Todd’s Danish Wanderings Show A Path Forward For Many
Colin Todd went from Bradford City to manage Randers FC and complains about clubs – all keen to unearth the new Paul Jewell – go for younger managers rather than bringing in experienced gaffers.
Todd’s time at Bradford City is not well viewed but the former City boss would point to the club’s slump to League Two on his exit as proof of what a good job he was doing rather than a suggestion that he had been underachieving.
Indeed it would be hard to argue that City are a better team post-Todd although very few are not much more happy to see Stuart McCall in the dug out rather than Todd.
In a week where English managers have been founding wanting by the FA Todd’s example of going aboard to further his career is a revealing one. After his team’s 2-0 defeat by Everton yesterday Alan Curbishley bemoaned the inability for an English manager to get a job at a club that can offer Champions League experience.
Curbishley jumped ship from Charlton and ended up at West Ham just as Sam Allardyce went to Newcastle United with the idea that excelling there could get the fourth place in the Premiership that while previously a could do better season is now bigger than the FA Cup.
There managers could take a look at Todd’s example and set there sights away from these shores. Should Curbs set his sights further than the other side of that London and looked at jobs in places like Denmark, Portugal or France or even the Charltons of Italy and Spain then he and his peers could have returned to England a few years down the line with more varied experience than a decade at a sturdy, steady football league club.
Take a manager like Sven-Göran Eriksson who moved from Sweden after winning a double with IFK Göteborg onto a more respected league Portugal – and taking another double with Benfica before heading off to Italy and picking up another double and an armful of other titles and then – eventually – the England job, Jingoism aside it is no wonder that overseas managers are getting the better jobs in British football – they are prepared to take a few risks to further their career rather than sitting at The Reebok or The Valley until the blindingly obvious becomes apparent. Paul Jewell and Martin O’Niell take career risks for progression but even they do not think that the way to get a job at one of the clubs that plays European football is to manage a continental European club.
With risks comes failure – take a look at the Chris Hutchings style sackings on Rafa Beneitz’s CV before he got it right and got rewarded – but setting off the risk is the rewards of success.
Colin Todd will probably not be offered the England job but a good display with Randers could see him move about the Danish league and further around Europe augmenting his CV much more than a few more years battling the reducing budget at Valley Parade ever did.
Paul Jewell has ended up at Derby. Lens, Auxerre, PSG and Metz are four of the bottom five of the French league and a survival great escape in that League would be much more of a feather in the cap than even doing the same at Pride Park.
It would seem that in being banish to Denmark Colin Todd has fallen on a way to push his career back on track far better than jobbing around the lower leagues of English football.