Sport
Boss who beats Fergie in longevity stakes retires
Boss who beats Fergie in longevity stakes retires
Reuters/Manchester
England’s longest-serving football manager is retiring aged 71 after overseeing several trophy-laden decades at the club he loves - but he is not called Alex Ferguson. |
Just days after the footballing world watched Ferguson call time on his managerial career, Jimmy Davies will step aside from his post at amateur club Waterloo Dock after a 50-year stint that makes the former Manchester United boss’s 26 years look short.
Davies has a lot in common with the highly successful Ferguson even though the worlds of a non-league Liverpool-based club and the serial Premier League champions are poles apart.
“We like to win,” Davies told Reuters in an interview. “We come from similar backgrounds, he was a shop steward in the Glasgow shipyard, I was a shop steward on Liverpool docks.
“We are quite a successful side… at the last count we had won 72 trophies... But he probably doesn’t have to go home and wash football kits like I have to do.”
Davies originally started out as a player before being gently nudged into a more suitable role. “After about six games it was clear my footballing ability was sadly lacking,” said Davies, whose record as England’s longest-serving manager is recognised by the FA. “They said you’d be better suited as the manager, I think they were trying to be kind to me.”
High Point
The club sits a stone’s throw away from Anfield, with the stands visible from its Edinburgh Park ground, and Liverpool fan Davies takes some inspiration from the great Bill Shankly who led his club to three league titles and two FA Cups.
“Second is nowhere,” is the mantra Davies has borrowed from Shankly, which puts into perspective what he thinks about Waterloo Dock’s runners-up finish in the league this season. They did win the league cup this term, though, and reached the semi-finals in two other cups.
Asked about the best and worst bits of his time at the club which will come to an end on Tuesday in their final game against Red Rum, he replied: “The low point is when we get beat. If we get beat on Saturday I’m terrible to live with - it takes me until the following Tuesday until I recover.”
“The high point was probably playing Liverpool Reserves in 2009 in the final of the Liverpool Senior Cup and they beat us 1-0, scoring in the last three minutes,” he said, referring to a team managed by former Liverpool player, the late Gary Ablett.