David Moyes Reveals The Truth About Managing The Worlds Greatest Teams

As he would tell you himself, the football is in David Moyes’s blood. Growing up in Glasgow he was surrounded by the game, from his dad coaching to his mum washing the kits, this devotion has continued to now. Making the jump from player to manager, David has seen every side and evolution of football, and not all of it was pretty. From the highs of being handpicked by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson as the manager of Manchester United to the lows of his very public sacking, and his miraculous return as ‘The Moyesiah’. In this conversation David speaks about what it takes to become one of the world’s best known managers, the winning habits and values he instills in his teams and why he is constantly renewing himself for the game he loves. Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  David would be out screaming at you at half time, they would be screaming at you at the end of the game.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  What's the toll of that?

• 0:13Speaker 02

  David the Messiah Moyes.

• 0:15Speaker 03

  One of the best-known football managers across the globe.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  Building teams with a clear identity.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  So where am I looking and who am I talking to? I was desperate to be successful as a manager and I had 11 years at Everton where we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four. The phone rang, it was Sir Alex. And he said, "I'm retiring and you're the next manager of Manchester United." No interview, not saying, "Would you like to be?" I met Ed Woodburn the next day, back to his house again, we met the Glazers. It was three days and that was as simple as that. To get that offer from the greatest manager maybe there ever was, was a great compliment. But maybe if I'd really looked into it in more detail and more depth, there was a huge change going to have to take place. I trusted Manchester United.

• 0:56Steven Bartlett?

  Do you feel like that trust was let down?

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Definitely. But my biggest regret was...

• 1:01Speaker 03

  We start with the story that has dominated the front pages, the sacking of David Moyes.

• 1:06Steven Bartlett?

  How did you find out that you're losing your job?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Media.

• 1:09Steven Bartlett?

  Oh really?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  If you've got any class or any style, you have to give bad news well.

• 1:16Steven Bartlett?

  What are those steps forward to get West Ham competing at the very top of the table?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  I want to build a new West Ham. A lot of supporters might not like the thought of that.

• 1:23Steven Bartlett?

  When you look at where West Ham is now, do you worry about losing your job?

• 1:27Speaker 00

  I've got to say...

• 1:38Steven Bartlett?

  David, take me back to the context that I need to understand in order to understand you. Take me back to Glasgow, 1960s.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Yes. I was in a really good family, who were really important and you'll probably hear me talking a lot about it now. But we were a family who, we stayed in the west end of Glasgow, in a tournament building.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  And we used to have to go up the tenement and the people who don't know what a tenement is, a tenement is a, you know, what we would probably think a block of flats and you would go up the tenement. And they were never in Glasgow at that time, very, very good to look at, people looked down on them a little bit. But it was a great upbringing for me, it allowed me to play my football out in the street, which at that time was something which everybody considered, you know, street footballers, everybody played football in the street. And everybody in Glasgow did play football in the street, played in the park. So I started in Glasgow in the West End and that was probably where me and my family grew up.

• 2:42Steven Bartlett?

  Your father's also called David?

• 2:43Speaker 00

  He certainly is, yeah.

• 2:46Steven Bartlett?

  What did he do for a living? And how did that influence you?

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Well, this is probably, it's a really good question to me, for me is because my dad actually was a teacher, but he worked in the shipyards in Glasgow, which was really important. So he worked as a shipbuilder and then he went on to become a teacher in a college. But meanwhile, what he'd done in his, part of his other job was that he was an amateur football manager. And there was a very famous boys' club team in Glasgow called Drumchapel Amateurs, which was very famous. And really is, all my memories come of my dad running one of the teams at Drumchapel Amateurs. Now, for the people who don't know, you know, there's people like Sir Alex Ferguson played for Drumchapel Amateurs, there was people

• 3:30Speaker 00

  like Asa Hartford played for Drumchapel Amateurs, John Ward was a Scottish international. So it was a very, very famous boys' club. My dad also ran the college where he teaches. My dad was a teacher at Annie's Land College, which was a college in Glasgow. And he took the team every Saturday morning and then he took the amateur football team every Saturday afternoon. You've got to remember, this was all, as well, there was no money involved in this. So really, part of my life was seeing my dad grow up as a football manager for amateurs. But meanwhile, his real job was that he was a teacher at Annie's Land College.

• 4:10Steven Bartlett?

  Did that make you want to pursue that as a career at that time? Or what kind of influence has that had on you in hindsight?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Well, I think when I look back now, I'd say to, I think your parents have huge influence in everything you do. For different reasons, mine definitely did, but I don't think when you're growing up as a boy, you're thinking that, you know, I'm going to be influenced too much by my dad or my mum. You don't think that till you get a bit older yourself and when you look back, you go, wow, I can't believe that I'm quite similar to my dad or I can't believe that I followed my mum. And going back to that, you know, my mum was part of it as well. My mum had to wash the strips and hang them up outside and, you know, and then she'd have to wash them and I, she'd wash them and iron them and I'd be folding them and putting them away. So probably from a really young boy, I was watching my dad and my mum.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Help, help young, young boys at that time, you know, fulfill, go for a game of football. Hopefully they were all hoping to go on to become professional footballers. But if not, try and be successful playing for, for the boys team in Glasgow at that time.

• 5:12Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things we do tend to pick up from our parents, from what I've seen, and I certainly did myself, was, I guess like principles and values of like how to approach life and how to deal with life. What were those principles and values that your parents imparted on you directly or indirectly from observation about life and how to deal with it and how to confront it?

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Well, I think your parents were always influencing you in some way. I was sent to church when I was, when I was younger, so I went to church, a lot of people were. And I think that probably had an influence as well in its own way in the, in the early days. But I think more to do with schooling, more to do with education and what they tried to do. And to be fair, none of them, I was never pushed on anything. I was never pushed to, you know, to be that well educated. I was never pushed to be a great football player. They were just encouraging really and always there to support. So I had parents who really let me grow up the way, the way I chose to do so.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  But everything was guided by them, you know, respect, you know, trust, you know, trying to be truthful all the time, all those things I think come into a good relationship.

• 6:27Steven Bartlett?

  Did you ever have a, you kind of suggested there that they weren't necessarily like pushy parents necessarily. But did you ever have any idea of what career or aspiration would make them proud? If I'd asked you, you know, what does your mum or dad want you to be when you're older, when you were younger, what would you have said?

• 6:44Speaker 00

  I think my dad would have definitely said, I hope you're a footballer. You know, I think that would, I think my dad would have always probably thought that he'd a great lover of football as well. But I think they were, they were always really supportive in anything I wanted to do. But I think, you know, as I got, as I got on and I got to an age where I was starting to get closer, you know, 12 or 13, I think football was probably my, my biggest sort of love and what I wanted to do. And I was more interested in either watching football, playing football. And, and that was probably, they probably saw that around about that age as well.

• 7:19Steven Bartlett?

  And is it sort of 12, 12 years old, you were in Celtic's youth system?

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, what it was is that time Celtic, Celtic had a boys' club. And you have to remember, my dad also, as I said, ran a very, very famous boys' team or one of the teams in Glasgow, Drumchapel Amateurs. So, but I went to Celtic Boys' Club and I played with Celtic Boys' Club from I was about 12 to 16 till I went on. But they were, they were brilliant years I had there. You know, the, my time at Celtic, which, you know, came after as a, as a player and as a, you know, a senior professional, not senior professional, but a professional, I should say. But the young, the young period when I was at Celtic Boys' Club was, I can only remember being winning things and being really successful and, you know, representing, you know, Glasgow

• 8:09Speaker 00

  schools as a schoolboy, representing Scotland school, schools as a schoolboy international. So I had really, really good days in the early days, probably from 14, 15 onwards.

• 8:21Steven Bartlett?

  Did you, if I'd asked you, even at that age, so say when you were 16, if I'd asked you about your ambitions in football, what would you have responded with?

• 8:32Speaker 00

  I, I, I hope that I might have been good enough to, to become a player. I'm not sure I would be.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  And I would love to be involved in football. I always used to think that, you know, I'm hoping that maybe I could run an amateur team or I could be involved, I could maybe, might be good enough to take a junior team, you know, might get paid a little bit of money. You know, maybe I'd become a youth team coach for somebody if, you know, if I wasn't going to be a football player. Always thought even at that time, when we were growing up, there was lots of youth clubs. You know, so we would go to a school youth club, you know, because it was where you would get a game of table tennis. You'd play pool, you know, the gym might be there and you'd play five-a-side football, you know, with whoever was there. So I always thought, well, maybe I might be able to work in a youth club or something if I didn't get a, if I didn't get in more better than that. So those early days, there was no guarantee that you were going to become a footballer.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Every boy really wanted to become a footballer.

• 9:26Steven Bartlett?

  What did you learn from your dad as a manager? Is there anything even today where you think, I think I got that from my dad or that trait or that?

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Planning.

• 9:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Organisation, commitment. And if I just thought, planning. Now, at that time, there was no mobile phones then, so it was the phones. So he'd be phoning all the players to say, look, we're playing on Saturday, I want you to meet at 12:30, we're meeting, wherever it was. And at that time, they all had to come at times with the same, with a shirt and tie on. They had to bring a bag, you know, they all had to come with the same bag.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Shirt and tie. You've got to remember, this is Glasgow in a time when, you know, people were, people had to turn up with collar and tie on. If you didn't turn up with your collar and tie on, you might not get selected for the game. So small things like this, if you're talking about maybe disciplines or ways you were brought up, I think possibly I picked up a lot of the traits probably early on.

