John Gill interviewed by Keith Wallace. July 31st 2007.
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”…Many great managers have passed through Dundalk FC in the club’s 81-year league history, however, few have had a more difficult task than current boss, John Gill. Handed the job of awakening Ireland’s largest sleeping giant after a four-year coma, some felt the job was too big for the 43-year-old Dubliner. How wrong they were!
Over 16 months on from first stepping into battle, Gill has transformed the Lilywhites from a club living on past glories to one looking to future, and now seemingly realisable dreams. From First Division strugglers to a team looking for promotion for the second successive year, Gill has turned fortunes around on the pitch and, just like magic, has banished all the painful memories of the Anderson and Gannon eras. Ladies and gentlemen, God has arrived.
But where exactly did he come from? After spending his schoolboy days with Stella Maris, Gill had subsequent spells as a player with Fairview CYM, Home Farm, Drogheda United, Bray Wanderers, Sligo Rovers and Lusk United. During that time, he captured two First Division medals with the Boynesiders, and it is there that Gill admits his heart was closest to during his playing days. “It has to be Drogheda, unfortunately. I know I’m going to be slaughtered here for saying that. Home Farm as well, they’ve gone out of football now, I loved them, but Drogheda holds great memories for me; I won two First Division titles down there. I remember my first game there, we played EMFA (Kilkenny City), we played them in United Park and I think there was less than 200 people at the game. We went on a 27-match unbeaten run that season, and at the end of the season, there was 2,500 people at the games. It was very similar to here. And in fairness, when I go to Drogheda now to watch games, or when I’m in the town on business, I get very well received. They’re lovely people, I know people here don’t think so, but they are lovely people, and that relationship helped us keep Shaun Williams. But the club closest to my heart now and that will always have a soft part of my heart is Dundalk, because of what we went through last year. After the obstacles that were put in our way near the end, it was a massive achievement to finish how we did, and I think it actually re-born this club.”
After a double hernia operation in 1993 that meant Gill could no longer play League of Ireland football, he had a short spell at Lusk, before going to Whitehall Rangers as assistant manager. Similar roles were to follow at both Kilkenny and Kildare before he went out on his own as boss at Dublin City, Athlone Town and now Dundalk. But what’s the difference between playing and managing? “Funny enough, that’s a good question, because you speak to an awful lot of people and you hear an awful lot of people say that you’ll never beat playing. I disagree. I was an average player, I was an ordinary player. I worked really hard as a player and made the most of what I had; I was never a top player and was never going to be a top player. I hadn’t got the technical ability maybe of my assistant manager, Gerry Scully – he was a tremendous little player, he was technically very good and very clever – I wasn’t like that, I was more of a swashbuckling, tough full-back who was very fit. I worked extremely hard on my fitness. I was more a physical player than a player that played with his brains. I actually enjoy managing more than playing. You hear a lot of managers saying they enjoyed playing more – I don’t. I found management extremely interesting. Any manager I worked with, I listened to and I have a great memory capacity. I wrote a lot of stuff down that we done on the training pitch and things that were said in the dressing-room, and I’ve actually got a little bible, if you could call it that, on what I feel helps you become a good manager. You never know if you’re going to be, but I was always a good listener and a good learner.
“I coached as an assistant manager for a number of years and I really enjoyed that as well. I enjoyed coaching, but I feel I’ve taken to management like a duck to water. Dermot Keely actually said I’d never make a manager. He said I should stay with him as a coach, that I was a better coach and that I’d never be a manager because I was too nice. That kind of spurred me on a little bit. I was lucky enough to win the league at Dublin City in my first season, so Dermot gave me a few quid back. He admitted he was wrong, which he doesn’t usually do. Managing is a lot about identifying talent that you feel will help the way you want to play, and organisation, and I’m extremely organised – I like to plan things, I like to have information for players and I go and watch every opponent that we play. I feel sometimes that some managers don’t do that, they try to take shortcuts. If you try to take shortcuts as a manager, it ends up biting you in the arse. I think football is a simple game and you usually find that the good teams and the good players do the simple things well. That’s what we try to do. I find that when you do that, you get your rewards.”
Gill’s first managerial job came at Dublin City in 2003, and it was to become a fairytale first season for him as the Vikings fought off both Bray Wanderers and Finn Harps to claim the title. A minor miracle had been completed, but, how difficult was the job, given that the club had little support and little or no financial backing? “It was very difficult,” Gill admits, “because we had to make literally a silver purse out of a sow’s ear. Luckily enough, we got the ALSAA in Dublin for training, which was great, I got that because I knew somebody there. We lost four games all season, we had a great season that year, playing against some big clubs – Dundalk being one of them, Bray Wanderers, Finn Harps – teams which had bigger budgets than we had, and who thought they had the divine right to go up. And to play against the big boys and be the underdog was great. But it was very deflating when you were winning and were top of the league and you were going for home games and getting 200 people. That was deflating.”
Promotion was the prize for that title triumph, but Gill’s maiden voyage into the Premier Division was to end in disappointment as he resigned midway through the campaign. Gill states, however, that his love for the club, along with health problems, were the reasons behind stepping aside – something he deeply regrets. “We went up and we tried to do it on a very, very tight budget. I thought I could do it because I had won the First Division on a tight budget, but I soon found out that the gap was massive. I took too much on, I wasn’t a very good delegator and tried to be everything to everybody. All I was short of doing was sweeping the dressing-rooms. I tried to do everything myself, probably because I was young and naïve, and so enthusiastic. It took it’s toll on me that year and I got sick. I resigned with 16 games to go and actually recommended Roddy Collins for the job, which was probably a suicidal thing to do to Ronan Seery. But Roddy was always saying that he had investment, he was telling every club that he had money and backers to come in, and I thought that that’s what Dublin City needed. I had a contract there for two more years, but because we had worked so hard to get the team up – it was a dream of Ronan’s – I felt that it needed more investment but he couldn’t get it.
