Flying the flag for England

Interview with Alan Curbishley: The Charlton manager tells Michael Walker about the lack of opportunities for English managers

Alan Curbishley has a pain in the neck from talking about the war over Scott Parker's £10 million transfer to Stamford Bridge. Yesterday Charlton Athletic's training ground was supposed to be like Fawlty Towers. Charlton cross London to play Chelsea tomorrow and one subject was forbidden. "Don't mention Scott Parker," was the instruction. But in the event, Basil made no appearance. Curbishley spoke at length about the player he has nurtured since he was a child and he even called him "one of us".

"Yeah, if I see him, I'll shake his hand," Curbishley said of Parker, who will not play in the game due to sensitivities. "We all understood the positions. When we beat Everton he was first on the phone. He had 10, 12 years here; he's grown up here; he's one of us. I'm sure he'll be rooting for Chelsea on Sunday but we'll see.

"The bid came at the wrong time and it wasn't something we wanted. I suppose Scott wasn't sure if the offer would come around again at the end of the season. We understood his position entirely - we're not naïve - and he had to understand ours.

"We weren't going to let him go lightly. Whatever was said and done, it's ended now. Last week was difficult, obviously. Scott is gone now, got to get on with that and draw a line under it."

Curbishley's understanding of "the positions" was not undermined by his Charlton Athletic blood. Even though Parker was briefly banished to a corner of the Charlton training ground, the manager's view of football remains pragmatic and mature.

Curbishley was a good player once and good players are upwardly mobile by instinct. Curbishley is a good manager now and his aptitudes are the same. There is a parallel with Parker. It's just that for Curbishley elevation remains strangely distant.

This is his 13th season as Charlton manager and he has done a remarkable job at the club. Tomorrow's match pitches third against fourth. But at 46 he is young enough to do another job somewhere else.

"It's very difficult for me to answer questions about that," Curbishley said of his remaining personal ambitions. "You have to be offered something. If I was to move upwards, expectations might be very different. It's a very different situation for me and Scott Parker because if another club came in for me there's something in place, so that it can be sorted out. For Scott there wasn't. If someone wanted to do it - and I'm not saying I'm courting that - then it's different from a player."

The something in place Curbishley referred to is a compensation clause in his contract that has two and half years to run. It is believed to be around £500,000, rather than the £2 million figure widely suggested when Glenn Hoddle was sacked by Tottenham in late September.

Curbishley was mentioned continually as a candidate to replace Hoddle then but recently his name had slipped down that list. Now those of Giovanni Trapattoni and Roberto Mancini are more prominent. It is not lost on Curbishley that if one of those Italians did get the post at White Hart Lane it would mean another foreign manager at a big Premiership club, and another blow to the self-esteem of English managers.

"The difficulty for English managers is that to get in the Premiership you have be promoted with your own team," Curbishley said. "Sam Allardyce, Gary Megson, Stevie Bruce, myself, we've not been given the opportunity. You have to ask the chairmen why.

"Not many of us have been given a top-10 or European team - the managers of English clubs in the Champions League are not English. I don't think it's the standard of English managers. I don't think we're given the opportunity. I like to think that if there are any jobs being handed out, then I should be in a position to take one."

Curbishley, in fairness to him, is no Little Englander - "on the whole foreign players and managers have improved the standard of professionalism no end" - but he does wonder about English managers.

Then he speaks to a Scottish one. "I remember talking to Alex Ferguson about this and he said you've got to manage the club you're at. I could leave here and go to Chelsea and suddenly be given all that to deal with, or I could go to another club and have no money whatsoever.

"You have to manage what you've got. You can't be thinking too much about other clubs because they've got great wealth or this or that. If you worry too much about what other people have got, it'll bring you down. But if this job was going I'm sure this club would be looking at English managers. People like me and Sam are still seen as up-and-coming managers - and I've been going for 13 years. Perhaps I need an agent."

Perhaps he does. When asked if he has received many offers from other clubs during his rise with Charlton, Curbishley replied: "No, not really, I've not had to turn down too many things at all. People say to me: 'Would you ever leave here?' I say you have to be offered something first before you think about that.

"Enthusiasm is another big thing Alex talks about and I've been driving in here from Essex for 12, 13 years. Then there's the fans. They can turn no matter how well you've done. Those are things I haven't been tested on yet.

"Obviously it's been a difficult couple of weeks but one thing I cling to is that we didn't court it [Chelsea's bid]. There were times, like when I sold Andy Peake to Middlesbrough for £150,000 to pay three months' wages, or when I bought Alan Pardew and we were up the pub arguing over £10 a week. Those were things that had to be done. We were inviting people in for our players to survive, a bit like Wimbledon are doing now.

"We will always be underdogs but, you know, when we started off here the chairman envisaged us being a solid First Division club, a bit like Norwich or QPR used to be - 18,000 , sell a player every other year to keep going. But we pushed on past that and felt could we do a Leicester or a Derby. That was our aim. Now our aim is: can we get the stadium capacity up to 35,000 and become a real top-10 side?

"I think if I left this football club and that had been achieved I'd be very, very happy. If we could do that - become a top-10 side after where we have come from, with a 35,000 stadium - then in my eyes I think I'd have done as much as any manager who's won things."

Guardian Service