Interview: Steve Kean, Blackburn manager

By AIDAN SMITH
Published on Saturday 28 January 2012 05:10

EVERYONE at Blackburn Rovers, workplace of the embattled Steve Kean, is extremely friendly on this grey, wet day and that starts with the first player I recognise, the midfielder David Dunn, who breaks off from a phonecall in his training kit to say hello.

By the time Yakubu Aiyegbeni approaches, swinging his YSL toiletbag with a cheesy grin, I am contemplating a high five with the striker in the style of his manager.

Who would boo us? Certainly not the girls behind the desk at the training complex, led by Lesley or “the gorgeous Lesley” as she’s described by defender Chris Samba on the autographed calendar above her desk - who is so angry when she finds out I’ve been charged £30 for the taxi fare from the railway station at Preston that she sprints out to the forecourt to scold and chase the driver, hanging about in the hope of the return fare.

You’ll remember Kean’s high five with Yakubu, I’m sure. For me, it’s been the most did-that-really-just-happen? moment in this gobsmacking Premiership season of downing tools in the dugout and setting off fireworks in the home. Last month Yakubu scored for Rovers against Swansea and ran to the halfway line to share his joy with the boss, the baldy guy in funereal black with the thick Glasgow accent that even Glaswegians didn’t know until recently. Cheers rang round Ewood Park; at last some respite for the crowd, the team and the manag ... but no, as soon as the pair slapped palms, the acclaim turned to abuse, all of it for Kean. This still counted as the official response to what just happened on the pitch, begging the question: in the entire history of football, in even the most tinpot and crackpot corners of South America, have fans ever booed a goal for their own team? Incredible.

But there will be no boos here. We’re in the Ribble Valley, a fair old way from Ewood, and the 44-year-old former Celtic reject is among colleagues and sympathisers. There’s Yakubu and there’s the gorgeous Lesley. Then there’s his security guard and his press officer. While the latter insists on monitoring the interview – “We’ve had a lot of bad press recently,” he says – the former accompanied him to training and afterwards will see him safely home again. Next Saturday when Rovers play Newcastle at Ewood he’ll be just out of shot but close enough. And in between times? Well, Kean doesn’t go out much, not in Blackburn, but if he was to brave the streets his shadowy detail would have to be there.

“It’s not ideal,” he admits with the understatement beloved of football folk, especially the Scottish ones. “But the club have decided I need looking after so this guy’s with me all the time, just in case there’s some unpleasantness and maybe a flashpoint.”

There’s been plenty of unpleasantness already. A scan of the internet would remind you of that, although I’m sure he doesn’t go there. Google “Steve Kean” and his name is immediately connected to other words, the first of which is “out”. Then comes “jokes”, “conspiracy”, “Glasgow gangsters”, “new contract”, “An Idiot Abroad” (referring to some YouTube splicing of Ricky Gervais sidekick Karl Pilkington with our man discussing David Beckham and Ronaldinho, alleged transer targets). And of course there’s “to be sacked”. Well, he hasn’t been, not yet, although a hardcore element at Ewood has been doing its darnedest.

When wins like the one against Swansea couldn’t be followed up, cementing Rovers in the bottom three, the calls for him to quit or be emptied just got louder and TV pundits, paid handsomely for their expert views, all agreed: “It won’t be long now.” When the club forced fans to leave their “Kean out!” banners at the turnstiles, a well-off supporter hired a plane to fly the message over the ground. The Beatles famously sang about “4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire”. None was bigger than the one where Kean found himself, just before Christmas.

This extraordinary story has contained elements of comedy and farce. Rovers are owned by the Indian poultry giant Venkys, who when they took over were apparently unaware that clubs could ever fall out of the cash-drenched top flight of English football. They’d made the mistake of counting their chickens. Then they made what some perceived as a second error, declaring that Kean was “unsackable”. In the run-up to Christmas – a busy time in their trade, obviously – Venkys weren’t much in evidence at Ewood, having experienced its hostility previously. Suddenly the manager, ever more isolated, was facing two “must-win” home matches against fellow strugglers.

Rovers lost the first to West Brom and on the eve of the second against Bolton the local paper called for Kean to be sacked. So what did he do? Only say this: “There is pressure tomorrow but we have to enjoy it.” Was he serious? Did he enjoy being Blackburn’s manager that night – they lost again – and at all other times this past crazy year?

“Of course,” he says today. “You have to, don’t you? When the games are far from comfortable because you’re not safe, you have to enjoy them – almost in a perverse way. The games were massive back then and they’re still massive now, every single one of them. But you say to yourself: ‘Would you rather be involved in nothing matches?’ I wouldn’t.”

Just as well, because next up for him were two momentous away fixtures – at Liverpool and Man U. Amazingly, they drew the first and won the second, ruining Sir Alex Ferguson’s birthday and his Hogmanay. Then Blackburn, being Blackburn, lost again at home to Stoke only to rally once more, beat Fulham with ten men, grab a draw at Everton and, if not quite climb out of their hole, then at least hang onto its lip, just above the relegation places.

