Connor looks back when he proved his with pride on a year managerial abilities

http://www.sligoweekender.ie/news/story.asp?j=25743

Back in March, it was no more than a stirring plea to supporters. A heart-felt affirmation that The Showgrounds, a venue where supporters had become used to underachieving teams and, therefore, indifferent to promises of improved seasons, would see something vastly different.
“I don’t think people should be judging either me or the players after one game, two games or ten games. Judge us after a season,” implored the Sligo Rovers manager, Sean Connor, when interviewed prior to the start of this year’s eircom League First Division season.
“I have got a really good, focused bunch of players and I think, over the course of the season, that they will do enough to make the people [of Sligo] proud of them,” he added.
Nine months and a First Division title later, the west Belfast native’s words have become startlingly prophetic.
Relegated at the end of the 1999-2000 season, Rovers are returning to the Premier Division for the 2006 campaign.
“I’m pleased with myself that I have delivered a trophy. I’m pleased with the strategies that I put in place, the way I went about my job and the people I brought in,” Connor stated.
He maintains that having Gerry Carr and Gareth Gorman as part of his backroom team was significant.
Gorman, like Carr, the assistant-manager, was part of this year’s squad.
“One of my principles is to be surrounded by good people. I had Gerry Carr and Gareth Gorman, who took on a role towards the end of the season, in my corner, battling for me. They know the eircom League a lot better than I do and it meant a lot to me when I got the respect of those guys.”
At different stages of the season, various elements of the team made priceless contributions, including the saves from goalkeeper John O’Hara, Paul McTiernan’s goals, the perceptive defending of Michael McNamara and Liam Burns, and Conor O’Grady’s midfield drive.
Overseeing the whole picture was the one person who had assembled these components in the first instance. Sean Connor.
“I don’t the title would be here if I wasn’t manager – that is my personal opinion about what I have done.
“As a manager you facilitate and create the environment for success and that is what I have done, created the environment for success. I have empowered individuals to go and perform to their levels.”
He cited local striker Sean Flannery, who supplied nine goals, including a ‘goal of the season’ contender, as an example.
“People have asked me what I have done with Sean [Flannery] because he has played so well this year. In terms of coaching I have obviously worked on pieces of his game but, to begin with, he is obviously a very, very good player.
“I spoke to him regularly during the season, as a player and as a person. I just let him know that I have every confidence in him as a player.
“The other thing I’ve learned is that everyone in that squad is different and you have to accept that. As a manager, you have to be flexible. You might tell one player how good he is and tell him what you think of him.
“In the case of Paul McTiernan , you could tell him directly to improve his performances and he would respond.”
The club will have to acclimatise to life in the Premier Division and Connor will have to adjust as well. He is adamant that he will.
“I am going to be more demanding. There is one or two things that I probably let happen this year that I won’t let happen next year. I will be expecting the levels of performance from the players to be much greater.
“I think this year certain individuals were allowed to have two or three bad games before we made changes. Next year I can’t afford for that to happen.
“I have shown as a manager that I can be quite ruthless in terms of making changes, either 20 or 25 minutes into games. I will continue to do that. I remember Don How telling me when I was on a [UEFA ‘B’ coaching license] course that so many managers seem to wait until half-time to make changes.
“He said that if you see something going wrong and that if you think you can fix it by making a change, then fix it there and then - don’t wait.
“I am going to be a different manager because now that I have got a trophy [the eircom League First Division Championship was his first accolade as a manager] and I have got a taste of success, I want more of it.”
From the season’s 36 games, he identified August’s 2-0 away defeat of Cobh Ramblers as one of the pivotal results.
“We went down there to get a result and we got a result,” he recalled.
In terms of his counterparts in the First Division, Dublin City boss Dermot Keely, once a manager at The Showgrounds, is someone that Connor admires.
“Dermot Keely is a good guy and he gave me some good advice. He had his team well-organised, very professional and I would have a lot of respect for him.