• 10:21Steven Bartlett?

  Why does that matter? Why do the small things matter? Shirt and tie?

• 10:27Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think they matter, I guess, is another question.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do. I think they really do matter. I think sometimes they mean, and I have to say, if you jumped on to this, my senior time, I think, I think they've always looked better. I think players, people have always looked better. They dress well and they're correct, they look prepared for the games. I jumped to Manchester United just quickly and say, Manchester United had a rule which Sir Alex had that they would always turn up for away games in shirt and tie. Now, most teams would rather turn up the track so that the players can come, more casual. But Manchester United always turned up with a shirt and tie on, which I thought was a great thing because they wanted to show what they were, wanted to come out there and say,

• 11:07Speaker 00

  "Look the way we approach it. You look at this as Manchester United here." And I've got to say, I really admired that part of it.

• 11:16Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting. It's an interesting, small psychological advantage, isn't it, to some degree? I guess it's a statement of professionalism and attention to detail before the ball's even kicked.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  It is. And, you know, so that takes me back. So you're saying is, no, maybe Sir Alex, who played with Drumchapel Amateurs, maybe he'd picked up from his time at Drumchapel Amateurs, you know, the way they had to turn up with shirt and ties on and they had a blazer on. And again, this was just an amateur football team in Glasgow.

• 11:47Steven Bartlett?

  You played with many, many clubs over your almost 600 career games, across a variety of different divisions.

• 11:59Steven Bartlett?

  That time working as a player across multiple clubs and multiple divisions, what did that teach you? And it's always useful to get a variety of different experiences so that you can kind of create your own perspective on the world. But what did that teach you, those 600 games as a player? What are the fundamentals then?

• 12:15Speaker 00

  The fundamentals were I learnt so much. But my early days when I started at Celtic was probably engraved in me more than anything because Celtic had an incredible tradition of winning, you know. Winning. Now, obviously Celtic had to win with style as well. Celtic were the biggest club with Rangers in Glasgow, in Scotland I should say. And because of that, Celtic had to win was always so important. So, no, I could see there was the first team, there was the reserves, there was the youth team. And all the managers were under pressure to win. Then if you did win, then it was, what was the score? You won 1-0. That's not good enough. You need to win. You need to win 3 or 4-0. You need to win by more goals.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  And how did you play? "We didn't play that well. We scored a known, it was a scarp". Not good enough. You have to win with style. So I think my early days, I was brought up with brilliant footballers.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  People who showed me, I don't know if you want to call it a philosophy because philosophy might be much deeper and might offer much more, but it gave me something where I had to say, well, I have to win, I have to find a way of winning, you know, if I can win with style, that's even better, but more importantly, I have to find a way of winning. And I picked that up probably in my early days at Celtic and I wasn't there that long, not that I wasn't there that long, but I wasn't there that long probably as a senior player, I moved on and ended up bobbing round the Championship and a couple of lower leagues in England for a long time, but I come across some really great managers, I come across some which weren't so good, but you know, I always tried to be respectful to any of

• 13:52Speaker 00

  them because that came from my background and my upbringing, but I also was trying to pick up everything I could and when I was 20, I had already qualified as a full-time, full A licence coach at the time, you know, to be a coach, you had to have an A licence, it was called, now you have to have a pro licence, but you have to, it was an A licence. I'd qualified as a coach when I was 20, 21, which was unusual and the reason I'd done that was because the coaching courses were obviously full of really experienced managers, full of really, lots of players trying to get into management, the only reason I went

• 14:35Speaker 00

  and done it was hoping that I would become a better player, I thought that if I went on these coaching courses, it'll help me become even better as a player and I had a really good career, but not quite at the elite level which I really wanted to be.

• 14:49Steven Bartlett?

  Whose idea was that, to go and do a coaching course at 20 years old to improve yourself as a player?

• 14:53Speaker 00

  My own because I thought that maybe I'd find out more about it, but I have to say, there was a thing when we were young players, we were, when we were 16 at Celtic, we were sent to the courses to help the coaches, so we were called the runners, so we were down there to do all the running, you know, you had to do all the running, you had to be a fullback, you had to be a midfield player and all the practices were put on for the coaches. And Scotland had great, great coaches at the time, you know, people, people like Sir Alex, Jim McClain, you know, Walter Smith, you know, I could go on and on. Scotland had brilliant coaches without naming the likes of Jock Stein and, you know, Bill Shankly and you could go

• 15:36Speaker 00

  on and on, George Graham, for example. So I was sent down by Celtic and I was one of the runners for a couple of years. And once I was down, I said, oh, I want more of this. I want to be around football people. I loved listening to them. I hoped that I would impress some of them who were, who were managers of really big clubs at the time. And that's where I thought, well, no, I'm going to go and do my badges myself and went on to, went on to do them in Scotland.

• 16:00Steven Bartlett?

  Well, your time at Celtic in the first team, when you got signed there, it was three years, right? You were in Celtic?

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:08Steven Bartlett?

  You then got to experience other cultures and clubs, but you cite Celtic as having that sort of winning mentality that some clubs just have where they're almost, you know, they just, they get used, they like develop the habit of winning. Throughout your career, you've been in clubs that have the habit of winning, but also clubs that maybe have struggled in the opposite direction and don't have that culture of we always win every game. When you think about the clubs you've worked in that have that habit of winning like Celtic did, what is that? How is, where does that come from? And what, what does it look like and feel like?

• 16:41Speaker 00

  It, it looks like you walk in every morning with your chest out and your head high and you're sort of confident in what you're doing. There's a motivation to keep it going, not to let it drop. There's a, something about having to continue to improve, to stay at the top, that you can't just do what you're doing, which is going to keep you there forever. You have to keep trying to find a way of doing so. I, I did see that and I feel that and I've seen it at other clubs since. But I have to say, I think on the journey to probably where I am today is probably more that seeing a lot of the other side as well was actually the bit which, you know, I've been at clubs where I've been getting relegated, I've been at clubs where I can't win,

• 17:25Speaker 00

  I've been at clubs where, you know, it's not going well, I've been at clubs where there's, you know, it's, it's not been as powerful as, as say a club like Celtic. So I think, I think you have to see it.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  All round for you to give yourself the best, the best chance. And I keep saying, as you know, to do, to get to become a football manager, I don't think there's any one plan. You could be the best player on the planet and not become a football manager. You could be someone who's never played the game and become incredibly successful as a football manager. So I don't think there's necessarily one way you do it.

• 17:59Steven Bartlett?

  I'm really intrigued by this, this idea of like cultures at, at clubs and within teams and how you can just feel it almost when, when a club has that momentum and they were winning team and when they don't. On the, on the contrary then, when we're thinking about teams that are struggling and that aren't performing well. What are the signs of that? Now Rio said something really interesting. Was it Rio? Was it Gary Neville said something interesting to me. He said that when he was at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson only came into the dressing, training ground dressing room twice. And he said he never needed to come in there because the culture was in there. So if like when Berbatov came over and wasn't fitting the culture, the players would correct him. He then says when he went to QPR, when the manager left the changing room, everyone was talking about their wages and where they're going next.

• 18:45Steven Bartlett?

  You can, you can feel that like.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, there, there is a difference. I actually think the culture, I mean, that, that team, what you're talking about Manchester United, where we had incredible players and no, I wouldn't say self-made because they had, they had a great manager. But if you look now, if I moved to just now, I'd be saying is there's much more communication in life now. I came from background where it was really tough to Scottish managers, you know, they probably the working background we came from, they, they would be out screaming at you at half time, they'd be screaming at the end of the game, you know, they would be, they would be, they would be after you if you didn't do well. I don't think that culture's there and I don't think, I think it's changed completely in Scottish managers. And if you look at Scottish managers,

• 19:31Speaker 00

  probably over history, Scotland had lots of managers in English Premier League, for example. Very few now. And it might be that we're having to change your culture. So going back to a little bit what you're talking about, Rio said, getting in it there. I think there was a period where the players looked after themselves or they could take the hard hitting hair dryer treatment, if you want to call it that. Now I think it's a completely different culture now, whether we've changed or whether I feel as if management is not necessarily in that form. I don't think, I don't know, maybe you, Steve, you'd tell me even better, you're head of businesses, would you go in and be screaming blue murder at your staff now?

• 20:11Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what, the thing, one of my, actually I think it's an advantage, is I didn't grow up in that culture.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:17Steven Bartlett?

  So I've never known it. I've never known the prospect of like coming into work and like, whereas you hear about it in some old businesses where like the CEO would come in and throw things and throw the table over and stuff.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:27Steven Bartlett?

  I just never grew up in that environment. I grew up in a sort of a societal expectation that a manager is like, you know, might be tough and sometimes, but is fairly nice.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:37Steven Bartlett?

  There's no like big glass office that I sit in away from my team members. It's a different world these days. What in, as you relate, you were talking about there, you said that it's kind of a different world in management. You've been in, you know, the job since you were, I guess, twenty, in your early twenties. You're fifty-nine now?

• 20:53Speaker 00

  I'm fifty-nine and I've, I've probably been in management since I was early thirties or when I started and then.

• 20:59Steven Bartlett?

  So twenty-five, thirty years, you talk about the change that you've seen in the approach that is effective now. What is effective now? If, if, if once upon a time Scottish managers could come in and hairdry it and scream whatever, whatever, how has the approach changed in your view?

