Rico: For the love of the game

[pete]

Some good eL exposure if you ignore the incorrect European results.

Irish Independent

After 40 years in the professional ranks, Damien Richardson is showing no signs of letting his boundless enthusiasm wane

Liam Kelly

DAMIEN RICHARDSON - still football crazy after 40 years in the professional game.

In fact, you'd wonder if he was totally daft to engage in the perils of football management when his playing career ended. You've got to love the game to take all the disappointments and to forego the rewards of a life outside football.

Not a lotta people know this but the 58-year-old Dublin-born Richardson was a very successful salesman, first of double-glazing and then of life insurance, during two different periods of his life. So successful was he at the former after his playing career at Gillingham ended that he could afford to drive a 7-Series BMW.

But a series of events brought him back to Gillingham as youth team manager. But there was a price to pay for a return to football - his salary dropped by two thirds and he had to sell the BMW.

"The guy I sold it to lived near the ground and I passed his house every day going to the club, so I could see 'my' BMW in his driveway!"

Another interval out of the game occurred after a four-year stint as manager of Gillingham ended, and again, Richardson's persuasiveness resulted in a nice flow of income. "I sold so many people pensions - but I didn't take one for myself," he recalls. "Typical salesman."

There was, however, no denying the addiction and the adrenalin flow of football, and each time he stepped out into the 'real' world, it wasn't too long before Richardson was drawn back to the arena of conflict that is the pro game.

It all began in 1965 when Shamrock Rovers brought him to Milltown from Home Farm where he had played schoolboy football.

Although he signed amateur forms in that first season, the professional set-up at Rovers, then one of the glamour teams of a thriving League of Ireland, moulded him into a player of quality. Richardson benefited from the depth of knowledge and expertise of genuine football men such as manager Liam Tuohy and reserve team boss Paddy Ambrose.

They didn't fill his head with theory, nor did they go for the blame game or criticism of a young player.

"I was very lucky. At the time I joined Rovers, Liam Tuohy had decided to revamp the reserve team and went for youth. The likes of Mick Lawlor, Mick Leech and Hughie Brophy all played on that team. Paddy Ambrose was the manager. He was a gentleman, very natural and at ease with the players. Never swore, had a terrific understanding of the game and I learned from him the effect of treating people in a personal and natural manner.

Experience

"Very few first team players played in the reserves at that time, but on a Tuesday night there was always a practice match, first team against the reserves. They were all quality players at Rovers and it was a great learning experience. Nobody shouted at you, nobody browbeat you. A great place to be at that time."

Richardson made his debut in season 1966/67 against Drogheda United in the Lourdes Stadium and had an impressive game. His next match was at home to Dundalk - and he had a stinker.

"The attention I had got in the papers after my debut made me feel I'd arrived. It's a trap every youngster falls into, and mine came early. There was no mercy from the fans. I heard everything and it was a very disturbing experience.

"When I went home my old man [former St Pat's boss George] just said to me: 'Now you know what your step up is.' That step up was to realise that I was now playing with Shamrock Rovers; whether I was 17 or 27 didn't make any difference. You had to deliver."

Deliver he did, and Richardson went on to win two FAI Cup medals with Rovers before being sold to Fourth Division Gillingham for £7,000 in 1972.

It was a far cry from the street football of his youth. Richardson's grandmother lived in Oriel Street off the North Wall and that was where the big matches took place.

"To me soccer is the game that came from the streets, and the real understanding comes from playing in the street. That's where we learned to appreciate angles, to appreciate obstacles, and learn to become aware of what's around you.

"You could have any number from four to 44 playing at times, all shapes and sizes and all ages. When playing against the big fellas you had to learn to be cute. Sometimes you had to step out of the way because you'd get battered. But undoubtedly the happiest memory I have of football is that street scene.

Understanding

"Even when going to school I always had a tennis ball in my pocket and I'd play one-twos off the wall. All that increases your understanding of making an angle. Football is basically a very simple game - when you pass the ball, create another angle, and keep doing that.

"The street football has gone and it will never come back, so the seven-a-side game is the next best thing but it's a poor substitute."

He was part of a family of seven children, five boys and two girls, and the whole extended family was football daft, so the game, the players, the League of Ireland matches dominated conversations in the household.

However he was a late developer physically and in his football, taking some time to settle into Rovers and become a fully-fledged first-teamer. Once it happened, Richardson didn't look back and Gillingham came in for him. Not for the first time, football was to cost him in wages, but that has never stopped the big Dubliner. "Between working in motor assembly and football in Dublin I had £57 a-week. I signed for Gillingham for £45 a-week and I was the highest paid player at the club by a good margin.

"For signing I got £1,000 from Rovers and £500 from Gillingham, so it was a good enough deal for me. I was almost 25, a bit old to be going to England but I couldn't turn down the opportunity."

Richardson spent eight years at the club, scoring 90 goals and playing 310 league games. He won three caps for Ireland during that time, and helped Gillingham gain promotion to the old Division Three in 1974.

However they were back in the Fourth by the time his career ended, and he moved into non-league football. Once that ended he got his first sales but, after a couple of successful years, took a pay cut to re-join Gillingham as youth team manager.

"Managing a youth team is the greatest job in football. There's an exuberance and sense of advenuture about it.

"Winning is important but you're working in professional football for the best possible reason - to improve people, to take them to the next step, the same thing Paddy Ambrose did for me."

Keith Burkinshaw, former Spurs boss, was Gillingham manager at the time, but left when the club faced relegation. The Board gave Richardson the job with a couple of matches left and, for a novice, it was a tough learning experience.

