It is now almost three years to the day since, on a cold and wet Saturday afternoon at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium, Jamie Vardy latched onto a Christian Fuchs through-ball before slotting a powerful low drive past Manchester United’s David de Gea. The significance of the goal, which saw Vardy break Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in ten consecutive Premier League matches, was clear evidence of a footballer at the height of his powers.
Vardy’s rise from such humble Non-League beginnings to the bright lights of the Premier League has been well documented. From Stocksbridge Park Steels, via FC Halifax and Fleetwood Town - England recognition would follow off the back of his blazing run with Leicester City. Here was the ‘poster boy’ for what Non-League football could deliver. So much so, in fact, that scouts up and down the country are now looking for that next gem; a player with a price tag that wouldn’t even be picked up on most Premier League clubs’ balance sheets.
But while the new wave of Non-League stars continue to take their places in the higher leagues and beyond – former Kettering striker Calum Wilson’s call-up to the England squad being the latest example of such – the lack of managers being given their chance remains a cause of major frustration.
Scratch the surface and you can see some reasoning: if a club purchases a player for such a nominal fee - even the £1 million Leicester City paid Fleetwood Town for Vardy’s services in 2012 - there is so much to gain and so little to lose. But taking a manager from the lower leagues, who is expected to make a team gel and manage players’ egos, well that’s a different challenge. And, where such appointments are concerned, chairmen and board members don’t want any egg on their faces.
That said, if Football League clubs could have a window into the work and lives of many Non-League managers, they would see so many astute footballing brains that are complemented with the key ingredient needed for success: hard work. Yet still our managers are being ignored, and if they are given a chance, it is invariably with a club that is swimming against the tide.
Paul Hurst’s recent ill-fated stint at Ipswich is a case in point. Despite a playing career where he chalked up to close to 500 games in the Football League with Rotherham United, Hurst cut his teeth in management in the lower leagues, working alongside Rob Scott at Ilkeston, Boston and Grimsby before taking the job with the Mariners on a full-time basis. He then moved to Shrewsbury before Ipswich came calling last May.
With one of the lowest budgets in the Championship in a division that has become, pound for pound, arguably the toughest in Europe, the task at Portman Road was never going to be an easy one. It proved beyond Hurst, and now instead of celebrating the talents of a man who has gone from the Conference to the Championship in the space of two years, we are left scratching our heads as to when the next bright light from Non-League will be given the chance to shine.
Managers deserve greater support and patience to progress their careers. Non-League football has been recognised as the perfect breeding ground for players who develop the right attitudes for the task ahead, but those players are learning from some of the game’s most aspiring young managers. Like Vardy, there are some golden nuggets out there…