If the impresario, former Corrie and Carry On actor, Everton owner and all-round good-guy Bill Kenwright never does anything else, the nation owes a big debt of gratitude to this last of the old-style football club chairmen for hanging on to his manager David Moyes like a limpet. Moyes is a shining light in the increasingly tawdry saga of English football. He’s been Manager of the Year three times, is almost permanently Manager of the Month, and is the longest-serving British manager in the Premiership by a mile, apart of course from Sir Alex Ferguson. There are two big tests this week, Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League and at the weekend, the Big One, Manchester United at home. But after that 2-1 victory over Chelsea the other day, United’s players and supporters should be feeling a tad wary.
And a good thing too: what Moyes has done is turn an unfashionable, unmonied club into one of the most consistently high-achieving in British football. He’s the last British manager to penetrate the top four Champions League places, nudging his rivals across the park, Liverpool, into fifth in 2004-05, and has steered Everton into Europe in five of the last seven seasons. On a relatively minuscule budget, that is a remarkable achievement. But those who know him are not remotely surprised. His old playing partner from Celtic, Joe Jordan, recalls that as a young man, ‘He had a love of the game that went beyond his own ideas about how he might progress as a coach or manager. He wanted to know everything.’
Moyes picked up his coaching badges very early, at 22, and developed a first-class management technique of his own. Moyes makes players feel important. He always takes the warm-up sessions on the pitch before matches, whereas most other managers leave it their coaching staff. And with his gaunt features and deep-set eyes, which make him look like a late Victorian teacher, he has a work rate second to none. No manager goes to as many matches that don’t involve his own club as Moyes, and in the past he’s paid his own way to World Cups and European Championships, to educate himself.
He is one of the most astute movers in the transfer market, too, spotting bargains in the lower divisions, such as Tim Cahill and Joleon Lescott, but also taking successful punts on older players such as Nigel Martyn and Louis Saha. When the board lets him splash out, he usually gets it right. Even Everton fans criticised him for blowing £15 million on Marouane Fellaini, but this season he has been one of the most influential midfielders in the country. And Moyes is a brilliant operator in the loan market: what a fantastic piece of business to bring in Landon Donovan. Few managers in Britain deserve more respect; in person Moyes is steely yet affable, with a strong Christian faith which he prefers not to talk about. I don’t think United will be taking anything for granted at Goodison Park on Saturday.
The late great Dick Francis (why ever wasn’t it Sir Dick, by the way?) once said that he would have given up his entire writing career if it meant he could have won the Grand National. His horse Devon Loch famously collapsed, of course, within yards of the Aintree winning post. But what other great Devon Lochs have there been in sport? My favourite is probably Jean van der Velde repeatedly chipping an uncatchable lead into the water on the 18th at Carnoustie in the 1999 Open. But then Scotland last weekend were 10 points up with three minutes to go at Cardiff: they eventually lost 31-24. Devon Loch anyone?
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