A Football Manager Career

3: My Li Yan Mistake

While I was satisfied and focussed on my future at the club, it seemed that the board had other ideas.

Apparently 13th doesn't count as a 'safe finish' and they were undecided if they should give me a contract extension or not. The second the season finished and our final position was confirmed I strode into the boardroom and demanded a new contract. Their response was not positive:

'Your job performance thus far hasn't deserved an early extension. We want to see more out of you to warrant us committing you to a longer term deal.'

I was a little miffed seeing as I wasn't really asking for an 'early' extension and I made my displeasure completely clear with an ultimatum with the full expectation they would offer me a lovely new contract. They did not. Instead, they called my bluff and told me to either resign, or to return home with my tail between my legs. I backed down and poured myself a glass of wine as I waited for them to admit their mistake and offer me the new deal that I was adamant I head earned seeing as I was convinced I had met all their expectations.

Two days later, the 2nd November, I was fired and Li Yan was the bookies favourite for my job. I rue the day I brought that traitor to the club.

While he was removing my name from the desk and pulling out the replacement plaque he had been carrying around in his bag since day one, I was back at the Job Centre to see what I (Jordan) could find. I wasn't the only manager to lose my job at the end of the season and so I paid close attention to the goings on at those clubs. Meanwhile, back home in England, around twenty games had been played in their season and so many struggling clubs across the leagues were starting to get itchy feet and considering greener pastures. I was annoyed about how I had been treated, but now I'd gotten my foot in the door with my first club and had a full season meeting targets I was confident I wouldn't have to spend another eleven months on holiday before my next job.

By the start of December those old familiar feelings of insecurity and depression started to surface again. It was like an incredibly heavy and slightly itchy blanket was being wrapped around me and pulling me deep onto the sofa. I had, thanks to Jordan, applied to over a dozen jobs and hadn't received a single interview. It seems that managing a single team in the second tier of Chinese football and then being sacked wasn't deemed good enough for English clubs. Not even in relegation battles at the bottom of Sky Bet League Two. Rude. 

Whilst all my attentions were focussed back home on the English lower tiers, however, my name was suddenly linked with a new job abroad. The fans of Tai Po considered me the leading candidate for their vacant role. I'm not really sure if it counted as a sideways step or a backwards one, but the Hong Kong Premier League had me intrigued and I am a sucker for a newspaper heading calling me the 'leading candidate' so I applied.

Despite the influx of headlines, Chairman Kwok Ping replied just two days later saying that they were rejecting my application because they 'did not know who I am.' My ego was crushed and I didn't want to face Christmas humiliated and unemployed while my friends were all off having fun at huge clubs with huge budgets and their FMRTEs. I curled back up on the sofa with my back to the computer and a boxset and asked Jordan to only wake me once I had an interview and for him to put special emphasis on applying for jobs at all of Tai Po's rivals.

On Saturday the 9th January I woke up to two interview offers: One from Nantong of the Chinese Super League, and one from a club I had never heard of in Hong Kong. I googled the clubs from the toilet and discovered that Fuli were a title rival to Tai Po, whereas Nantong were no doubt relegation certainties with huge money issues. I applied for both jobs, but was entirely focussed on securing the Fuli gig and showing Kwok Ping that he was a fool to insult me...