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Well, let me tell you, I remember, I remember one of the managers coming in to the dressing room and all we said is, don't look up, just look at the floor, look at your boots, look down, because if you catch his eyes, he's going to come for you. So, so it used to be, don't look up so that he couldn't have any eye contact with you and you had to, you know, and you probably put your head in the towel so that he couldn't see you and, and because that was the way it was. We were, it was that. And I think that I probably had a lot of that in me when I first started.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  But the difference now is, is I think we're in a different, and maybe, maybe yourself, maybe you'll understand, it's a different era. So as a coach and as a manager and as a man now, I think you need to find a way of how you're moving on with that, or you'd be left behind. And I've got to say, I think in my position, I've got to admit, I have to keep trying to keep up, renew, invest in more work or find out how it's going on. There's so many new things. And that, don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that I've still not got the bit of anger in me when I think the players need it. And I actually think that, I think they like it. I think sometimes they like it. I think, I think people want to be told the truth. And I think one of the worst things you can do to people

• 22:33Speaker 00

  is, is I think if you keep praising people all the time, I think it makes you soft as well. So I think there's a level of praise you can give people, but I think you've also got to be really tough with your praise as well. And I actually think that, as I've got older, I've become better in giving praise. I think there's some of my players, I'm sure at Everton would say that I very rarely gave them praise because I, I was always looking for better from them.

• 22:58Steven Bartlett?

  You know, over the last, I don't know, I've been in business, what, 10 years or something? Not, not as long as you in terms of management, but even I've started to notice some like, warning signs in people. So like, if I see this in the interview process, I go, oh, well, I've been, I saw this before and then it ended in this way, for like pattern recognition.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:17Steven Bartlett?

  You've talked a lot about, and I've read a lot about your scouting process, how you find great talent, great players. What are the things you look for in the things that you consider to be warning signs?

• 23:26Speaker 00

  I always wanted someone who I thought was putting in effort.

• 23:31Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 23:32Speaker 00

  I always thought that, and you might say, well, how can that come in front of many other things? Well, I can think of many, probably you, and you'll think of plenty of schoolboys, friends who were really talented players, but maybe they weren't dedicated, didn't put in the effort to, didn't do the work. I think if you don't put the effort and the dedication to it then. And the other thing that I use a lot is, is you know, if you don't love the game completely. Then you'll probably find it really, I think you'll find it really difficult to become a manager if you don't love the game with, or have real longevity. I think you could be a player and maybe get through your, your career 10, 15 years as a player with, maybe without loving football. But I think if you want to go longer, I think you've badly got to love, love the business. When I became manager of Everton, but I did it before,

• 24:17Speaker 00

  I used to always meet the players and I still do if I can. You nearly wanted to see their eyes, to see, I need you to work hard. I'm needing you to know, to do this job for the team. I like to see, are you going to take that? I'm going to be critical of you and I want you to get better. Are you happy with it? You nearly wanted to put the questions over to them to see if they were going to take it.

• 24:39Steven Bartlett?

  Did you?

• 24:40Speaker 00

  I did, to many players. And I've, I've got to say, we've had quite a few over the time, which I've got to say, who I've had in my house, who I've had in offices and we've probably not taken them. Sometimes because, a bit like you said, sometimes something just makes you go, that's just not what I quite wanted to hear. And that might only be a gut and it might not. It might have no reason in the, some of the boys I'm talking about have gone on to be superstars and play for other clubs. But something at the moment can only give you that little bit of gut feeling if you think it, it sounds like it's going to fit for you. And I'm not saying you get it right, but I think at that time you have to have your own, your own sort of things where you say, no, I'm not going

• 25:24Speaker 00

  to change. This is what I want to do and I want to keep it this way. And I, some of, I've missed out on some.

• 25:29Steven Bartlett?

  How does that process work? If you're looking, let's say you're looking for a striker. What's the process? You know, because we've heard so, I, I don't mean, my only understanding of like signing players is playing like Football Manager on the, on the Playstation or whatever. But I have, in my head, you have all these scouts, they produce reports.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:45Steven Bartlett?

  And then, do you, you know what position you want to fill? Do you go to the scout? Or what happens?

• 25:49Speaker 00

  I think you, in the main, the scouts will probably bring them to you. I mean, like, if it's somebody playing for one of the teams locally or that and is available and you think there's a chance, then you'll probably try and do your homework. You'll try and, you know, obviously statistically, you'll try and get it right. You'll try and look at their strengths and weaknesses. You'll, you'll take into consideration maybe the price he's going to cost, where you think it's, you know, where he fits in for you, what he can do. But the ones you don't know are what you're looking for your scouts to bring to you. And quite a lot in modern football, it's the agents who are bringing them. You know, because the agents are playing such a huge part. Whether you see it as a positive or a negative, they're playing such a huge part behind the scenes in football at the moment. And these people will bring it.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Obviously, if you're trying to sell something, you're always going to talk it up. But in the end, you know, we would, or I would always try and get my scouts to go through it. They would probably say, yes, this is worth coming and looking at. Come in, we should, we'll go and sit and we'll sit for a few hours watching. If we wanted to take it even further, then we would go into much further detail. We'd eventually probably start trying to find out. People who know the boy or has played with the boy and try and get a bit of his character background. Would try and find out more about, you know, is he the right type? You know, is he a good boy? Is he a good trainer? Is he going to be disruptive in the training? I think all those things are really, really part of it. I don't think any, I don't think any football manager

• 27:17Speaker 00

  wants people who are not going to fit in and work with it. And I guess, again, I revert back to business, probably you're the same. You don't want people who are not going to fit in with what you've got. You want somebody who's going to come in and blend in and be part of it.

• 27:31Steven Bartlett?

  What was your best ever signing?

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Ah, but I always say Nigel Martin, I signed Nigel Martin, the goalkeeper who was at Leeds United. And he was on a free from Leeds United. And we took him to Everton at the time. And it's only because he was a free, but not only that, he was a great goalkeeper. Obviously, he had been an England goalkeeper. He was probably near at the end of the time. But he gave me about four, five years of stability. But see, when people talk about signing your best signing, over the time of now being I've made that many signings, I've got, you know, it would be, it's really pretty shameful of me even to name one because I've got so many that I could say.

• 28:11Steven Bartlett?

  You don't have to, I would not ask you to name your worst signing, but where have you frequently got it wrong when signing players?

• 28:20Speaker 00

  No, what I think you do is, I think it's the ones I've missed, the ones who you've said, "Nah, I don't think he's quite good enough, I think I'm going to..." and I've had hundreds of them.

• 28:30Steven Bartlett?

  Who's the one you missed the most there?

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Well, just recently because we've been talking about it, you know, we've been... Alvarez, who's just played for Argentina in the World Cup, you know, was... I brought in a new scout who says, "Look, you should go for Alvarez at River Plate", and I watched him, I watched him, "So, very good, really good technician, I thought he'd done so many good things as a centre forward, but I thought, maybe not quite the one we want, maybe didn't quite..." We had Micky Antonio, who'd been doing very well, I thought, "I don't know if he's..." And you see, sometimes the players change in six months. But I have to say, there's other players like that who you don't take and don't go on to be a real success. But that one at the moment is just one because it was probably only a year ago where I decided,

• 29:16Speaker 00

  "Nah, I don't think it's probably the one we're going to take."

• 29:18Steven Bartlett?

  So, Simon, business, no matter how many people you hire, it's always still guessing. And I was speaking to my friend Gary Vaynerchuk about this, who's hired about 5,000 people, and he said to me, he says, "You know, I've been in this game for 30 years and I'm still just guessing." Because we can come up with all the principles and systems we want, but how someone... People change, but also how they present in an interview can be drastically different to how they present in six months' time when they're comfortable.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  You know what, it was really interesting, I'm asking you, I hear now and I hear, because there's so many jobs changing in our industry, you say, "How do you pick a good football coach now? You know, how would you pick a football manager, whatever way you want to put it, how would you pick a good football manager? You know, what would give him the... The owners or the people who are doing it, how are they picking it?" Because again, what I said, I says, "Yes, of course, we can think of some real special people who would be in that group, but if you're a lesser club, trying to pick a new talent, you know, why would you get it? Has he got the drive? Has he got the energy? Has he got the love for the game to stay with it? Has he got an idea that he wants to go further and he's going to put the work in?"

• 30:29Speaker 00

  It's really hard and sometimes you can't find them and I get the feeling it's the same in industry now as well.

• 30:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, um, yeah, I, I think the more I've hired, the more I've realised that it's just guessing, which I think people will be surprised at because people will think that you'll get progressively better or your, your confidence will, will, will grow. My confidence has actually fallen with experience.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:49Steven Bartlett?

  So, so what that means for me is that when I hire someone and I know it's not right, just very quickly have to make a decision because the worst thing is indecision, right? Waking, wasting too long.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  That's it. I've got, we've, we have the same situation we're, we're talking about is we're buying players and we're, and we're spending a lot of money like you are and then you're saying as, and you're saying, no, but you can't do this, but we don't think you can do that. And, and at times maybe the older you get, you would think this, it becomes easier. It actually becomes harder the more you're in it because you've probably seen the good ones, the bad ones. Yeah, this is, we followed this path to try and get a good one, but not so good anymore. We're going to follow another path. So I've got to say, you know, hiring people and bringing them in is not an easy thing to do.

