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Despite being appointed as manager of Crawley Town just six days before the start of last season, Richie Barker managed to lead the club to the highest finish in their 125 year history. Now with a full pre season to prepare for the 2013/2014 Richie Barker is intent on carrying on Crawley’s impressive Football League progress.
“For five years as a club, Crawley Town have finished higher than their previous position the season before which really shows how far the club has come. We were 10th last year and obviously if we could finish within that top 10 again that would mean we would better ourselves yet again.
Some of our fans probably had to pinch themselves at times last season to see us finishing ahead of the likes of Preston, Coventry and Notts County. We had a spell where in 3 weeks we played 3 former Premier League teams and we won two and drew one which does show how far the club has progressed.
I believe that the division is going to be a lot harder this year with the likes of Bristol City, Peterborough, Wolves and the promoted teams from league two joining the division and making it a lot stronger. However, we are consolidating on the pitch and also off the pitch where we hope we have made the finances more manageable and we are on our way to making the club more self sustainable.
We are now starting to recruit players to the club that we believe would add value to the football club. So we are recruiting younger, enthusiastic, energetic, athletic players who want to learn, progress their own careers and subsequently help Crawley Town’s development as well.”
“We have two main key words that are really important and indicative of what we are trying to do. The first is the humanistic approach to the way we run the place, where everybody is treated as an equal and a human being. We make sure we have great understanding of what is happening to our people away from their time spent at the club. We understand that life is not perfect and at some stage players may be involved in the responsibilities of things like moving their home, children’s schools etc.
So we take a very human approach to make sure that everybody is happy. We never ask anybody to do something they really don’t want to do and instead ask people to volunteer to do certain things and remember that everyone is a human being.
In terms of the football side of things we try and make sure that every day is a learning environment for players. The training sessions are designed of course for everyone to continue learning but also specifically with the intention that at least a small group of players will go away at the end of the day believing they are a better player than when they walked through the door that morning. We keep training unpredictable so that when players are driving in they haven’t already got a fixed idea of what they will be working on that day which keeps things fresh for everybody.”
“The close season has been a busy educational time for me and one which I have thoroughly enjoyed. As a manager you are continually looking at ways to develop yourself as well as others. On the Pro Licence we will be talking about coaching and football whereas on the Warwick course the focus is on learning more business skills that will help you in your role as a football manager – interaction with staff of all levels, communications skills, creating environments, financial reports, IT.
At Crawley Town we have to bridge a financial gap and we haven’t got the finances that some of the clubs that we have to compete against have. So it’s beneficial for me to have all the tools to help bridge that financial gap by understanding what goes on above me at the club, in the boardroom, what the Chief Executive is going through and hopefully help understand how we continue to take the football club forward both on and off the pitch.”
“The word that sums up the relationship that I have with Steve Coppell is mentor. He’s a fantastic learning mentor for someone like me who only has two years experience as a manager. He is extremely personable, and he has time for everybody at the football club. He doesn’t force his opinions on anybody and I would strongly recommend to any young managers that if they can find a mentor in a similar mould to Steve then they should do it.
Steve and I had a trust right from the start because I knew that Steve wasn’t looking to do my job and that if things weren’t going well he would try to step in. He’s a fantastic mentor for me and I have learnt as much from him since I joined the club as I have on any educational course.
Steve has won two LMA Manager of the Year awards and he has also managed over 1,000 matches as a manager. Reaching that 1,000 match landmark is a target that I really aspire to being able to match one day.”
“I’d have to look back and describe it as successful for everyone at the club who worked so hard to reach that 10th place finish. It was only the club’s second ever season in the Football League and first year in League One. Some of the opposing teams had greater resources and we still managed to ensure our year on year progression as a club.
One of the ways that I try to assess my development as a manager is by analysing if the football club is in a better place now than when I first started at the club and I certainly hope that Crawley is. We have young players now who are starting to progress, we’ve hopefully established ourselves in League One, we’ve increased our fan base and have players who have hopefully progressed as well due to the environment that we have created.”
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