This weeks big interview is ex-Millwall, Yeovil and QPR player, Marc Bircham. Marc talks to Euro Football Zone about his playing career, his idols, coaching and the future. Thanks go to Marc and hope you all enjoy! EFZ: So, Marc. First up, you ended your playing career at Yeovil a couple of years ago and you have now moved on to become the Assistant Manager of the QPR Centre of Excellence. How are you finding the move to a coaching role? Marc: Really enjoying it. What you have to realise is that it is like being a youth player again! To be a player you have to learn the ropes as a youth player, then it comes full cycle and you have to learn to be a coach. I was quite lucky that I started my badge at quite a young age, when I was 25 and then fully qualified last year. So now, I am on the Pro-licence which is the top award for coaches. Last season of course, following the dismissal of Jim Magilton, you and Steve Gallen took the helm for one game. Do you have any future management ambitions? Yeah, of course and that is why I started to coach. It is just a progression, you start off with the youth teams, maybe become an Assistant Manager one day, then move on to become a Manager further on down the line. So, hopefully, it is just the beginning on a long road to management. You played for quite some time at QPR and where somewhat of a fan favourite at Loftus Road? What was your highlight of your playing days at the club? I have a number of highlights, I suppose. The biggest highlight would have to be getting promoted on the last day of the season at Hillsborough, seeing eight thousand QPR fans there in a game we needed to win. I'd been told a couple of weeks before that if we didn't go up, the club couldn't afford to keep me. It was pressure time, we had Swindon at home and I think we were fourth in the league at that point, then Sheffield Wednesday away and we had to win them both to go up and we did! It was just a mixture of relief and euphoria. There was that and then there was the time I scored a last minute goal at Brentford the year before and I think there were three games to go in the season. Tranmere had been pushing us all the way to get to the play-offs. I remember being told that Tranmere were winning 2-1 just as we got a corner. The corner came out to me at the edge of the box and I volleyed it in the top corner. I think that was the most celebrated QPR goal since Clive Allen's in the 1982 FA Cup semi-final, it was mayhem! You can see it on Youtube, there were fans running on the pitch! Agony: Play-off defeat to Cardiff What about on the other side of things? What was the toughest moment of your QPR career? The play-off loss to Cardiff? The play-off loss to Cardiff was one. We did fantastically to get into the play-offs, I think we won seven of the last eight games to get in there. So that was magnificent but, it was devastating. I needed an ankle operation and managed to keep it off. I was booked in to have it on the Tuesday and we played on the Sunday, so I remember battling on in the last couple of minutes and I took a whack on my ankle, it was killing! So I literally just played on to take the penalty and they then scored in the last minute. So, it was bad, but the Chairman told us afterwards that it was good we didn't go up, because we would have gone bankrupt. With the bonuses that would have been owed to other clubs, he just said it would have been a nightmare! But, for me the biggest disappointment was the injuries I suffered. I was battling hamstring injuries and in the last season or two at the club, I missed quite a lot of games through injury. It was terrible, we were in a relegation battle and I just couldn't get fit. The injuries were definitely the worst part. As a player, just how tough is it mentally when you are suffering with injuries? It is tough. But, you are better off knowing you will be back in say four months, then it is four months. Whereas I think with the hamstring injury I was out 2-3 months and kept trying to come back and breaking down. Breaking down is the worst feeling to have as a player because, when you can't even do the job that you love, but you still have to come in everyday, not being able to play, it is terrible. But, I had a back operation and they said I should have been out six months and I ended up coming back within four and I managed to play the last game of the season, my last game for QPR against Stoke at home. I was just so glad I made that or I would never have played another game for QPR. Obviously, this season has gone very well for the club. How has the atmosphere been around the place? The atmosphere has been fantastic. The Under-18's, [we] won our league and the first eleven one their league. It's the first time they have one both ever I think, or in years at least. So there is a feel-good factor around the place. There was a little bit of a dampener with the FA case, but now we can enjoy being champions of the division. The atmosphere around the training ground is solely dependant on the first-team. There is no point the youth team winning most weeks if the first team are down the bottom of the league, because the atmosphere is not going to be good. The atmosphere has been really good, the first team is doing well and the manager is interested in bringing youth players through so it really is fantastic at the moment. Here at Euro Football Zone we have written a couple of pieces on the talents of Adel Taarabt and Alejandro FaurlÃn as two of QPR's star players. How highly do you rate the pair of them? I rate them really highly and next year they will be playing at the standard they should be and that is in the Premier League. But, they were at the club last year when form was a bit up and down. I think the difference this year is that we have some solid men in the team that are going to be your 7/10 players every week. Paddy Kenny, Clint Hill and Shaun Derry have come in, giving a good spine to the team that the flair players can feed off as well. Paddy Kenny won Player of the Season and I think that shows you. I think we had 23 clean sheets this year, so a lot of credit must go to the goalkeeper. As a player, you know the longer the game stays 0-0, if your team has the players who can create something out of nothing, then you can win 1-0. Whereas, last year we were having to score four goals to win. Who would you say were the best players you played with and against in your career? For my team I would say, Ray Wilkins. I was a massive fan of Ray and then he came down to Millwall from QPR and I made my debut alongside him. Just to see his enthusiasm and ability at that age, he didn't let me down! I grew up a massive QPR fan, watching them week-in week-out and I think if you speak to Ray he would tell you some of the best football of his career was played at QPR, so then to make my debut alongside him was fantastic. The best player I played against...I played against Hidetoshi Nakata for Japan, he was very good, when I was playing for Canada. Then Rafael Marquez who played for Barcelona, was playing for Mexico. He played in Midfield in that game and everything was very easy for him. Idol: QPR #10 John Byrne Who was your football idol growing up? My footballing idol was John Byrne. I suppose a lot of people will know him from his Sunderland days when they went on a cup run and beat Liverpool. I remember I had my hair like him. He was a typical QPR number 10, he had bags of ability. Him and Terry Fenwick were idols and then when I got a little bit older you had Ray Wilkins and Les Ferdinand. But my first idol was John Byrne, that was about 86/87 when I was just a football fanatic. He was the player that when I scored, I would take my top off and have a retro-QPR shirt with a number 10 on the back. Then I guess the only two non-QPR heroes were Maradona and Gazza. And of course, whilst at QPR, you had quite an interesting hairstyle. What influenced the blue and white mohican? When I fist started at Millwall, I had quite long hair, but then when I joined QPR, me and Kevin Gallen had a bet. A drunken bet in fact, about who was the biggest QPR fan and I bet that I would dye my hair blue and white for my first game. It was something that my brother had always said when we were young, if you ever play for QPR, you have to dye your hair blue and white. So I said I will bet you £250 that I will do it and I did it for my first game. Then I got sponsored for two years. Schwarzkopf sponsored me for a year and then --- sponsored me for the next year. So, it was financially worth keeping it! Finally, if you had to tip one future star of the game, who would it be? I suppose it would have to be Raheem Stirling because we worked with him at QPR and now he has come to people's attention in the last six months at Liverpool. A fantastic talent, who if they can keep him on the straight-and-narrow and concentrating on his football, I expect big things from him. Posted by Christopher Atkin http://www.eurofootballzone.com/2011/05/marc-bircham-euro-football-zone-big.html
