The Brief History of the Manager System

The most important cog of the footballing machinery in these modern times of commercially
hungry, gunning for all out glory days, is the Manager. The Supremo, the Gaffer, the BOSS. Starting from
the training methods of the players he is in charge of to the match day tactics and post-match
rehabilitation program, from the pre-match conferences to the post-match comments. The original,
twelfth man. So how did one man come to be so important? Is he really that important?
THE PRELUDE: From the late 1880s to before the First World War, Football as we know it was
markedly different from the days we have started following it. Those days, were the formative years,
with clubs being managed by someone called the CLUB DIRECTOR (and national teams having
Committee Chairmen}. That included interacting with the players to the groundsman, to the gatekeeper
even. All financial, executive and sporting decisions rested with him. But after the First World War
ended in 1914, there was a shift in outlook towards Football as it became a viable medium to provide
entertainment to the masses. Newspapers were published on lesser quality papers to cater to a wider
market, while other forms as Music and Theatres were still out of bounds for the larger sections of the
crowd. The Industrial Revolution enabled the people to financially come into their own, and thus, the
commercialization of the spectator sports eventually hit home. Something like the IPL, where the
concept was to marry celebrity and cricket to make a concoction so strong, people would have an
unquenchable thirst. The growing popularity of the game, mixed with the influx of workers into the
crowds to watch, the clubs needed more than just the director now.
However, Directors began to see the professional players, the ones who took a wage, as their inferiors
and would not want to interact with them on a regular basis. Someone intermediary was sought, to
bring in more organizational hierarchy. That is how the position of a Football Secretary came into being.
The Secretary was to be the forerunner of the Manager.
Trivia: Aston Villa are regarded to be the first club to hire a paid Manager, George Ramsay, in 1886.

THE BEGINNING: Between the two Great Wars, 1910s-1930s, was a period which saw the first
manager as we know come into being. The man credited with introducing WM formation that led to the
first ORGANISED teams, aside from the innovations like floodlights, numbered shirts, and pan-European
matches. Bringing in a comparison would suitably help in grasping the magnitude of shift in practice.
During his time, teams had a starting line-up decided by Board members, and the play was
individualistic, that is players would simply run with the ball. The captain would decide who would fill
which position of a 1-2-7 or 1-3-6 formation. And here came Herbert Chapman, taking all those decisions
by himself, wresting power and control away from a rung above and below him, and asking his players
to involve in a team game.
Though British were the pioneers of the Managerial system, and employed these changes
gradually, the system itself was not contained within the British borders. Many of these British
managers migrated outside of the Empire to manage, most notably, William Garbett to Genoa in 1910
who generated riches for the Italian club, before going onto lead Team Italia in the 1924 Olympics; Fred
Pentland to the Basque team Athletic Bilbao (who remain till date the only club apart from Barcelona
and Real Madrid to never get relegated) in the 1930s. He too brought with him success in the form of
League Titles and also managed Team France in 1920 Olympics. Most notably, he introduced the short
passing game to Spanish football; Jimmy Hogan who was the most famous of the British off shore
managers having managed in Austria, West Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Holland. After the
Magic Magyars (Hungary, under Ferenc Puskas) had defeated the self-proclaimed mighty English at


Wembley 6-3 in November, 1953, they dedicated the victory to Jimmy Hogan, claiming he taught them
all there was to football, while he was an unknown 71 yrs. old somebody in the stands of his own
country. That is probably indicative of the toll Directors ego took in the budding stages of the
managerial system. Jimmy Hogan not only instructed teams to play as a team, but made combination
play an art in itself. Ball retention or possession play has evolved from the works of this man, and to
some extent he laid the stepping stones to the perfection of Total Football. Shunned for his philosophy
in England, it was quickly picked up by the European continental teams, and came to be known as the
Continental Game.

However, British were not the only ones with managerial talent, as the names of Hugo Miesl and
Vittorio Pozzo, stand tall like giants of the game amongst titans. Hugo Miesl, was an extra-ordinary man,
and built the Wunderteam of Austria during the 1930s. He took them to dizzying heights during his
tenure, never to be reached again by the war-ravaged country. Olympics, and World Cup being the
cornerstone of their performances. Vittorio Pozzo however, was something like the Jupiter is amongst
planets. He studied in Manchester during his formative years and was a fan of Manchester United,
especially of the defender Charles Robert. He was a founding member of Torino FC, one of the greatest
clubs of Europe who suffered worse than Manchester United because of a plane crash that wiped off
their team, and 2/3
rd
of Italys. He lead his country to a series of Championships: the Central European
International Cup (equivalent of Euros) in 1930, won the World Cup in 1934 held in Italy, then repeated
the performance of 1930 to win Central European International Cup in 1935, the Olympic Gold in 1936,
and then the World Cup in 1938, again! Both these men, however, are credited for the WW formation,
which brought in supreme success.

By this time, the Second World War had hit. And the boom in managerial stars after the War is no
hidden fact. The list is endless, and bound to miss out on someone if attempted to jot down. The cult of
the Manager, was here to stay.