An Interview With Alan Devonshire

Hampton and Richmond were only one game away from reaching the Conference, until they lost 2-0 to Eastbourne in the final play off. A result that drew attention to who was their manager - Alan Devonshire, a class winger for West Ham and England.

So what is he doing managing in the non league? Why isn't he up there with the rest of the Football League managers? He is disarmingly honest.

"I never seem to get a call from a League club, there have been one or two inquiries, but no offers. But over the past 11 years I have been the most successful manager in the non league. I think Football League management is a closed shop among football people. You see a club get relegated and the manager got rid of, and then he gets another job. It's nearly always the same people on a merry go round."

Devonshire did not come into football until he was 20 years old, which is very unusual. He had been playing with Southall, and working in the old Hoover factory on the A40 on the way into West London. He still lives locally in Ealing. Another West London non league player Les Ferdinand also worked in a local factory and played for Hayes, also going into professional soccer later in life.

Devonshire says that the life of a professional footballer is the best you could get, and when you have had another life before you enter pro football you appreciate it all the more.

But he thinks the game of football today is in a terrible state.

"The kids aren't being taught properly at an early age, and the coaches are no good. Twenty years ago I saw a lot more quality players than I do today. The foreign players playing here today have a better mentality, but you don't always get the feeling they care that much. I do not criticise how much they are earning, good luck to them. But going back to my youth I remember having to be chased out of the local park at 10.30pm at night. We had this great hunger for the game. It makes me laugh when I read today about players moaning about having to play too many games. They say they are fitter today, but I do not think so."

He played in a great West Ham side with players like Trevor Brooking and Phil Parkes.

"Trevor was a very intelligent man and we had this sort of telepathy on the pitch, we just seemed to know where the other was at moment during a game."

He also played eight games for England, recalling his most favourite match being against West Germany at Wembley.

"We lost 2-1 but it was a great game. The strange thing is that everyone used to go on about how wonderful the Wembley pitch was at the time, it looked good on TV, but in fact to play on it you found that it wasn't very good. It was a series of squares, and dug up into divots easily. The new pitch today is much better."

He still watches West Ham when he can, especially if they are playing on a Sunday.

As for Hampton and Richmond FC missing out by one match from getting into the Conference, Alan says, "Eastbourne beat us by two goals in the 85th and 93rd minutes. There was a clear penalty for hand ball for us early on, that I could even see from 50 yards away, but we weren't given it so that was that. I thought our players had the best of most of the game. I wasn't nervous before the game for myself, more for my players. They are part time and have other jobs so I just wanted them to do well, which they did. Alan Simpson our president, who wrote the Hancock and Steptoe shows has not been very well lately, so I really wanted to get us into the Conference for him. But it was not to be."

But if any League team needs a successful manager Alan Devonshire is waiting in the wings.

By Michael Wale

Web Links

www.hamptonfc.net

Photo courtesy of Hampton FC.

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