• 31:32Steven Bartlett?

  It's slightly different, I guess, in business because as the CEO, I, in business, usually get to make the decision about who you're hiring. I mean, sometimes of course managers at low levels make, make, make that decision. But in football, there's often a conversation that the board or the owner has stepped in and has told you who to sign and who to buy.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think that's one of the things really in football where you would say,

• 31:58Speaker 00

  if, if an owner was going to do that, you'd say, no, come on, it's not, not right. It is, it's part and parcel of football now. It's rife in football where a lot of owners are making the signings instead of the manager.

• 32:08Steven Bartlett?

  Has the owner ever asked you to sign a player?

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Eh, yes, yeah, they have, yeah.

• 32:12Steven Bartlett?

  What did you say to them?

• 32:13Speaker 00

  I've tried to say, I've said no to it, you know, and I've said, no, it's not the way I do the work. Now, if the players are good, I'd be, I'd be saying, great, bring me them in. But then what we would do is if we get the name of a player, then we would try and do our homework and try and do all the stuff. And by the way, we might be wrong. We're accepting that. But if we follow the, the correct process or what we believe is the correct process, and it still comes out, no, we have to go with what we say. Now, if the process says, hey, by the way, we're hearing he's a good player, scoring lots of goals, he's, you know, he's young, you know, resellable, if it doesn't work. If all those other points come up, then we're saying, oh, wait a minute, maybe we have to think about it. But I think really trusting your process and hoping that.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  The longevity I've had will probably hope that you've made more right decisions than wrong decisions by the time you get around to making the final decision.

• 33:07Steven Bartlett?

  I guess one of the things you can control, which doesn't have to be a guessing exercise, is the culture that they join. So if the culture that they join is good, then there's a higher chance of them being successful as a player, as a new signing.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 33:18Steven Bartlett?

  How do you do that at the clubs you're managing now, West Ham? Have you done that in the past? To make sure the culture is right, and what is that culture?

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I think for me, the biggest one was when I was at West Ham the first time, we came in, we thought we'd done a good job and we kept the team up. We were asked to come in, we kept the team up and we didn't get the job. And then another manager come in and we were out of work for a year or so. Then, to be fair to the owner, David Sullivan, he phoned me, I backed up, he says, would you come in? I says, yeah, love to come back, no problem. I felt I had to do a bit more at West Ham or had to try. And I keep using, and I say it openly now, I want to build a new West Ham. So what does a new West Ham mean? Well, a lot of people, a lot of supporters might not like the thought

• 34:05Speaker 00

  of that. But West Ham have moved to a new stadium. It's not been appreciated by everybody.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  But that's what we're going to be, it looks like for the next 100 years. That's what it looks like. The club's going to be there. So we need to make the best we possibly can of it. You know, I want to change the cup. I want there to be lots of young kids come to West Ham. East End of London's a huge area, full of West Ham supporters, a lot of poverty in the area. West Ham offer great ticket prices, great opportunities. They do brilliant work in the community of West Ham and East End of London, they really do. And I want to encourage all the young kids. Now, what do you need? You need exciting players so that the young kids want to buy a jersey, so that they're not falling in the top two or three teams in the country. And you want them to come. So I've tried to change.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  I've tried to change the team, but you know, deep down, I'd really like to say I'm trying to make West Ham better. And it used to always do, all the people, I was a manager at Everton, I was manager at Man United and other clubs, folk would say, ah, you get a flaky West Ham, you know, they're not, not that reliable and you don't know what West Ham team's going to turn up. Well, I want to change that culture. There's so much room for improvement at West Ham, you know, I think it's got great potential to improve. And I, I hope that you get, I get the opportunity to keep it going. Over the couple of really, really good years, eh, success for West Ham, it's been success. And it's how we continue that success now, how we build on

• 35:44Speaker 00

  it. And I think if you're, if you're in business, I think you'll accept it, you know, you, quite often you have a couple of years or a good year and then you might not have it quite so good because of what happened. We're a little bit like that at the moment. So I'm hoping that culturally, I think we have changed. I think we've changed a load of things at West Ham. We're not, we're not milky, we're not flaky. Eh, I think there's a different atmosphere in East End of London regarding how people see West Ham. I, I like the way we've done it, but we've also got some exciting, really exciting young players who, those young supporters I talked about could follow.

• 36:26Steven Bartlett?

  What are those next steps then? If you, if you reflect back on what you did at Everton, you took them from being that kind of, you know, happy to survive club to in your last, I think in your last eight years, you finished in the top, you last seven years, you finished in the, one of the two. You last eight years, you finished in the top eight, seven times or something along, along those lines. They became a consistent competitive team at the top, top end of the table. When you look at where West Ham is now, as we sit here now, 16th in the table, what is, what are those, but after two amazing years, in the two previous years where West Ham were absolutely fireworks, to be fair. Dangerous, very, very, very dangerous team to, to play against. I'm not a Manchester United fan, so. I remember the last two years have been really, really incredible for West Ham.

• 37:09Steven Bartlett?

  What are those steps forward now to get West Ham to being that team that is competing at the very top of the table? And I find it so interesting that in fact, when you answer this question, you don't just think, oh, we need to buy more players. It's kind of more of a holistic, wider, broader job that needs to be done.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I actually think that we bought more players and I think that, you know, I've gone out there and said, this is what I'm doing. But I think, sometimes I think in football, not that you need to break it, but we had a really good team for the last two years. But we had a few, Mark Noble was coming to them, one or two other players were coming to them, we had to change. And we were actually short of numbers, we were really short, the players had done on. I felt as if I nearly had to break it up a little bit because I had seen signs now. My experience, my longevity was telling me, if I don't do this now, then I'm going to feel I'm going to be caught out. Now, we probably didn't do quite as well from January on last year, that was my feeling.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  We had some brilliant nights, we got to semi-final European football. You know, we'd been challenging all years. I mean, in the last game of the season, we finished seventh. But we were 10 minutes away from finishing sixth above Manchester United, you know.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  So the margins were incredibly small and all this, but I felt that now with my, now with the age I'm nearly saying is,

• 38:31Speaker 00

  I don't really give a shit now, I've got to say, I'm not going to get many more goes at this. So if I don't make a go to it, and I don't really do what I think is right and what I want to do, then I'll regret it. So there's part of me said, yeah, we had to bring in new players and we've gone out and we've put our head on the block and said, here we go. Brought these new players in. Now what I really need is hope that I can get a little bit of time to settle and get them settled in. I think we've brought in good players, I think we have got a better squad. Maybe not a better team at this exact time than what we had last year. But we've definitely got better players, which I believe will show that in the coming months.

• 39:07Steven Bartlett?

  Do you worry about that, losing your job? Is that something that like sits in, you might, I wouldn't, in my business, I mean, other than when I was at Sosia and I had a board of directors, we were a public company, so technically they could fire me.

• 39:21Steven Bartlett?

  It's not something that I think about. Like if I perform badly as an executive, the company goes down. So there's no one that's going to cut you, you know what I mean?

• 39:30Speaker 00

  That's right. Well, what I'd say is, I think as a young manager, I worried much more.

• 39:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  I think now, in the, in the position I'm in now and where I'm going, I worry far, far less because

• 39:42Speaker 00

  it's in my blood. I love the game. I want to be here. I'm enjoying what I'm doing, but it wouldn't be the end of the earth if it, if something went wrong for me now where I'm at. But my pride, my determination is that I want to be successful and I want to, I want to know be, do a really good job for West Ham.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  So, but I think when you're younger, if you look now at young managers, young managers find it very difficult. If you don't do well in your first job, maybe like business, you know, in business, maybe you have a go and something fails, nothing quite worked. You're, you're nearly tentative to think I could go again. Maybe nobody will help invest this, may, whatever it may be. So it's so important you do get it right when you do go in. But going back to, if I just have to, because I want to, I think you need people who are really supportive at the start. I had, I had a great owner at Preston North End, a couple of great owners who really supported me. When I went to West Ham, I had great men who, who helped me at that time as well.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  And I think sometimes you need to be a bit lucky on your journey. The, you know, if you turn up at a club where an owner's making the signings or you're not there, that he's only going to give you half a dozen games to, to, to show what you can do, you're probably going to find it, it's going to be very difficult to succeed. So maybe a bit lucky at the start, but I worried much more when I was younger than I, than I would do now.

• 41:01Steven Bartlett?

  That success that you want the time to achieve at West Ham, what, what is that success? What is the goal for West Ham? If we're sat here in, you know, let's say 10 years, five years' time, that's too long in football these days.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:15Steven Bartlett?

  Five years' time, what's, what's the goal?

• 41:18Speaker 00

  I think we've been successful.

• 41:20Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  I think West Ham have been successful in the last two years. And what you know, really the ones who are the great winners and the serial winners are the ones who wants to get a bit of success. All they want is more of it.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  I'd love to be sitting here with, and bringing my trophies in here in front of you and putting them up and saying, here, look at these trophies. I've not got that. What have I got? I've got periods of success, you know, my teams have done well, we've got to Europe, you know, got to a cup final here and there. We've got to semi-finals. So not everybody in the industry can have success. You know, not everybody can, you know, be walking about with their medals. And at the moment, I'm not, but I still believe there's still a big chance that I can do that.

• 42:00Steven Bartlett?

  Is that your KPI of success? Is that what?