“Roddy had made it known that he would bring investment in and I resigned to let somebody else come in to hopefully bring investment in, and he brought in a team of journeymen. When I look at the players that I brought to the club, some really good players – Killian Brennan, Paul Crowley, Ben Whelehan, Philip Hughes, Gary O’Neill and Barry Ryan. The nucleus was there to have a really good season, but then the lunatic comes in, gets rid of the young players and brings in Efan Ekoku and Carlton Palmer! It was very, very heartbreaking to see a lot of good work go down the drain when he came in, and he actually, in the end, destroyed the club, believe it or not. Even though they got promoted again with Dermot, I don’t think Ronan really recovered from that financial burden that happened. When I left, we were bottom of the league but we were only three points behind Longford with a game in hand and we were four points behind Derry with two games in hand. We were in a good position, and what was needed was a little bit of investment and two or three quality players and I think we wouldn’t have got relegated. Probably the biggest regret I ever have was resigning, but at the time, my health wasn’t what it should have been, I wasn’t well and I had to get away and get myself and my head sorted out, which I did. Probably the biggest thing ever was to step back and learn from mistakes.
“It was very, very difficult (on my personal life). I had to take a bit of time out of football for my own sanity. I’m not messing when I say that not only did I nearly lose my day job over it – and I have a very good day job and a very good boss – but I also nearly lost a marriage and two kids over it. That’s being honest. I’ve come out in the open and said this before, but people laugh at that and they will probably have a go at you over it. Unfortunately for my family, they have become third in line behind football and work, but they understand that; they know how passionate I am about football. I’m not in football for money, I never have been. I’m in it for the challenge and I’m in it to try and better a place. Wherever I’ve been in management, I’ve always tried to leave it a better place than when I got there, and I hope to do the same here. Hopefully that won’t be for a long time, because I love it here, but that will be determined by results and how I do.”
A break from football followed for Gill after that disappointment, a period which ended when he took over as Athlone boss halfway through 2005 with the midlanders rock bottom of the First Division. And though maybe not the perfect opportunity, Gill admits: “I got myself mentally sorted out and I felt it was a way to get back on the horse again. It was a difficult one because they were bottom of the league, but it was a challenge to try and tidy up the club, because it was in an awful mess. There was an Athlone faction and a Dublin faction who didn’t get on, the facilities were poor and myself and Gerry put a huge amount of work in. What we done was, we actually got a training ground for nothing in Mullingar and we made both squads travel there, and anybody that didn’t want to travel, good luck. In fairness to the players, we went down there twice a week and it made a huge difference. Sligo won the league that year and we drew with them twice, which was a great achievement. The players were very honest, we had to try and get them fit and get them organised, and we done that. We didn’t have much quality, but what we had was a lot of fellas who wanted to work hard. Two things I require in management, and I’ve said this to the players, is honesty and hard work. I said, ‘if you give me that every game, I’ll defend you to the hilt. If I don’t get honesty and hard work, then I have a problem.’”
Following that short spell which ended after half a season, Gill arrived at Dundalk at the end of 2005. But, as is believed by some Athlone fans, did Gill speak to Dundalk before resigning from his position at the midlands club? Gill insists: “If you’re linked to any job, it’s flattering and you’d have to be interested, but I never spoke to or met Dundalk directors, and that’s fact. People in Athlone think that it was a done deal beforehand – it wasn’t. And to be honest, I wasn’t that overly well treated by Athlone anyway, near the end of my time there. Nobody spoke to me about the following season. Myself and Gerry had actually done a plan for what we wanted next year, as regards logistics, and even down to players we wanted to bring in, and nobody wanted to look at it, and that’s fact. The people in Athlone who we spoke to and who knew we had this plan – I’m not going to name names – know that I would have stayed there. I still have some very good friends in Athlone – Alan McCaul and Michael Francis, both good friends of mine. They’re good people and they know what me and Gerry put in and they know what we were thinking of, but people down there just didn’t want to talk. That’s not my fault. The people in Athlone probably felt that I let them down a little bit, but all that I can say is, if that’s the case, then why didn’t I walk out on Dundalk and go to Derry? I’m an honourable person, when people are honourable with me. At the end of that season, I wanted guarantees of certain things done; changes to the way things would be done. Athlone weren’t forthcoming in talking to me, they said they’d leave it until a later date. I wanted to do it straight away because I’m a great believer in planning, and I resigned.”
Athlone’s loss has been very much Dundalk’s gain, and there appears to be an extremely bright future ahead for Gill and his Lilywhite Army. But when is Gill expecting that to end? Last year, the boss told the media that he’d more than likely be out of football management in about five years. But, is that still the case, or would Dundalk’s ‘Miracle Manager’ like to stay at Oriel Park a little longer than that? “I think that’s still the case. I would like to stay here, but it’s a very stressful job. I’m relatively young, I’m just gone 43, and I feel that my best years are ahead of me. I actually think that the next five years of my management career will probably be the best five years, and I’d like it to be with this club. I really would, because I love the club. The club has been really good to me, it’s a big football club and I love the people around it. I love it here and I want to continue the work that I set out to do here. Hopefully I can achieve it this year, but if not, I just hope that people are patient and give me time to do it. It disappoints me that certain people still question whether I’m up to the job or not. I think my results and my influx of good players here have proven that I’m capable of doing the job.”…Only a fool would disagree!
