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Robbie Savage – Diary of a football manager: why I became a boss at Macclesfield…

Posted on by Pranco
Robbie Savage – Diary of a football manager: why I became a boss at Macclesfield…

Robbie Savage joins F365 to give us exclusive insight into his first steps into football management. Things are going pretty well so far…

In collaboration with Planet Sports BettingEvery week, Robbie takes us behind the scenes at Macclesfield FC, the phoenix club that rises from the ashes of Macclesfield Town, which went bankrupt in 2020.

Robbie has played one of the leading roles in the rebirth of a now thriving football club, first as director of football, now as first team manager, as the Silkmen attempt to make their way from the ninth tier back to the Football League.

In his first diary entry from Macclesfield, Robbie reveals his motivation for entering management, his ambition and what’s important to him as a boss…

You didn’t expect me to be the manager of the only undefeated team left in the top seven of English football, did you?

Me neither. I didn’t expect to become a manager at all. That wasn’t the plan. Expertise suited my personality better when I retired, and I never thought leadership would be for me. But I always wondered if I could do it.

It took a lot of persuasion to get involved as director of football at Macclesfield FC. when my business partner Rob Smethurst bought the assets of Macclesfield Town from Right Move after the old club went bankrupt in 2020. I’m really glad he talked me into it because even though it was a whirlwind, it taught me how to run a thriving football club.

Perhaps inevitably, even though I was in the background, all the attention was on me. From the North West Counties Football League to where we are now, the Northern Premier League, the narrative was that if we lost it was my fault. People said I picked the team. That wasn’t true.

Last summer was the turning point. We lost in the final of the promotion play-off to Marine. They deserved to win. Afterwards, I sat at home with my family and received a flood of personal messages, beaming and rubbing it in. But as director of football I was in no position to influence the matches as they unfolded, despite the perception that I was.

That frustration built up and then I got a call from another club asking if I wanted to become their head coach.

At first I felt it would be very difficult given my shareholding in Macclesfield and the commitments of BBC 606. But the idea grew on me. So I went to the board and told them I would accept the offer.

I decided I wanted to be a manager, to be accountable, since everyone assumed I was anyway. If I were to be blamed for the decisions, I should be the manager making them. The other board members understood my desire to take that step and decided that I should do it here at Macclesfield.

If I’m not good enough as a manager, at least in the future I can look at myself in the mirror and hold myself accountable. That has always been important to me, as a player and expert. I wasn’t good enough to play for Manchester United, but I came back. In media I started with a year-long 5Live Extra, going to Colchester in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy to learn and work my way up, and I’ve been doing well ever since. As director of football, together with Rob, we brought this club back from the dead. The next step for me was management.

And of course I want to go as far as I can. I want to manage in the Premier League or the Championship. Ideally with Macclesfield. But it doesn’t matter if we don’t get promoted this season because then I won’t have a job anymore, let alone be considered for others.

That’s the promise I made: we’ll rise or I’ll be gone. It’s a long season and we haven’t achieved anything yet, but we’re doing well at the moment. We are top of the table, undefeated and have won 14 out of 16.

Critics say we should be at the top of the table. That’s fair. We have the largest budget. But other teams have similar budgets and we all train twice a week. As we have seen at every level from the Premier League onwards, money is absolutely no guarantee of success.

People are more important and I think we have built a fantastic team here. A group that is hungry to play at the next level, and I would trust these players in the National League. You’ll be hearing a lot more about the boys in the coming weeks, some of whom play and train in jobs as teachers, personal trainers and plumbers. None of these guys are full-time professionals. But they have the drive and I like to help them strive and become the best players they can be.

There are so many good players at this level, guys who I can’t believe haven’t played in the Football League yet. The only differences between a lot of EFL players and a lot of these guys: consistency and decision-making.

Last season there was talk about the team not being consistent enough and I thought about that a lot when I took the job. They have shown remarkable consistency so far this season. Next time I’ll talk more about why that might be.

For me, my team is just as important as the team. That’s the whole staff, but closest to me are my assistant Peter Band and first-team coach John McMahon. Bandy has played numerous non-league games; John coached the reserve team at Liverpool under Rafa Benitez and has seen it all in the Football League.

They are so important to me. Football is ruthless and as a player I have learned that confidence is everything. I trust these guys.

We saw it this week with Ruben Amorim goes to Manchester UnitedAnd Ruud van Nistelrooij leaves. It’s a huge job for Amorim and he knows he needs people around him he can trust. The new manager has an inner circle and you can’t just integrate anyone into that because he is a Manchester United legend.

And the same applies to me. Hypothetically, if I were offered a job somewhere, I would want to take my staff with me. We should go together. People do not recognize the collaboration and you have complete confidence in them. You can’t force that from one day to the next.

But first we have a huge job here at Macclesfield. And I’m devastated.

Available this week: Curzon Ashton (A), FA Trophy second round.
We have a break in the competition on Saturday, but there will be no relaxation as we move 25 miles on to a side flying high in the division above.

Last season we reached the last four of the FA Trophy, the only club outside the National League to do so, and the first time in the semi-finals it was a one-leg draw. We lost 2-1 at Gateshead but if we had the chance to take them back to our place I would have liked us to go to Wembley which could have been huge for us.

Robbie Savage is a brand ambassador for Planet Sport Bet

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