• 42:03Speaker 00

  It's probably not now. It's not now because I actually think.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Staying in the job wouldn't be a bit, longevity is a really important thing in any work. If you can stay in it and you can, you know, it's a big thing. It's showing that you've done a good enough job. But, you know, I've had a couple, I've been fortunate enough with a few manager of the year awards over, over the years, you know, last few years I've been nominated for it. But I've said many times, I'd swap it for one of Jose Mourinho's lemon medals if I got the chance, you know, or one of his trophies all day long. So that's still got to be what I'm driving to do. Now, I'm not going forever because I'm getting older and I don't want to be as old as Sir Alex or Roy Hodgson when they finish, those sort of people. But, but I've still got the energy, I've still got the drive, I feel as if I've got a good team.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  And I feel as if I'm still capable of, of keeping up with those younger ones.

• 42:59Steven Bartlett?

  Sir Alex.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Sir Alex.

• 43:01Steven Bartlett?

  There's been a lot said about Sir Alex. I talk about him a lot because I've interviewed so many of his former players. There was a, a lot of rumours that he went to your house and asked you to become the manager of Manchester United.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  No, he took me to his house.

• 43:13Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, he took you to his house?

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. And actually, I'll, I'll tell you a story, Steve, is I, it wasn't long after I'd, I'd turned 50 and my wife had bought me a watch. And actually, we had gone through to Manchester to. To the jewellers, I needed to get a link taken out. And it was actually in Altriaum, by all places, I was in Altriaum. And the phone rang and it was Sir Alex. And I says, oh bloody hell, it's Alex on the phone. And I thought, oh, he's gonna, he's gonna want one of my players or he's gonna want me to take one of his players. What's, no, he's coming on to say something. And he, and he said, where are you?

• 43:58Speaker 00

  I says, I'm in Manchester. He says, well, right, come out to the house when you're ready, will you?

• 44:05Speaker 00

  I said, and that's a poor Sir Alex accent probably, so don't. No, don't. Me too. And I says, I says to the wife, I can't do it, I'm in my jeans. I couldn't go to Sir Alex with a pair of jeans on, there's no way. So I'm saying, oh, what am I gonna do? Do I go down to Marks and Spencer's and buy a pair of trousers before I go to Sir Alex? You know, so she's saying, oh, can we go, just go and get on with it and do it. So anyway, dropped my wife off at the shopping centre and I drove out to Sir Alex's house. And I went in and he says, and you come. And a very nice house and he's got a lovely sort of room, sports room up the stairs. And he says, want a cup of tea?

• 44:50Speaker 00

  I says, aye, took up a cup of tea. And he, and he said, I'm retiring and you're the next manager of Manchester United.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  No interview, no, no telling me, not saying, would you like to be? No, I'm retiring and I nearly slipped down, it was a, it was a, so I nearly slipped down because obviously that was, nobody knew that Sir Alex was retiring, nobody knew, no, nobody even suggested or thought about it.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  And I nearly slipped down when I heard him say that. And then he says, and you're the next manager of Manchester United.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  And I just sort of went, yeah, well, no, okay, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna turn around. I didn't think I would ever say no, or I could, I don't even know I was in a position to say no. And eh, and that was as simple as that. We got underway, he said. And there was only maybe, and to be fair, there was only four weeks to go to the end of the season. Maybe five weeks to go to the end of the season. I was coming out of contract to Everton. And I was really wanting to be respectful to them. And actually, my next game was against Liverpool. Eh, on the Sunday, I think I met Sir Alex in the midweek on the Wednesday or something on the Sunday. And I knew that if we had got a draw with Liverpool, we would probably finish above them in the league. And it was at Anfield and we did, we got a draw.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  And we, we did finish above them, so it didn't have any effect on, on what I was doing at Everton. But the big, the big thing was to say, and then the next day he said, eh, I want you to come back to my house tomorrow. Eh, eh, Ed Wood was gonna come and see you, he's gonna be the new chief executive who, he says David Gill's leaving as well.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  And that was it, and I met Ed Wood on the next day. And then the next day, back to his house again, and we met the Glazers.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  And so it was three days, three days where I dropped back to his house. The, the biggest problem I had was, he said, and you can't tell Emmy about me retiring.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  He says, nobody knows, and I said, no problem, he says, tell your wife, but nobody, so I couldn't tell my kids. I couldn't tell my dad. I couldn't tell my dad that I was gonna get the job, or I was getting the job. So that, that for me was how it happened. And when I look back now, to get that offer from probably, arguably, eh, the greatest, the greatest manager maybe there ever was, was a great compliment.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  But maybe if I'd really looked into it in more detail and more depth and, and I was desperate to be successful as a manager and I had, had 11 years at Everton where we said we'd, wouldn't say we'd hit the glass ceiling, but we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four, the, the competition and the money that was required.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  But my biggest regret was I was so close to Bill Kenwright, the owner at Everton. And I couldn't tell him and it felt, it was really bad that I couldn't tell him because I was so close to Bill but I couldn't break my word with Sir Alex said he didn't want me to tell it. So I couldn't tell him about my wife. So jumped back in the car, drove back to the shopping mall, shopping centre, got the wife, put her in the car and I says I'm the new manager of Man United. And she was like, you go piss off, you're talking rubbish, you know. So that was it and that was how it went.

• 48:17Steven Bartlett?

  You were coming to the end of your contract with Everton at the time.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 48:20Steven Bartlett?

  What was your plan? You hadn't signed a contract. So you must have been thinking.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  I hadn't, I had, I have to say as I had been, I think I would, my plan was probably to stay at Everton. We just hadn't got it done and for different reasons. I was wanting to see how it was going.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  But I have to say I'd, I'd met a couple of other clubs. I'd met a couple of really big clubs who'd approached me and phoned me and spoke to me, you know, what was I doing, would I be interested?

• 48:46Speaker 00

  The truth is, I don't think I'd have, I'd have left for any of them because Everton had been so good to me. But I was also wary about overstaying your welcome at Everton. You know, sometimes just in management, supporters want change. They want to try something different and I get it. I'm a, I'm a huge football supporter. You know, if I wasn't managing, I'd be watching football and I'd be, you know, probably talking about it like everybody else does. But I, you know, it came up. I've got a chance to manage probably the biggest club in the world. I'm following a club who always give their managers time. They gave Sir Alex time. And also that their values were, you know, they played young

• 49:31Speaker 00

  players, Man United. I always thought Man United never went out and tried to buy the best on the market. They never went to the, they never went to the sort of designer shop to buy the best thing in the designer shop. They bought correctly. They bought young players. They bought, you know, you look at the players they had, which they come through from Bex and the Nevilles and all the other ones who came through. They always had something, a bit of style about them. They never went out to get the best overseas manager in the world. They picked which fitted their model. So I actually felt when Sir Alex offered me the job and Manchester United were giving me the job, I felt they thought I must have been the best choice for the job at that time. They saw that. And also maybe, not similar, but similar in a way that maybe

• 50:16Speaker 00

  there was a similar background, a similar upbringing, a similar route maybe to get to the point. So I trusted Manchester United, I really did. I trusted them because of what they stood for as a football club.

• 50:27Steven Bartlett?

  You know, many times when you're successful, as you were at Everton, you're given big opportunities. It's the same in business. People come to me and give me these huge opportunities and sometimes like the bright lights of the opportunity have often caused me to make a wrong decision or not to take, you know, take the right amount of due diligence, as you described. They're like not really looking into the details because it's such a big thing that you almost can't say no to it. You said there that you wish you'd looked a little bit closer at the details. What do you mean by that?

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Well, I'll tell you who told me was Howard Wilkinson said to me down the line, I wish you'd told me before, he says, all the managers who had a dynasty. So when you look at it, I think it was Brian Clough was one of them. I think the other one was Sir Bobby Robson. All the managers who had a real dynasty, I'm trying to think, Leeds United manager as well, Don Ravy maybe as well, I think it was. Anybody who followed them never worked. Now, I never even thought for a minute because I thought to myself, no, I'll come in and I actually was thinking, I'm not changing. I'm going to try not to change much with Sir Alex. And of course I have to change it. It's not Sir Alex, it's me and I have

• 51:40Speaker 00

  to do it my way and I have to try and do it a little bit. But ultimately, I was going to keep it going. But then when I look back at the things what I heard, I thought, my goodness, if I'd looked a bit closer. And maybe even now, I'm a bit older now than I was when I got the job, maybe, maybe, maybe even I needed even more experience than maybe even I had at that point. Maybe we'd be more ready at this period in my career than I was even say, no, I don't know what it was, eight or nine years ago, whenever it was.

• 52:10Steven Bartlett?

  So if they called you now?

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Well, you know, they've got a really good manager, I think. And I think, I think the thing about Manchester United, Manchester United have chosen incredibly good managers.

• 52:22Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Probably some of the best managers, some of the best managers you could ever imagine of being at Manchester United. So, you know, sometimes you've got to say, you know, if you're, if you're quite bright, I'm sure you are with the business you're working. It's not always the boss's fault that this doesn't, this doesn't go right. So like I, I took over at a difficult time, you know, it was quite a few senior players probably coming to near the end of their time. But I also have to say, I was really proud that I took over the Champions England when, when that was the time. And that was, I'm saying, what a chance I've got, you know, maybe the opportunity to win trophies, the opportunity to be successful. And, and it was the thing I was probably missing from my time at Everton, I wasn't quite getting close enough to, to winning trophies.

