'A bit of me died that day' - Calum McIntyre on learning lessons after tough Chester spell
Blues boss speaks to The Seal about separating the man from the manager
Calum McIntyre knows a flock of swallows a summer does not make, and a good run of form can go south very quickly.
At 32, McIntyre should really be in the very infancy of his managerial career. But a look around the Premier League and EFL shows a change in trend when it comes to hiring younger managers and head coaches, with McIntyre the same age as Brighton & Hove Albion boss Fabian Hurzeler, and Southampton’s new hire, Tonda Eckhart.
Young minds, fresh ideas, right? Well, yes, but there is also something else required to be able to cope with the burden of being a football manager, where it is you who is the lighting rod for hostility when things go wrong, where it is you who will pay the price for a losing run by losing your job.
Football management is not for the faint hearted, or for those who don’t throw themselves heart and soul into it. It is all consuming.
Whenever I have sat down to have a chat with the Blues boss, whether personally or professionally, the buzz of his phone or his watch every two minutes is commonplace, it almost becomes white noise after a while. It’s a player, an agent, a member of the club. It is treadmill that you can’t jump off. It doesn’t take long to understand how football management can consume a person, how it can take up their every waking thought, and when they are able to sleep, how it wakes them up in cold sweats. You really have to be all in, near obsessed, or you won’t survive.
The football industry is a drug. To be part of it, even as a journalist these past 15 years, is something that you never want to let go of. It is full of excitement, it is full of jeopardy, it is full of passion. While it might not be a matter of life and death, it is religion for people. They pay thousands a year to follow their teams up and down the country in pursuit of happiness. It provides a sense of belonging and identity, and for some in our community is the only way they have contact with the outside world and friendship groups, the only positive that exists for some.
With all that in mind, the pressure is enormous. Everyone wants to win, that is the name of the game. But everyone can’t, of course. Good times come and go, and Chester fans know more than most what the bad times look like. The gut punches that the Blues have had to endure down the years have almost been too many to bear. Almost.
But with every new season there is renewed hope and fresh optimism that come the end of the season there will be a moment to savour, one that makes all the long treks to the coldest, bleakest parts of this green and pleasant land on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons all worth it.
Chester’s extra-time defeat by Scunthorpe United back in May was cruel. It didn’t feel just. But the response the players and management got at the final whistle was heartening. There was a recognition for what had been achieved. The final hurdle couldn’t be cleared, but some demons had been laid to rest, and there was a unified mentality that next season the Blues could go one better.
In October, following a home defeat to Bedford Town that left the Blues languishing in the lower reaches of the table, sentiment among the fan base was low. So low, in fact, that the Blues board put out a statement outlining that talks had taken place with McIntyre and clear objectives outlined with regards to what was expected of the club from a competitive standpoint.
At 32, McIntyre has more experience than his young years would normally suggest. He’s been Blues boss since 2022 having built up a strong reputation as the club’s Academy head coach, and he cut his teeth with a successful stint in first-team management at Runcorn Linnets at the age of 26.
As someone who lives in the city, is a Chester fan, has stood on the terraces and had the viewpoint of Blues fans first hand, McIntyre knew full well what he was getting himself into when he took the job. What he might not have been prepared for was how to keep the man and the manager separate, and just how cutting criticism can be.