“I also like the Cobh [Ramblers] manager, Stephen Hennessy. I got on well with him. Noel O’Connor in Limerick is another nice guy. I’ve had one or two spats with one or two managers [in the First Division] but at the end of the game that would be the end of it.”
Keely and Dublin City will join Rovers in next season’s Premier Division, having overcome the once imperious Shamrock Rovers in eircom League’s relegation/promotion play-off.
His first full season as a manager in the First Division – his appointment at the end of last season encompassed the last eight games – taught him several things.
“I have learned the true potential of Sligo Rovers. I learned a lot about every one of the players that worked for me. I believe that I have learned as an individual that I can work under pressure and that I know how to win.
“But I also learned that no matter what you do you are always going to get criticised.”
Despite their escape from the First Division, a level capable of eroding a club’s foundations, Connor maintains that a sense of begrudgery exits in Sligo.
“For the genuine fans I think it [promotion] is fantastic and I believe that a lot of people will come back to the club because we are in the Premier Division – games in the First Division are, admittedly, not very attractive to watch.
“There is a lot of genuine goodwill out there,” he said, “but it is a fact that there are still people in Sligo who are disappointed that we have gone up. That is sad really, but it is a fact.”
On the flip side, there were beacons of encouragement during the season’s bleakest moments.
On his way home after the 2-0 defeat to Dundalk at The Showgrounds – the team’s third loss in 17 days – he was heartened to see a Sligo Rovers jersey in the window of a neighbour’s house with the message, ‘Don’t let the *******s get you down’.
“When I saw that I realised that there were some really good people in Sligo, people who really wanted me and the team to do well.”
His family were a source of support, none more so that his father, Sean, but the season’s prize brought other emotions to bear.
He wished that his late mother, Joan, who passed away in 1998, and his grandfather, Denis McCann, “who just wanted me to play football the whole time when I was growing up”, had been there to see his triumph.
He concedes that, after this year’s life-changing experience, he has changed. Management alters people.
“At the start [of the season] I was probably a bit timid because of the criticism I took when I arrived – people were asking who I was and saying things like ‘Sean who?’ I knew that I had a lot of work to prove people wrong.
“During the season maybe I was a bit arrogant but sometimes I needed to be like that to protect myself.”
Like all managers, weaving a web of confidence is something that has to be done, especially if the team or certain players are underperforming.
“If I am not confident, how can I expect the players to be confident? I am in the firing line all day and a lot of the players would look to me to see how I am reacting. If they sense any lack of faith or any weakness it will transmit to them.
“But I am getting battle-hardened [as a manager] and I am still confident. This year’s title is like two fingers up to everyone who said that I couldn’t do it – I have done it.”
His feat has been acknowledged in many quarters, not least by Premiership managers Steve Bruce, with whom Connor worked at Birmingham, and Fulham’s Chris Coleman, who is training for his UEFA pro-license in the same group as Connor.
Closer to home, he was in contact during the summer with fellow Ulster man Dom Corrigan, Sligo’s Senior Gaelic football team manager.
“I wished him well before Sligo played Cork in the Qualifiers and I think he had done really well to turn the season around.
“We had a chat and a laugh and he asked about [Michael] McNamara and a couple of the boys.
“At the end of the day management is a hard job, I appreciate the job that he is doing and he probably appreciates the job that I am doing.
“It is nice to see that one of us has brought success [to Sligo] but his job is probably more difficult than mine because I can bring people in whereas for him, the players have got to be from Sligo to play from Sligo. But I would like to speak with him again.”
Revealing that only an “incredible” offer would prise him from The Showgrounds, Connor is looking to improve himself, the team and the club in 2006.
“The real test comes next year, in terms of what I can do as a manager. Can I keep us in the Premier Division? Can I deliver another trophy?
“I am learning and evolving all the time. I would like to think that I am a better manager now than I was two or three years ago – and even two or three months ago,” he added.
For Sligo Rovers and Sean Connor, attaining promotion wasn’t the absolute test, it was merely a prelude to even greater challenges.
Given favourable circumstances, expect Connor to impact on the Premier Division. Whatever happens, he will diligently strive for excellence.
Expect nothing less.