By Johnny Craig

When Peter Hutton was announced as the Derry City Assistant Manager last November, it was widely acknowledged that he would be groomed by Roddy Collins to eventually step up to the Brandywell hot seat.

While Hutton’s elevation has come a lot quicker than most would have expected, he will have already learned a lot, even if it is mostly what not to do.

Lesson One: Don’t talk yourself up before a ball is kicked.

The key to any manager’s first media appearance is to keep it humble, keep the expectations realistic and don’t make sweeping statements that will come back to bite you in the backside when the real business of winning games starts.

Talk is cheap and you will ultimately be judged on results.

Collins arrived declaring that he was ‘a winner’ who would be challenging for a league title with Derry. He said there would be no wholesale changes to the squad and that he understood that the crowds would only return to the Brandywell if the team played winning and attractive football.

He proceeded to do the opposite, releasing three of the squads’ most established players, signing 10 new players and setting the team up in such a negative way that winning matches was unlikely.

Lesson Two: If you’re going to release a club legend, treat him with respect

Derry City is probably not an easy club to manage for an outsider coming in. Just ask Pat Fenlon who struggled to win over the Brandywell dressing room but proved before and since his brief spell in the City hot seat that he is a manager of genuine quality.

With a high volume of local players who have been at the club for years, it is probably a difficult group to come into and make sweeping changes.

The decision to release Kevin Deery, the club captain who had remained loyal to the club through difficult times, was clearly badly handled.

Deery took to social media afterwards to describe the manager as ‘one of the most hateful men I have come across in local football’ and the first cracks appeared.

Lesson Three: Avoid bringing members of your family into the playing staff.

Collins left himself wide open to criticism when he signed his son and namesake, Roddy Junior.

This was always going to be a difficult situation to manage but it was made worse when he turned out to be a limited footballer.

You can imagine how a player like Shane McEleney, a Northern Ireland Under 21 international with genuine aspirations of a moving to England, felt when he was frozen out of the squad as Collins jnr started week in week out in a position McEleney could play in.

Lesson Four: Let the players express themselves

There are two elements of Derry City that fans hold close to their hearts. They like to see young local players getting their chance and they like to be entertained.

Over the last six or seven years fans have become accustomed to a 4-2-3-1 formation where the front four players had free reign to push forward and interplay.

In the club’s preseason friendlies, the signs weren’t good as Collins deployed a deep lying 4-4-2 formation with Rory Patterson, who had thrived last season when the ball was played into his feet, forced to live off scraps as the midfield sent it long.

When the season began, the lack of goals the team was conceding was of little consolation to supporters when they were creating little at the other end.

Lesson Five: Don’t punish players by relegating them to the Reserves

Trying to humiliate players by putting them in the club’s second string shows a lack of respect for the players and for the key role the Reserves have played in the success of the football club in recent years.

The role that John Quigg and the other club coaches have performed in nurturing young talent for the first team while also winning trophies has been nothing short of outstanding.

The last thing that young group needs is disgruntled first team regulars being dropped into the side for an Ulster Senior League game.

How is a young up and coming player going to feel if he is relegated to the bench so a first team player can take his place on the team as punishment?

Lesson Six: Treat the local media with respect

The nature of managing a club who enjoy virtually blanket coverage in the local media is that you won’t always like what they have to say.

As early as the first few games, Collins lambasted a local reporter in front of his colleagues about his reporting of the team’s heavy defeat in Dundalk, it was classic bully boy tactics and an attempt to manipulate.

The aggressive and patronising tone he took with many local reporters when they asked justifiable questions also showed him in a negative and unreasonable light and didn’t endear him to supporters.

Lesson Seven: Don’t put down your predecessor, especially when his record is better than yours

Collins has a long standing reputation for putting other managers down in his work as a media analyst with RTE and The Star.

He took that trait into his management of Derry City but he was on a very sticky wicket given the lack of points he was picking up.

With City sitting midtable, Collins told supporters “We conceded over 50 goals last season, that won’t happen this year,” – at the same point last year, Declan Devine had led Derry City to the summit of the table.

Lesson Eight: Never, ever, disrespect the fans

Supporting Derry City is an expensive business. To travel around the country with the team takes a lot of travel expenses and time off work – that is for those who are lucky enough to be employed.

When the manager says ‘I wouldn’t pay to go and watch us at the moment.’ it is the ultimate kick in the teeth to that commitment and shows a complete lack of respect for their loyalty.

Collins never once acknowledged the fans anger when they expressed it from the terraces. Speaking about a long term plan to rebuild the club was of little consolation, especially when they had been moving in the right direction before he came.  

Lesson Nine: If you are going to give youth it’s fling, be prudent

After ignoring the talents of the club’s locally nurtured youngsters, Collins finally gave them their chance in last week’s EA Sports League Cup tie at Sligo.

Afterwards he revelled in the manner his side had passed and moved the ball, the reality was that the credit for that performance belonged to the Reserves coaches who have been promoting that style of play with the likes of Tony McNamee and Nathan Boyle over the past few years.

Putting those players in against a weakened Sligo side in a League Cup game is prudent, keeping most of them in the side for a league game with Shamrock Rovers last Friday when his two best performers, Patrick McEleney and Rory Patterson were unavailable, was lunacy and led directly to his weekend dismissal.

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