I've noticed that the Brentford manager Mark Warburton is on the betting odds list of potential suitors that may be coming to us. If anyone hasn't heard of him I suggest you read this brilliant piece on him and see if he might be the right man to take our club forward.
Mark Warburton: "I'd rather coach kids than close a £1 billion deal in the city"
21 January 2015
After promotion to the Championship last season, Brentford are now flying in the play-offs and eyeing a sensational rise to the top flight. In April 2014, Nick Moore met the banker-turned-Bee who got them there...
It was when a billion-dollar negotiation landed on his desk in the City of London and he just couldn’t concentrate on it that Mark Warburton realised he had to give up his day job.
“There was this huge deal in front of me, and all I could think about were the passing drills I was going to do that evening with my under-10s team,” he chuckles about his time as currency trader in Bishopsgate.
“I worked for Bank of America, IBJ, AIG, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and you could be turning over two billion dollars a day. I was taking the 5.10am train into Liverpool Street, coming home at 7pm, getting phone calls through the night – the full City lifestyle. You're very well rewarded. But my heart was in football.”
And unlike many a desk jockey who has longingly pondered ditching the briefcase in order to “follow their dreams” – the sort of calligraphy-drawn mantra that idiots like to post on Facebook, defying real-world logic that dictates such behaviour is bananas – Warbuton actually did it.
He walked away from the trading floor with a 10-year plan in place to gain employment as a football manager, one of the least secure jobs imaginable.
“I knew that if I ended up at park level, I’d have really cocked it up,” he says. “My wife and kids thought I was absolutely insane, and in their position I’d have questioned my sanity too.” The Warburton family, however, were mistaken. Miraculously, Dad’s plan came off, and in December 2013 he was appointed gaffer of Brentford after Uwe Rosler’s move to Wigan.
“I was delighted,” he says. “I know I can do this. I’m conscious that my background isn’t steeped in the game like other people.
"But while I don’t want to appear disrespectful, I think that the City environment and the skills that you learn are translatable. Man-management is getting more prevalent. If you can deal with people, you can do well.”
It’s hard to question him. But how did all this actually happen? What do the players and fans think? And could Warburton’s pioneering ideas – more of which later – actually help save English football on a much larger level? FourFourTwo hit the road for a Brentford away day to check whether he’s the real deal.
Warburton’s path to management has been intriguing. Like many boys, he grew up wanting to be a footballer, and – as an athletic right-back – he came close, getting snapped up by Leicester City as an apprentice.
But he didn’t have what it took. “I was an average player and I didn’t get along with my manager, Jock Wallace,” he says. Instead, he settled for signing at semi-pro level with Enfield. “It was fun, but I ruptured my cruciate ligament twice. I got more drawn into my work life.”
Read the rest here.....................
Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features...ose-ps1-billion-deal-city#ildkLJTvLUruV0UX.99
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Mark Warburton: "I'd rather coach kids than close a £1 billion deal in the city"
21 January 2015
After promotion to the Championship last season, Brentford are now flying in the play-offs and eyeing a sensational rise to the top flight. In April 2014, Nick Moore met the banker-turned-Bee who got them there...
It was when a billion-dollar negotiation landed on his desk in the City of London and he just couldn’t concentrate on it that Mark Warburton realised he had to give up his day job.
“There was this huge deal in front of me, and all I could think about were the passing drills I was going to do that evening with my under-10s team,” he chuckles about his time as currency trader in Bishopsgate.
“I worked for Bank of America, IBJ, AIG, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and you could be turning over two billion dollars a day. I was taking the 5.10am train into Liverpool Street, coming home at 7pm, getting phone calls through the night – the full City lifestyle. You're very well rewarded. But my heart was in football.”
And unlike many a desk jockey who has longingly pondered ditching the briefcase in order to “follow their dreams” – the sort of calligraphy-drawn mantra that idiots like to post on Facebook, defying real-world logic that dictates such behaviour is bananas – Warbuton actually did it.
He walked away from the trading floor with a 10-year plan in place to gain employment as a football manager, one of the least secure jobs imaginable.
“I knew that if I ended up at park level, I’d have really cocked it up,” he says. “My wife and kids thought I was absolutely insane, and in their position I’d have questioned my sanity too.” The Warburton family, however, were mistaken. Miraculously, Dad’s plan came off, and in December 2013 he was appointed gaffer of Brentford after Uwe Rosler’s move to Wigan.
“I was delighted,” he says. “I know I can do this. I’m conscious that my background isn’t steeped in the game like other people.
"But while I don’t want to appear disrespectful, I think that the City environment and the skills that you learn are translatable. Man-management is getting more prevalent. If you can deal with people, you can do well.”
It’s hard to question him. But how did all this actually happen? What do the players and fans think? And could Warburton’s pioneering ideas – more of which later – actually help save English football on a much larger level? FourFourTwo hit the road for a Brentford away day to check whether he’s the real deal.
Warburton’s path to management has been intriguing. Like many boys, he grew up wanting to be a footballer, and – as an athletic right-back – he came close, getting snapped up by Leicester City as an apprentice.
But he didn’t have what it took. “I was an average player and I didn’t get along with my manager, Jock Wallace,” he says. Instead, he settled for signing at semi-pro level with Enfield. “It was fun, but I ruptured my cruciate ligament twice. I got more drawn into my work life.”
Read the rest here.....................
Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features...ose-ps1-billion-deal-city#ildkLJTvLUruV0UX.99