• 53:06Steven Bartlett?

  Would you, would you, Eric Ten Hag aside, I think he's great, I think we both agree there. But would you ever be open to coming back to Manchester United in the future if they, if they'd asked?

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Well, I don't think it would ever be, it would ever be in a role as a manager, that's for sure. So that, my time's gone. But, you know, if ever, I, I always loved to be involved in football. And hopefully somewhere along the line, someone will want to use my experience when my time's up with, with being a football manager. But Manchester United is a great experience and I, and I, I found it difficult to sort of have, have something which could sort of,

• 53:38Speaker 00

  I don't know, how, I would sort of put over what it meant. And the only way I could put it out is I think when you manage Man United, it's like living in the penthouse and looking out. You know, and until you've had the penthouse and you're looking out and you're above everybody and you're looking over, you see the view much better. And for me, they were the penthouse.

• 53:57Steven Bartlett?

  One of the big things that did change at Manchester United, and I only know this because I had a season ticket. The ladies and the, the men that serve you the food in like the hospitality suite or whatever, they always have a great relationship with them. And they would tell me things about how the club was, maybe before I could add enough money to buy a season ticket. One of the things they always said was the, the role that David Gill had on the club as well.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:15Steven Bartlett?

  People don't think, understand that enough, but David Gill was the CEO of the club. And I mean, I've seen in my own businesses, when the CEO, me, was removed, how mu, it was a completely different place. And people don't understand that because as fans, we look at the manager and think, ah, but if the managers in my business. Are very, very, very important, but the person above them that has the most power and the most control and the most sway is the CEO. Now that changed and the wonderful people at Manchester United would tell me that, oh, when David Gill was here, he knew all of our names. And that really struck me, that he knew all of our names, he knew all of our birthdays, we used to see him. Now we don't see Ed Woodward anymore. We don't see the chief executives anymore. They don't know our names. That's a real sign of a cultural change.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Definitely. Just think of the values, what that is.

• 55:03Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  The values of the CEO sending you a birthday card or doing that. And I mean, like, if we, I would be incredibly complimentary about Sir Alex. Sir Alex would phone up managers who'd lost their job or managers who'd been successful. He phoned me up when we were doing very well at West Ham, six months ago, whenever it was. They were always correct. And when you think of values of what it means to be at the top and what the things, small things which matter, those things really matter. But for me, I was taking over the club. I'd lost David Gill, who I knew very well from different things and working with him at UEFA and different things as well. And he was a huge, huge miss. But that wasn't to say that the new CEO wasn't, he was to be given every chance and I wanted to help him

• 55:48Speaker 00

  and he wanted to help me. Ultimately, it didn't work that way.

• 55:52Steven Bartlett?

  You said you trusted the club to give you long enough. Do you feel like that trust was let down? How do you feel about that?

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do a bit because I feel that, you know, I think that if you're putting in a new manager, you're hoping that you're going to give them. And look, I left a very stable job in a very good environment to come and do it. And obviously, no, I think when you, when we look back, you would say, hey, there was a huge change going to have to take place at Manchester United after Sir Alex. And maybe, ideally, I think it was, we were going to try and make it seamless where there wasn't going to be too big a change. But there was a lot of players changing, you know, getting to an age where they were, you know, having to move on. There was actually a big squad of, of players who had been incredibly loyal to Sir Alex and suddenly they've got new managers coming in the door, maybe not

• 56:39Speaker 00

  playing them as much, so they don't have quite the same sort of closeness to, to them and still building up relationship. So I think there was, I think there was a lot of that and it made it difficult. But, you know, the, the thing I, I look back at business and, and you're a very successful businessman. I always think.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  You have to give bad news well because you're the boss and you run a really big business like Manchester United did and I think if you've got any class or any style, it's good when you get offered the job and you give them and you give them all the and you talk about all this stuff. But I think when you're having to give bad news out, I think giving bad news has to be done in a good way as well. And I felt the way that I was told at the time at Manchester United wasn't done as well as it should have been done.

• 57:32Steven Bartlett?

  The way that you were told you weren't going to be manager.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  Yes, you know, there was ways it could have been done better and it could be made a lot easier than what it was. Now.

• 57:41Steven Bartlett?

  I've heard this from former players. I've heard former players tell me that they were really disappointed by how the club, specifically Edward Wood, gave them their send-off. I think it was Rio that said to me that like just came into the dressing room, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that this was my last game or that they were selling me or something. And that doesn't pay respect.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  No, no, it doesn't. And I actually think that, looking back now, hey, you think to yourself, hey, it's life, get on with it. You know, that's the way it is when you're in an industry or you're in, you do that. But I still think that, I think if you're the biggest, one of the biggest sport businesses in the world, if not the biggest, you would hope that you would do things correctly, like David Gill would send, speak and say hello to them or like they would send a birthday card. So the same should happen if you were telling somebody that you were stopping them or you were sacking them or you're getting rid of them, you would hope that they would do it the best way they could.

• 58:35Steven Bartlett?

  How did you find out?

• 58:37Speaker 00

  Media.

• 58:39Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 58:40Speaker 00

  Media phoning me, yeah. Lost a couple of games, lost a game at Everton actually and the media were saying, oh no, you're losing your job. And, you know, I tried to make contact and say, look, why don't we meet up? You think you're going to be... It didn't suit and before I knew it, they called me in the day after. And by this time, the whole world had known about it before I'd sort of got to know. So sometimes I think people want to get it done right and I just didn't feel it was right. But anyway, from my point of view.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  I generally don't have any real, I don't have a gripe about it because the industry I'm in means that this can happen quite often and you don't get things done the way you want it and you have to live with it and that's the way it is.

• 59:27Steven Bartlett?

  In the wake of that, how does, what does it look like at home? This is probably one of the most interesting things that I personally pondered throughout that period as a Manchester United fan, which is when you go from the penthouse and then the landlord evicts you from the penthouse after 10, 11 months at the club. The weight of Manchester United, you know, it's the most talked about club, it's the club that sells the headlines, it gets all the clicks. So it must feel like everything is about you in the world of football and it's like a very public apparent failure at home. You've got wonderful wife Pamela, you've got two kids. What's it like at home?

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  I think personally you're a little bit ashamed because you've not done well, you know, you've not done well for your family. So I think personally I felt I'd let them all down because, you know, I had really worked, like I said, probably the hours and the work I'd put in as a young, I didn't believe I was ever going to be a coach, never mind the coach of Manchester United, but the hours of work I'd put in had got me to a level where I'd worked and I'd done an awful lot of hard work behind the scenes over the years and then to lose it so quickly. So you get a job and I said at that time I had two or three really, really big clubs who were talking about me and speaking to me. But when Sir Alex came and made me the offer, it was very hard to say no and then

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  for that to go very quickly. So it was a bit like getting to the top of Everest and then actually starting to decline very quickly. So from my point of view, it was hard going home, you know, it was difficult. But I've got to say, it's a bit like.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  My mum used to just say, hey, whatever happens, you just have to get up and go on with it. You know, you go on with it, you take it in the chin and you go away and, you know, sort of sticks and stones, don't worry too much about it. But you're right, when you're manager of Manchester United, you're talked about in every continent, every country, you'll either be in the front or the back page, it's one of the papers. So, but that's also the privilege of being a manager of Manchester United as well.

• 1:01:32Steven Bartlett?

  What's the, what's the toll of that? If you were to warn me about the toll?

• 1:01:37Speaker 00

  Ah, I think the toll for someone who cares deeply about their profession and wants to be successful and wants to do well, the toll for me personally at the time felt, felt big. It really did. And it's probably, it probably took me a wee bit to get back on the road a little bit, without thinking about, I worked really, after I lost the job, I said, well, I'm going to have to go and try and reinvent, find out more new things, you know, keep, keep current, where can I go to find out what's going on, you know, and I obviously couldn't go back to Old Trafford to watch a game, or I couldn't really go back to Goodison and watch a game. So it made it quite difficult. But I found myself doing quite a bit of work for UEFA, I'd done all the Champions League games, which was really

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  good, and, and I spoke in all the pro licence courses for the coaches, which kept me current and having to keep up to date with things. So those, those type of things kept me, kept my education and kept my knowledge and kept me going a bit. But I still think that when you, when you, you've been at one of the big clubs, it's always a miss because you realise the, the level they're at.

• 1:02:45Steven Bartlett?

  You said that the toll is big. In a very practical, real sense, what does that mean? Is it sleepless nights? Is it anxiety?

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm someone who sleeps really well, to be honest. But I do think that it's very difficult when you, when you lose your job. And in our, in our business, you know, you're, you're talked about a lot, so you have to accept it. And I'm, I'm part of it, you will be as well, or if things go wrong, or any of your businesses fail, you'll be, you'll be current, you know, people will have criticism. But I think if you're going to go into football management, then you have to find a way of saying, how do I deal with it? How am I coping with it? What's my mechanism?

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  I remember thinking, when things weren't going so well at Manchester United, you know, I'd be driving into training, so I couldn't put on Talk Sport, I couldn't put on Radio Two, I couldn't put the World Talk on, so I thought, I'll put on whatever music it was, and they come on the news and they were talking about me on that news as well. I thought, oh my goodness, is this ever going to end? Is there a channel that isn't talking about Manchester United in some way? But that was because it was getting closer to probably when I wasn't doing so well and there was a lot of talk about it. But I think you just have to find a way of shutting yourself off from it the best you can. But the world we're in now for young coaches of social media, if that's what your world

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  is, or how you present yourself, it's much different now. And in days gone by, in the early days at Preston, I'd look at the newspaper and there'd be a letter page and there'd be four or five supporters saying, why is Moyes not playing him, you know, and what's he doing? And that used to be where the criticism was mainly coming from. As you well know, now there's a world of it outside.

