yes and so many great clubs And there's a question that I think a lot of town fans want to ask Did you ever come close to becoming a town manager?

34:33Ross Halls:I know you had a caretaker spell But was there any No I don't think so I never had any conversations around it I think football management is all about timing isn't it If you're in a job and you're doing alright And then Ipswich's job comes up No I never had an inquiry of taking me out of a club to come you generally them jobs I feel sometimes if you're out of work manager and the job comes available then maybe I might have come at some stage and had an interview or a chat or whatever but the timing was never really worked for me no I don't think Ipswich ever did come close and I can't remember ever having a conversation with with anybody from Ipswich about the manager's job and that's okay and I look at my career and I know I had four games as an interim manager didn't I so realistically I've managed all the teams that I played for, I only played for three Middlesbrough Celtic and Ipswich so I had four games at Ipswich there was a romantic side of me a few years back that thought what a great job Ipswich would be and yet obviously Kieran's gone in and done an amazing job over the last few years and it's great to see them once again back in the Premier League and, you know, because I don't feel as if I ever really managed it which I just took the team for four games and it was an amazing experience but it gave me the confidence to know that I had a voice when you talk so if you're going to be a football manager and you're sitting in front of 20 players in a dressing room you either know whether you can do it or you don't know whether you can do it when they need picking up, they need shouting at, they need talking to they need cajoling, they need some sympathy or whatever it might be you don't know whether you can do it until you're in the moment and what it showed me is that I can talk to a group of players I can tell them that this isn't good enough, this isn't hard enough You think you're working hard, you need to do this.