"Professional football is a harsh world, but you enter into it knowing the deal, and if you get the sack and complain or protest about it, you're spitting in the wind. You went in with your eyes open and you should go out with your mind open.

Perceptive

"It was still a fabulous experience. I know I did a good job. Gillingham taught me that real management is dealing with people and knowing your players. The most important part of management is man management. You're better off being naive tactically but perceptive as regards people because you'll get the best out of people.

"If you're very good tacically but can't motivate your men, you're only going to go one way. So I learned the art of dealing on a very personal level with people because that was the only way I'd get people into the club."

It ended after four years, heralding Richardson's second coming as a salesman. But once the alluring siren of management sounded again, this time at Cork City, he was back in football. It was 1993, Cork were league champions and Richardson took over a fine team, but difficulties with the chairman led to him quitting after a League Cup game with Sligo in his third season.

That left a sense of unfinished business but Richardson didn't know he would get another chance to complete the task with City in 2005.

Meanwhile, he had managed Shelbourne to three FAI Cup finals, winning two, and a League Cup victory, and was in charge of a Shamrock Rovers side that were runners-up in the league.

TV and media work occupied him for a couple of years following his departure from Rovers until he succeeded Pat Dolan at Cork.

"My one intention was to improve the concentration and mental strength of the players. I'd watched them a lot the previous year. They were a very good team but not mentally strong.

"That mental strength comes from all aspects of thegame - from betterphysical condition-ing, awareness ofwhat the game isabout and whatwe're trying toachieve. Theresponse was verysatisfying indeed,and we saw thatwhen the Europeangames came along. Ourconcentration levels wereso high we were able to go to Lithuania and Sweden and win, and unfortunately I got clots on the lung before the away game to Slavia Prague.

"I'm not saying we lost because of that. They played very well but it didn't help. However I was very proud that when we came back from away games in Europe we won two and drew one, so not losing those games was very important."

The rest, as they say, is glorious history. Cork City won the title in an epic match against Derry City at Turner's Cross and lost the cup final to Drogheda United.

[pete]

Continued...

Now the challenge is to go on from there, despite the loss of Liam Kearney and Greg O'Halloran. The Cork boss is working on an experiment of trying to bring in players from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but he has an overview on the need to raise the standards and profile of the Eircom League.

"The Eircom League is riddled with self-interest, pure and simple. It has gone further into selfishness and petty jealousies and rivalries. That needs to be lashed out of it; not just swept away, but lashed out of it.

Professional

"It needs the FAI to take over and put somebody in there who'll run it as a Commissioner in a professional manner and for professional reasons. If he has to be a dictator for two or three years, then let it be.

"We need a more logistically balanced league where we have teams from around traditional soccer areas. I think a 12-team league would work well, with teams from Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Finn Harps, Derry, Longford, Drogheda and only three teams from Dublin.

"Operate it like a franchise if necessary. I think that is worth looking at as well, and take the fear out of it for a couple of years by having no relegation.

"The FAI needs to empower clubs in the league and create an environment in which all clubs can prosper and produce entertaining, competitive football.

"We can't all win the league or the Cup each year, but it should be possible to take the fear out of the game and have everyone singing out of the same hymn sheet so to speak, and aim to keep the best players at home and play entertaining football."

Damien Richardson says . . .

On that special night at Turner's Cross when City won the league
"I've played in front of 40,000 people but that night at Turner's Cross was something very, very special. There was a rapport between the team and the supporters that made it a magic night."

On the joys of football
"When it comes to great memories, people might expect me to talk about winning leagues or cups or playing for the international team, but undoubtedly the happiest memory I have of football is of those street games where you could have anything from four to 44 playing."

On learning how to treat players
"It was a great learning experience at Shamrock Rovers. Nobody browbeat you, nobody shouted at you. I learned from Paddy Ambrose the effect of treating people in a personal manner."

On the perils of management in the professional game
"It's a harsh world, but you enter into it knowing the deal, and if you get the sack and then try to complain about it, you're spitting in the wind."

On the insular approach of many clubs in the Eircom League
"The League is riddled with self-interest. It has gone further into selfishness and petty jealousies and rivalries. That needs to be lashed out of it; not just swept away, but lashed out of it."

[Colm]

Great article.

Top man Rico!

[Strabane_Harp]

Great article must say

particularily like his idea of a Commissioner to run the league as a dictator for a few years, a strong leadership with no one able to snipe from the sides, decisions might actually get made and stuck too!

[NY Hoop]

I read that article somewhere else before so that journo must have cut and pasted it.

Damien is a legend but sometimes his mouth gets him in trouble.

The MLS have a commissioner. Although Roy Dooney was accessible when he was the leagues commissioner a few years back......

KOH

[Da Real Rover]

Great article, great ambassador for the league.

[fergalr]

I read that article somewhere else before so that journo must have cut and pasted it.

True - I remember reading it before as well - typical of the Indo.

[Mayo Red]

True - I remember reading it before as well - typical of the Indo.

Still though, there's more column inches there than the Indo normally gives to the EL in a month, especially during the off season and it's not negative either!

[BohsFans]

The MLS have a commissioner. Although Roy Dooney was accessible when he was the leagues commissioner a few years back......

KOH

Why did he resign again?

[Éanna]

Rico is an absolute legend.

[Dr.Nightdub]

Why did he resign again?

Cos the silly chap wanted to publish the full results of his investigation into the registrations of all other clubs' players in THAT season but the League wasn't having any of it. Bitter? Moi? Neverrrrrrrr...