• 1:04:36Steven Bartlett?

  I got to play at the London Stadium, Soccer Aid. It's called London Stadium, isn't it? Yeah, it's called London Stadium. I'd chat to Karen Brady once in a while, I'm seeing her soon. And I met someone while I was at the Soccer Aid Experience who happens to be a family member of a player, a big Premier League player, who has taken more abuse than any other player, maybe over the last year. And I met a family member and I got a chat to them. And they told me about the toll it's taken on the whole family, and you never think about that. But that was actually one of the most important things I think I experienced, was hearing

• 1:05:17Steven Bartlett?

  from someone's younger sister, that watching their older brother be abused, how horrific it is. She was almost in tears. Because, you know, if you were my dad and I watched that happen to you...

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I have to say, you know, and it's like, I don't think, only a week after I lost the Man United job, my dad had a heart attack. Yeah, but it was a triple bypass, so I'm not saying it was because of when I left Manchester United, but that was the case. Hey, who knows? Who knows? If it would end, we don't really think that was the reason behind it. We think it was just coming on. But so there is tolls that get taken in families, of course there is. But thankfully, my dad's doing well and is still going well just now.

• 1:06:03Steven Bartlett?

  Something we don't think about. You know, people will say to you and people like you and football players, they'll say, well, you pay loads of money to behave yourself to deal with it.

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But that's...

• 1:06:12Steven Bartlett?

  But then the kids aren't...

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  There is part of it. And actually, I do think many, many times, I think to myself, you know, do people understand that we've got a family? You know, I made this the other day, as I was saying to a friend, I was saying, as a manager, I think as you get older, you... No, in business, you get older, you think you get more experienced and you're, you know, it doesn't make it any better. When I was a young manager, if I lost the game, I would come home, go straight to my bed, pull the curtains and not wake up to Sunday morning. No trying, and I might not sleep. I just didn't really want any, I didn't have any... I didn't really talk with my wife too much, I didn't really talk to my kids.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  I wasn't unpleasant, I just wanted to be on my own, done that. The opposite then was if you won on a Saturday, I'd come home and say, come on, let's get ready, let's nip up to the restaurant and we'll get a bit of dinner and a couple of glasses of wine. And I used to always call it the Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to get that Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to have that feeling when you've won on a Saturday, knowing that mainly on the Sunday, you're picking up the newspapers and the newspapers are saying you've won and you're going well. But, and I thought maybe by the time I get to the age in over a thousand games now, I'd be saying to myself, this is going to feel much easier. Not at all. Just as bad. I'm not saying I'm going home every night I lose now and pulling

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  the curtains and going straight to bed, but it's to just sort of tell you how the game is. The game is actually nearly completely how important the winning is. And back to I said, what the upbringing was, where find a way of winning when means that I have more good Saturday night feelings than I do going home and pulling the curtains and going straight to bed.

• 1:07:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I don't think about that. You know, when you said something a second ago, which was... You know, you'd you'd reached what I consider to be the very top of the game managing Everton. Because I think about how many tens of thousands of managers there are, coaches out there that are, you know, on the Sunday League pitches and all around the country that are aspiring to manage in the Premier League. It's insane. It's an insane, insane achievement. You managed Everton, you went to Manchester United, it didn't go well. In that period after, even though you're at the very top of the game,

• 1:08:29Steven Bartlett?

  did you doubt yourself in a post Manchester United?

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  By my pause might make you think yes, but I didn't doubt that I was actually, I felt that I could do the job. I could be good at it. I felt as if I could, I, my work on the grass was was good enough to, for where I had been, I had success the years before. So I was always trying to say, it didn't go quite well this 10 months. Why did it not go well? Was it how I managed? Was it how I coached? Was it maybe I didn't have the right players? I had to try and look to see what there is. But the other part of the 10 or 11 years, I'd seen some great players. I'd been in FA Cup finals. I'd got to quarterfinals of European competition with Everton. We'd qualified for the Champions League one year. So I was thinking as well, was I going to make, say that was all no good then, the years we'd done it?

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  So I think once I put it in perspective, then I says, no, I'm not, I'm not doubting it. But what I do think is, I think, I think most days you have to get up and be ready to sort of challenge yourself every day. I don't, I don't think you can get out of bed every morning and think, hey, this is fine. You know, I'm, I'm doing okay here. I think every day you're sort of getting up and saying is, you know, how am I going to try and be better? How can I make people better? What am I, how can I make a difference today with what I've got?

• 1:09:48Steven Bartlett?

  Paranoid almost.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, near enough, near enough to an extent where you're saying is, you know, I can't, you know, you folk, folk say, do you bring your work home? I, I really think if you're in, if you're in the, the boss, if you're the boss, you're always bringing your work home. Because it's not, you're not just taking, putting your head off and saying, I'm leaving that in the office and they'll pick it up in the morning. I think very rarely are you doing that. I think that's just life if you're, if you're a CEO or a boss.

• 1:10:14Steven Bartlett?

  I very much agree. I very much agree with that idea of taking the work home. And also, when things don't go wrong, in hindsight, everybody's quick to diagnose why it didn't go wrong. Has the subsequent 10 years where everyone has failed at Manchester United felt good?

• 1:10:29Steven Bartlett?

  Because everyone has failed. Jose's failed, Van Gaal went there, you went there. I'm missing someone. I think I'm missing someone. I mean, Carr had a stint.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  Ollie was in it.

• 1:10:38Steven Bartlett?

  Ollie, yeah. Ollie was in, he failed as well. So that's, you know, five or six great, great managers who, who couldn't make it work at Manchester United for whatever reason. So I think time has almost been good to you in terms of your, the story of your time.

• 1:10:53Speaker 00

  Look, I, I, I get huge respect for Jose Mourinho, huge respect for Louis van Gaal. You know, Ollie was new and is one of, one of Manchester United's own. So was always going to be given every opportunity to try and make it work as well. So I think that, I think there's been some great managers going into Manchester United. I think the biggest problem for Manchester United is Manchester City.

• 1:11:18Steven Bartlett?

  How do we, I'm a Manchester United fan, season ticket holder. How, from your experience, do we get things back to how they were?

• 1:11:28Speaker 00

  I think you'll need to probably get rid of Pep somehow from Manchester City. I think that's my, that's my way. I look at it, I think, I think Pep is, I think there is some managers, I think.

• 1:11:40Steven Bartlett?

  But you must have an unbelievable perspective, better than me, at like, what, because you knew Fergie, you knew the club, everything, you've been inside it. What, what do we need to do to get back to?

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  I think Manchester United, different principles than, than most of the other clubs. Looked at their youth a lot. Didn't always sign maybe the, as I said before, maybe the, the top diamond. Always sort of picked and picked out good players who improved. And now and again, went and bought a Cantona every so often, or Van Nistelrooy, or Van Persie at different times, you know. So at different times, they, they bought really good players at good times.

• 1:12:21Steven Bartlett?

  This is actually a really good point, because we've also bought some world-class players and they've all failed.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. So there is, there is something about Manchester United, they had their own way, but because of the competition which came in from Manchester City. Chelsea probably more in the earlier years, I think those two clubs. I think Liverpool have had an incredible period, got a really good manager as well and top players. I think over the year, Man United and Liverpool have always had a level of competition against each other.

• 1:12:49Steven Bartlett?

  People say we've not spent money. In terms of players, we spent shitloads of money. We spent almost a billion or whatever.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Huge.

• 1:12:54Steven Bartlett?

  And all these players, I remember the Falcao's, the Di Maria, because I get excited every time and I celebrate and I start blowing up my friends WhatsApp chats and saying, you're screwed, we're going to win the league. And then every year, the player fails and then the manager's sacked.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:07Steven Bartlett?

  So it feels like a bit of a...

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  It's the expectation or the excitement on the new players coming in. I get this all the time and I say this quite a lot to people I hear in media, you know, they're talking about, oh, you need to buy new players, no, we buy new players. And I say, I would really like football to be where money was not always going to be the key to it. We think the more players, the more money you spend means that you win the league, that you're successful. And look, I think it probably will prove that it is. But I'd rather see that sometimes that it's not that way. And I just do think that quite often, you know, not buying all the top, it doesn't mean that you have to buy the top. I think it's buying good players and people who've got good characters and people who are going to work hard for the team.

• 1:13:53Steven Bartlett?

  And then they come into that culture, which makes one...

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Which makes the difference.

• 1:13:58Steven Bartlett?

  One plus one equal three, like Leicester that year.

• 1:14:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, Leicester and the year they had was probably what we're all hoping for, whether it be us. And you're seeing other clubs. I mean, actually Newcastle United, for example, Newcastle United bought a couple of, with respect, three or four English players last January, British players, probably not necessarily on the radar of the biggest clubs in the country. And they've turned around and they've had incredible momentum from probably January last year, maybe just before January, and are keeping that momentum going. And now they're bringing in, they're adding in the odd bigger star or the bigger players that go along. But I thought their business at the start was very good.

• 1:14:38Steven Bartlett?

