Hibs' Lee Johnson opens up on working with SAS and family history - 'I love the project'

Lee Johnson, during his time in charge of Oldham Athletic, came up against his father Gary and his Yeovil Town team in 2013.

Never mind an SOS, Hibs manager Lee Johnson is banking on the insight of the SAS to help safeguard his sanity as he looks to save the club’s season.

Heading into another high-stakes match, this time the capital head-to-head, he needs to somehow engineer an end to his side’s four-game losing streak and the club’s nine-game run of derby matches without a win. But to plot the highs, he has had to get better at processing the lows over a managerial career that has had periods of both.

“I do work hard and I do wear my heart on my sleeve and sometimes that does naturally overflow - but in a good way as well,” said the Leith manager, who revealed he likes to tap into Edinburgh’s rich history as a way to gain some perspective. You have to experience pain and bad times to be able to learn your lessons and reinvent your philosophy, or the way you want to play. But, it’s in my blood. You should have seen me when I wasn’t working. I’ve been ingrained in football since my dad was a manager, coaching soccer schools. It’s a blessing and a curse all in one, but I love it, I love the project. Hopefully, I'll be here for many years.”

While the pressures of management can take their toll, watching his dad, who has managed the likes of Cambridge United, Yeovil, Bristol City, Cheltenham and Torquay over the years, has been educational. “It’s an interesting journey really because I suppose the security of the family becomes a very important part of that,” continued Johnson. “Very early on in my dad’s career, I think his contract was £50 a week as commercial manager at Cambridge United and reserve team manager. So we were not a family blessed with big finances.

Johnson will need to lift his Hibs team for Saturday's derby clash against Hearts.

“When he then got the manager’s job at Cambridge, he used to come back after a loss and you felt it in the family because back then there were no one-year pay-offs. It was a week, then you were gone, so that’s how important it was. I could feel that as a kid, but, obviously, I love football, so that gives you the drive to be better and understand how important it is. There are certainly still elements of me taking it home and, as my daughter is growing up, there are times when I haven’t got that balance right.

“But I have worked with the SAS in the past because a bad loss almost becomes like post-traumatic stress that you need to go through. It’s not life or death, obviously, like it would be in the military, but you feel it to that level. It is the same chemical reaction. You just come out of it quicker. So a lot of my work in the past was about getting through that process quicker because you almost need to go into a dark place to find out exactly what went wrong and reinvent yourself in a week, always moving forward but feeling what everyone else is feeling. I think that is one of the things that great managers do really well. They manage to take a breath, they step out every week and do their best, but are also humble enough to take it for everyone else and let them flourish.”