Paul Forsyth: John Barnes interview

Published on Saturday 27 June 2009 19:40

JOHN BARNES has been waiting too long for an opportunity like this. A decade has passed since he last led a club into pre-season training, as he will do this week with Tranmere Rovers, ten years of filling in job applications and, in many cases, being denied even an interview. He knows it didn't work out at Celtic, where his voice carried no authority, and his mistakes were magnified by Glasgow's infamous looking glass, but ten years? Without even a sniff of a second chance

Since June of 1999, when he and Kenny Dalglish stood on the steps of Celtic Park, hailed as the club's "dream ticket", there has been scarcely a flicker of interest in Barnes. Until Tranmere came along, there were no offers from England's lower-division clubs, never mind the kind he used to play for, all of which has left the former Liverpool winger feeling hard done by. Although Celtic won 12 of his first 13 games at the club, most remember the 10 points by which they trailed Rangers six months later, and the Scottish Cup defeat by Inverness Caledonian Thistle that sealed his fate. "Don't get me wrong, I know that's not good enough for Celtic, but not being successful at Celtic shouldn't automatically mean that you can't be successful in League Two. Alan Shearer started at a big club and it hasn't ruined his reputation. Roy Keane started at a big club and he's got another job with Ipswich. It depends on who you are and how you are perceived."

His words, hanging in the air, invite repetition. How you are perceived? Barnes pauses a moment before dropping the diplomacy. "If you look at the black managers in the game, Paul Ince wasn't given long at Blackburn, Ricky Hill only had one shot at it. There are a lot of bad managers out there who are white, but they always go into another job, and another job, and another job. When black managers lose their job, they don't seem to get another opportunity."

The impression was that Barnes had chosen what was a comfortable career in the media, punctuated by the odd celebrity appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, but he had sought to escape it many times. Only last November did the man capped 79 times by England return to coaching, and that was with Jamaica, the country of his birth. During seven months in charge, he presided over an 11-match unbeaten record, including seven victories, which persuaded Tranmere that he might be worth a punt after all.

While Barnes, at 45, has been given another opening, many still wait for their first. Too often, he says, the face doesn't fit, quite literally. "In the mid 1980s, there was this stereotypical view of black players," he explains. "They said you couldn't have black centre-halves or black midfielders. Now, of course, they are accepted everywhere. But hardly any of those guys go on to become managers, and you have to ask why that is. I am not going to call it racism, but the facts speak for themselves. Come to your own conclusions."

The cause could do with a black manager succeeding at the first attempt, as Barnes was destined never to do. Expected to play for another season with Charlton Athletic, the opportunity to lead a club of Celtic's size came much too early in his career. Although fans, directors and players alike had no objection to his appointment alongside Dalglish, all were surprised at the power invested in him by the club's director of football.

Ten years on, as Tony Mowbray settles into the Celtic manager's office, the last Englishman to occupy it presents him with a word of advice. It is not enough, he says, to focus on the football at such a big club. You have to be political as well, a man with friends in high places. "I think the directors thought Kenny would have more of an influence, but that was never the plan as far as I was concerned. When he asked me if I wanted to come, it was to be (head] coach. That's what he wanted, that's what I wanted, but the directors expected him to have more of an input, and maybe the players did too."

Barnes is not afraid to admit that he lost the dressing-room. Celtic, he says, had been decent enough until Henrik Larsson broke his leg in October, which was when the rot set in. By the time Mark Viduka was throwing his boots across the dressing room, and refusing to play in the second half of that historic defeat by Inverness, the writing was on the wall. Although Barnes maintains to this day that he was saying and doing all the right things, if the squad thought otherwise, he was dead in the water.

"The players lost belief in me," he admits. "If Martin O'Neill had come in and said exactly the same things as I did, it would have worked because they would have listened to him. He would have got a better response. I had a lack of experience, but if the players had believed in me, we could have been successful. For the first three months, everything was going well then Henrik Larsson broke his leg. Then we lost Paul Lambert in a game against Rangers. That was when it all went pear-shaped. If we had had those two, who knows what might have happened?"

Mowbray is likely to encounter no such problems in the season ahead. For a start, he has experience, in Scotland as well as England, but more than that, he is already popular in Glasgow, and that counts for a lot at the Old Firm. "It is all about the perception people have of you," says Barnes. "Tony is a proven manager in Scotland, and had a successful spell as a player with Celtic. The people like him. He was a hero up there. Although he is English, he has their affection. He has honesty, integrity, and his teams are well organised.

"He also likes them to play in the right way. You get teams, like West Ham and Spurs, whose fans want them to play with a certain style, and Celtic come into that category, which is fine, as long as it's not at the expense of success. The crowd will also demand results, but I'm a firm believer that you can do both. With better players, Tony could have done a lot more with West Brom.

"I'm just glad that a diligent, hard-working, honest man has been given an opportunity. There are a lot of managers working in this game who do not have his integrity, or his decency, but they have found themselves in charge of big clubs."

Barnes, for the time being, is content to be leading a small one, not least because it is Tranmere, for whom he has a soft spot. During ten years with Liverpool he made many friends in the area. Prenton Park, home to the League One club, stands just half a mile from his children's school. And Jason McAteer, a former team-mate at Anfield, is his assistant manager.

The challenge for Barnes will be to make the most of limited resources, just as he did with Jamaica, who never had at their disposal the overseas players he was promised. "At Celtic, we had the quality, but we didn't have the belief," he says. "With Jamaica, it was the other way round. It proves that you don't need the best players if you have togetherness, discipline and a good system. That's why I'm looking forward to Tranmere. I can't wait to get started."

After nearly 10 years, another few days shouldn't be too much trouble.

John Barnes is representing the MARS Balls Get Britain Playing 200,000 ball giveaway. For more details, see www.marsballsgetbritainplaying.com