Scottish managers are bossing the Premier League's managerial market
If Steve McClaren wants to return to management in the Premier League, perhaps he should use his celebrated linguistic dexterity to fake a Scottish accent? His stock (aye) would surely rise. Because what Oxbridge is to the government cabinet, Scotland seems to be to top-flight gaffership.
There are roughly five million Scots to over 50m Englanders, yet six of the 20 clubs in the world's wealthiest league are managed by Scotsmen – or seven if we include Aston Villa, who are being run by Gary McAllister while Gérard Houllier convalesces. And the contingent could climb next season if Paul Lambert achieves back-to-back promotions with Norwich City and Billy Davies's Nottingham Forest finish with a flourish. So whence English clubs' lubency for appointing Scots?
Beyond the obvious factor – ie the individual merits of each manager – powerful subconscious forces are perhaps also at work. Could it be that English football chairmen are conditioned to believe that Scottish tacticians are more canny than English ones?
History, of course, could inculcate that belief. Since the dawn of footballing time Scottish football tacticians have been educating their English counterparts. Scots thought more deeply about the game from day one, developing a style based on short passing and quick movement while the English trusted in strength and bluster. Hence, between 1872 and 1884 England and Scotland met 13 times and the English won only two of the games and losing nine, including by scores of 7-2, 6-1 and 5-1. So impressed were the English by the Scottish fluency and finesse that when professionalism was introduced down south in 1885, the first thing many clubs did was head north to recruit. The Preston Invincibles, who, in 1889, went unbeaten en route to the first ever Cup and League double, were also known as 'the Scotch Professors' by dint of having seven Scots in their ranks. The inaugural Liverpool squad, in 1892, contained no fewer than 13 Scots.
Beating and teaching the English perhaps bred further Scottish pride and interest in football. Obsessiveness, even. Still today few, if any, English regions live football as intensely as the core of Scotland does.
Scots' reputation as footballing forerunners was embedded further in later generations by Jock Stein's Celtic, the first British club to win the European Cup. By then, of course, Scotsmen Matt Busby and Bill Shankly were already turning Manchester United and Liverpool into European powers. Men such as Tommy Docherty, George Graham and Kenny Dalglish and have all extended this tradition, further cultivating an instinctively positive disposition towards Scottish managers similar to the one that many people have towards Brazilian players or Swedish actresses. Indeed, you could describe Sir Alex Ferguson as Scotland's Ingrid Bergmann, if you really wanted to.
Stereotypes exert a seductive allure. Which brings us to another theory: an additional factor swinging things in favour of Scottish candidates is Englanders' visceral fear of the their northern neighbours, whom, deep down, they still perceive as raw, borderline psychotic Highland folk. Top chaps to have on your side, but ferocious beasts to be pitted against. Not for nothing is a headbutt called a Glasgow kiss. The English suspicion that within every Scotsman lurks at least a little bit of Begbie or Groundskeeper Willie resolves the mystery as to why, last February, the entire London-based media reckoned that the notoriously hard professional sportsman Gino Gattuso would have been battered like an insolent cod if he'd pushed his luck against Joe Jordan, who may be nearly 60 years old but still grew up in North Lanarkshire.
A potent vector of Scottish power is the accent (which is why Paisley-born-and-bred Owen Coyle must be considered a Scottish manager even though he was a Republic of Ireland player). The deep, vaguely growling tones of the Scot convey authority. The nation's football broadcasters recognise this: hence Alan Hansen has been the BBC's main pundit for two decades, Andy Gray was the voice of Sky for years and can now be heard perorating Scottishly on TalkSPORT straight after Alan Brazil, and both Setanta and ESPN immediately installed Craig Burley as the cornerstone of their gantries. Part of being authoritative means carrying an implicit threat, and the Scottish accent transmits latent menace well. Ferguson's hairdryer treatment would doubtless not be as fearsome if it were delivered in, say, broad Cornish. To English ears, then, even the most elementary tactical instruction can sound like a prelude to a fight if delivered in a Scottish accent. No wonder chairmen reckon players are less likely to let a Scottish boss down.
Never really thought about it before but it is strange that despite our sh*te league's there seems to be an abundance of Scottish managers doing well in England.
Thoughts?
