Jimmy Sirrel - Footballer, manager and director

Published on Wednesday 1 October 2008 22:45

JIMMY Sirrel, who has died after a short illness, is recognised as one of the great club managers of English football.

Born: 2 February, 1922, in Glasgow. Died: 25 September, 2008, in Nottingham, aged 86.

Like any football-mad Glasgow boy growing up in the Thirties, he dreamed of a career in the game, but his hopes were initially thwarted by the greater game of the Second World War, during which he saw active service in the Royal Navy. However, towards the end of hostilities he was playing regularly for Renfrew Juniors to such good effect that Arsenal, Celtic and Rangers all wanted to sign him.

Sirrel opted to go to Celtic Park, making his first team debut towards the end of the wartime Southern League campaign. When the Scottish League resumed, in 1946, he became an occasional first team player during one of Celtic's least-successful spells ever.

In truth, his hopes of holding down a regular place at inside forward weren't helped by a series of injuries, and perhaps the most lasting impression of his time with the club is his sending off in a match against Motherwell in 1948. In those days the expectations of on-field discipline at the club were such that Celtic players were rarely sent off.

In 1949 he was released and immediately headed for England, joining the now defunct Bradford Park Avenue before continuing a peripatetic career around the lower leagues, with spells at Brighton and Hove Albion, then Aldershot.

It was at Aldershot, in 1954, that the now 32-year-old Sirrel first tried his hand at coaching, and for six years he was a backroom boy with the club, before moving to Brentford as first team coach in 1960.

These were turbulent times at Griffin Park; managers came and went; Sirrel stayed, until, in 1967, he was promoted to manager. So poor were Brentford that the new boss quickly became a jack-of-all-trades – groundsman, maintenance man, laundryman. There was talk of a takeover by Queen's Park Rangers, so when Jack Dunnet, a former Bees' director, now chairman at Notts County, approached Sirrel and invited him to join England's oldest club as manager, he leapt at the chance, moving into the manager's office at Meadow Lane in November 1969.

County were then languishing in the Fourth Division, but, under Sirrel's guidance they began to climb through the leagues and by 1973 they were in the Second Division, today's Championship.

His squad were mainly journeymen, who responded to Sirrel's coaching and man management skills, and the man who was the pick of that squad, Don Masson, to this day has no doubts of the part Sirrel played in turning him from just another footballer into a Scotland captain.

His ability to make bricks without straw at Notts County persuaded bigger clubs to seek him out and in 1975 he accepted the challenge of restoring the fortunes of Sheffield United.

Sadly for him, the Blades, in spite of a raid on his old club, Celtic, which took the wonderful Jimmy Johnstone to Bramall Lane, remained rusty and it was almost a relief when he was re-called to Meadow Lane and challenged to keep County in the Second Division in 1977.

It was a challenge he failed to keep – instead he took the club to the First Division, now the Premiership, in 1981, ending a 55-year exile from the top flight.

Not only that, he kept them there for a couple of seasons, before stepping up to become general manager, with the young Howard Wilkinson taking over as first team coach.

Wilkinson moved on and Larry Lloyd, one of Brian Clough's European Cup winners with neighbours Nottingham Forest, crossed the Trent to take over. Lloyd however, couldn't stave off relegation and, with County languishing in the lower reaches of the Second Division, Sirrel again put on his tracksuit and took charge.

He couldn't prevent relegation, but his experience did stabilise a club which was almost in freefall, before, in 1987, aged 65, he retired from management.

Sirrel didn't retire from football, however; he accepted Arthur Cox's offer of the chief scout's role at Derby County and, when he gave up that post he joined the Notts County board and continued to scout for them part-time.

This filled a void in his life, Cathy, his wife of almost 40 years, mother of his daughter, Audrey, and son, David, had died in 1984 and football in general and the County family in particular kept him going at a difficult time.

His legendary status in Nottingham was confirmed in 1993, when County renamed one of their stands the Jimmy Sirrel Stand, and he continued to be a regular attender at the ground until his final illness began towards the end of last season.

During his time with County, just across the River Trent another great club manager, Brian Clough, was winning everything with Nottingham Forest. It says much for Sirrel's talents that he was never in the shade of "Old Big 'Ead", indeed the pair apparently enjoyed a good relationship.

He became, along with Sir Bobby Robson, an minence grise of football management; a sounding board for good advice to a troubled young boss, and his sound advice and vast football knowledge have been lauded by such as Sir Alex Ferguson since his death in Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre.

Received wisdom in football has it that the best managers are perhaps those players who were little better than average – Ferguson and Jock Stein are the most-oft-quoted examples, Jimmy Sirrel should surely also be singled out for such praise.

He may not have won the top trophies, like Ferguson or Stein, but he brought lasting success to a club which had little money, a low fan base and no great expectations. He gave County fans the chance to hold their heads up and he did this without the backing of a chairman with deep pockets.

He was forced to work at the lower end of the transfer market, but he took so-called average players such as Masson and a young Irishman named Nigel Worthington and made them better players, gave them belief and watched them fly.

Jimmy Sirrel was, by any measure, a great football manager.