  If I'm one of your players in your dressing room, to be a David Moyes player at West Ham, and what would, from a character and a personality standpoint, your expectation be of me? So that I fit into the culture and I'm successful?

• 1:14:53Speaker 00

  I'd want you to be, I'd like you to be hardworking. I want you to be honest in your endeavour.

• 1:15:02Speaker 00

  I, no, I'd want you to do your jobs, whatever you want. I want you to be a team player. Individuals are really important and no more hugely important, we've just seen in the World Cup, individuals. But, but I, I do think that, I, I think to have a consistency about your team is you need to have a team. I think if you've got individuals, you might get inconsistency, but you might get some really good days and we get clubs who can afford to carry one or two individual players that go along. But I think while you're trying to build, build, I think you have to start with a really solid base, good foundation. And then from that point, you try and grow.

• 1:15:40Steven Bartlett?

  Pamela, you met her at a disco.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. She was lucky.

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I keep telling her, but most people disagree.

• 1:15:53Steven Bartlett?

  She's been through it all with you, you know, the, everything. She's followed you around for decades and supported you in many, many ways. And I've heard about the sort of dynamic in your relationship where she's been really, really supporting. You kind of do a lot of it together. You're there for each other. Tell me in your own words what like, what she means to you, I guess.

• 1:16:15Speaker 00

  Well, it's the sort of thing, you ask that question, you'd probably get emotional if you start saying that. So I'm going to say that before I start.

• 1:16:22Speaker 00

  Look, my wife has been unbelievable towards me because I remember when we were young, I, about what we said is we didn't earn great money. I wasn't, I wasn't a hugely wealthy footballer when I was getting paid, but I wanted to play football and would have taken the wage. So Pamela worked as well and we had to work to pay the mortgage when we were together, when we were there. So we were, it was very much that together at the, at the start, how we could sort of have a family, how we could, we could work together. And I remember saying to her, I said, I might need to be a football coach. And I remember when we were courting, I said, like, I'll need to go to coaching courses, I might not be here, I want to try and go and see how it does. And remember saying, no problem, you go and do what you have to do.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  And if I wasn't given that freedom in the early years to say, I'm going to coaching courses. I mean, I went out to see Ancelotti at AC Milan, I went to the World Cup.

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  And I have to say, you know, I remember, I went to the World Cup and I didn't have lots of money at the time. And we weren't skinned, but we didn't have loads of it. And the PFA helped fund me. So I think at the time the PFA helped fund me get to the World Cup to go and watch. I remember writing to, I wrote to about five or six countries and said, you know, could I come and watch your training? And none of them replied. The only country that replied was Scotland and Craig Brown was the manager. Now, I was a Scottish coach and worked in, and I was still young at the time. And they invited me to come and watch training in Scotland, none of the other teams did. But my wife let me get away and get on with it and try and seek and find out what I needed to do.

• 1:18:00Speaker 00

  Probably in the hope that somewhere after my football career was finished, that I might have been able to do something else. But she was, she still is a great inspiration to me.

• 1:18:12Speaker 00

  And so are my kids, my kids are good kids and, you know, good family and it's really important to me.

• 1:18:18Steven Bartlett?

  What role has she played, Pamela, in the harder times in your career?

• 1:18:27Speaker 00

  You know, I think, I think when you're, when you're a football manager, you're going to have hard times. So undoubtedly, so hard times being a football manager. Hey, hard times sometimes mean you get sacked and you get, you get some money for leaving the job. You can look at that and say, hey, he's okay with that. But it's not, you've got pride, you know. As I said to you, I was probably losing the job, I was more an embarrassment, I felt embarrassed from, from my family really that, you know, they were getting talked about, they were getting looked at, you know. You know, people were shouting, now your dad's lost his job or whatever it may be at that time. So.

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  My wife's just always stood by me and really supported me whenever it comes to the games, probably knows when she should speak and when she shouldn't speak, when it's going well and when it's going badly. And even that's a skill in itself because, you know, when you're in it, when you're the boss, that's quite often, would respect your partner quite often, could say the wrong thing at any minute and you go... No, you might be thinking, why are you not thinking about... No, you're in the wrong case. So I think it's really important that your partner understands exactly how you feel.

• 1:19:40Steven Bartlett?

  Where do you think you'd be professionally without her?

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  I couldn't imagine my life really without my wife. And do you know something, I'm not, I'm 59 at the moment, so I've only got a good bit to go and we've got a good bit to go. And I want to look forward to the years, the latter years together, where we can have more time together. Because being a football manager means that you're away just about every weekend. So you're either away, staying in a hotel preparing for a game, or you're, you know, you're with the team. And actually, the way football's gone, you're in every Sunday now, you could be in all the time. There's very little family time. And actually, it's one of the things I think what people don't understand. Hey, by the way, it's a great job, really well paid, game everybody wants to be involved

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  in, as you like to say. But it's incredibly time consuming, you know, and it takes up so much of your time. And if you have a family, probably they're the ones who suffer most because they don't see you as much as what probably other families might do. If you work Monday, sort of 9 till 5, you go home at the weekends at least. Being a football manager, the weekends, you don't. And actually, I'm trying to get a membership with a golf club at the moment, back in my home. I can't get in because, and they say, well, no, you've got to play with, you've got to play with members and you've got to play with friends to get in. I'm saying, I've got no friends. In the business we're in, it's really hard to have lots of friends outside of our industry. The reason why is because our social time,

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  when folk are saying, hey, we're going out Friday night, we're going out Saturday night, you come and what is it? No, I'm in the hotel, we've got a game tomorrow, we can't do that. Oh, well, you go out Saturday night, yeah, but I'll lose. Oh, I'm saying, I'm not going out with them if I'm going to lose Saturday night. So lots of reasons why.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  Being a football manager is a great job, but it's also got lots of antisocial behaviour things because of how the job works.

• 1:21:36Steven Bartlett?

  Earlier you said that you haven't been historically so good, especially when you were younger, at giving praise, I can relate. One of the things that men are particularly bad at is letting, and I'm speaking about myself here, is letting their significant other know how much they appreciate them. I think women are usually better at that affection and saying the kind words and stuff. And as men, I know this for myself, I don't think my partner actually has a clue how much she means to me and how much she's been there for me in the hardest times and just her presence sometimes when she says nothing in the hard moments, how that changes my state. If Pamela is watching this, what are the words you wish you could tell her that maybe you haven't told her?

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  She would probably know that I love her, of course she would, I would hope she would. But more importantly, that I miss her because I'm in London a lot of the time, she's up north, she's caring for her mum a lot at the moment. I just really, over the time, she's been great, we've had great times together. But I always want to say, I think my best times in football, I hope, are still to come, but hopefully our best times as a couple are still to come as well.

• 1:22:44Steven Bartlett?

  David, thank you. Thank you for lots of inspiration over the many, many, many years and lots of good memories in football. You've been an incredible manager, all the clubs you've been at, in my view. And I do wish that Manchester United had given you more of a chance, because I just generally believe everything you say about the importance of when you come into a new system or organisation, needing that time to understand and make it your own. So even as a Manchester United fan, I'm always really annoyed at how quickly we've moved on with our managers before giving them a chance, because they're all objectively great managers and you certainly are as well. And it's just an honour to meet you, because I've watched you on the screens for decades. So, thank you. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest.

• 1:23:33Steven Bartlett?

  And the question left for you is,

• 1:23:37Steven Bartlett?

  what is the biggest public misconception about something that has happened in your life?

• 1:23:49Speaker 00

  After thinking about it, I think that there was, I felt there was a few untruths at the end when I lost my job at Manchester United actually. And I found it very difficult to correct them. I felt that, you know, they had been written, so it was very difficult to correct them.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  You know, which they weren't right. And from that point of view, I couldn't do anything about it. And I found that actually, probably one of the biggest difficulties because you try, you want to say, well, here, I'll explain why I made this decision. I'll explain why I chose to do that. But really, once the headline's there, that's the only thing that matters.

• 1:24:24Steven Bartlett?

  You've got to give me one.

• 1:24:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm trying to think of one. That's what I'm trying to think.

• 1:24:31Speaker 00

  I've got, I've got this one, but I don't know if, I don't want to give the player's name.

• 1:24:35Steven Bartlett?

  That's fine.

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  So, I mean, it was actually, so somewhere along the way, they said that Manchester United had banned chips on a Friday. Rio had said in his book that had banned chips.

• 1:24:46Steven Bartlett?

  I read that.

• 1:24:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did. And it was actually something which probably most sports profession, you wouldn't really have chips, but then it part of it, but understood Manchester United, Sir Alex done a lot of, lot of things maybe slightly different and I totally respected that. And what happened is I remember it was one of my first, first games, we were staying in the hotel and there was one player who was overweight, which I won't name. And I remember walking in and I was walking into the dining room and he had his dinner. And next to me, he had a side plate of chips. And that was my reason for, after that, seeing that one player with the side portion. So that was my reason for saying there should be no chips on a Friday night.

• 1:25:31Speaker 00

  And it was sort of written about that that was one of the reasons. But my reason was actually because one of the players who was actually at the time a bit overweight, I saw him with a side plate of chips and that's when I used or banned him, if you want to say that.

• 1:25:45Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting. Thank you so much, David, for your time.

• 1:25:48Speaker 00

  No problem.

• 1:25:48Steven Bartlett?

  Such an honour. Thank you so much.

• 1:25:49Speaker 00

  Thank you.