Whatever happens, I suggest, he should write a book. “We’ve been talking about that,” he says, looking towards the press officer. But Kean’s smile is tense. His performance in his office is much like the one we know from Match of the Day: slightly nervous, mildly on the back foot, as if he’s anticipating more horribleness, even though I’ve come in peace. I don’t think the press officer’s presence helps. The man probably thinks Kean requires protection but I reckon he needs to step outside this controlled environment, relax over a drink, free himself from standard-response football-speak and maybe introduce some humour to his story, however black it might be. I’m about to tell him I’ll buy, and will fill in for his bodyguard for the afternoon, when he says he has to take in a reserve match later.

So who, in as far as it’s possible to learn today, is Steve Kean? In Dalmarnock in Glasgow’s east end, he was the only child in a Catholic family living in a tenement in a predominantly Protestant area. That little edgy smile again: “Aye, you had to grow up pretty quick. My dad drove a van and my mum was a dinner lady. Both worked hard and were away first thing in the morning, and negotiating the journey to the Catholic school past the two Protestant ones was something I had to do myself and became quite good at. You had to have your wits about you, vary your routes. But of course there were times when I got a bit of a pasting.”

If you’re a product of the school of hard knocks – quite literally – then maybe the vitriol of a few football fans doesn’t seem so bad. But Kean doesn’t load his back-story with deep significance, or embellish it as defining. Yes it was tough, but: “In Scotland, in my part of it, thousands of boys will have similar stories.” He will admit, though, that the Dalmarnock experience has prepared him for anything Bratislava and Ljubljana can throw at him. “I’ve been scouting in places like Slovakia and Slovenia and said to myself: ‘Best not to hang about here.’ Maybe, as regards tension in the air, I’ve got a sixth sense.”

Surely, though, a “perverse” determination to succeed and prove the doubters and dissenters wrong can only take you so far. Wouldn’t the occasional bit of love be nice? “Well, I get that at home. My wife Margaret was at the Bolton game and that was tough for her but she’s a fighter from the east end like me and has been fantastically supportive. I’ve had to stop my two kids coming to games, though. Some of the stuff that’s been going on they wouldn’t understand.”

Blackburn’s owners continue to back their man, at least from afar. He adds: “We’ve had a great relationship from the start, speak on the phone every day and once a month I go to India for a long meeting. It’s an overnight flight to Mumbai, a three-hour drive to Pune, then I’m back on the overnight – not as bad as it sounds. And India’s some place – real extremes of wealth and poverty. In front of your car can be a white Rolls-Royce, then a rickshaw, then an elephant.”

Regarding their investment in the club, fans complain that Venkys promised Rolls-Royces but so far have only supplied rickshaws. Kean, who continues to give that loyalty right back, won’t criticise them. “I’m very confident that the funding will come to enable us to strengthen the team in the right way.” Did he think Beckham and Ronaldinho would have been right for Rovers? The club were serious in their interest, and, no, he wouldn’t have been daunted by superstar reputations – but any glamour signings would have to “play, not graze”.

Kean also has his contemporaries rooting for him. Cynics will say that the managers’ mafia always do this, but some like David Moyes have publicly stated their “disgust” at the harsh words raining down from the Ewood stands. It forced the Everton boss to give up watching the Bolton match at half-time and he said afterwards: “I couldn’t believe the criticism these fans gave their manager. Steve Kean stood on the touchline and took it all. He was brave enough and man enough to do that. If they’d supported their team they might have got a result.”

Kenny Dalglish, Harry Redknapp and Alan Pardew have been similarly impressed with Kean’s dignity under fire. Okay, but what did Sir Alex say after that stunning 3-2 defeat which has left Man U trailing neighbours City by three points? “Well, we shared a glass of wine and he was very gracious and complimentary about how well we’d played and he told me just to keep going. I intend to.”

Kean is a modest fellow and – one imagines this is regulation-issue when you hail from Dalmarnock – not in the least bit solipsistic. In the short time I have with him he doesn’t stray too near “feelings”. Of course, the campaign against him has been “no’ nice”, but he’s able to shut it out on the training-ground. “The fantastic thing is I can come in here and work with the players who’ve given me the same incredible support as the owners and guys in the game I really respect. The time for me to worry would be if I could see in the players’ eyes that I’d lost them but that’s never happened and it gives me great confidence. You don’t go to Old Trafford with the youngest team in Blackburn’s history, average age 22, and get a result like that if you’re not at it.”

All of which leaves the fans, or at least what he calls the “vocal minority” because others are with him, and among the 500 letters the club receive each day from roving Rovers fans all over the world, the vast bulk pass on encouragment and good wishes. He urges those who’re frustrated to stick with the team because they’re trying to pull off the near-impossible – only one club bottom of the Premier League at Christmas have ever cheated the drop – and do it playing attractive football.

Under the sacked Sam Allardyce when Kean was No 3, Rovers were aerial-bombardment specialists but that Old Trafford triumph was achieved on the grass. At Celtic the teenaged Kean, a midfielder with Paul McStay, Murdo MacLeod and Tommy Burns all ahead of him, was tutored by four Lisbon Lions: manager Billy McNeill plus John Clark, Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Lennox. “I was taught that the ball is precious, to make sure you keep it. And through Jinky’s stories about running round a junior pitch in the close-season in his dad’s pit boots to build up his strength I learned about hard work and dedication.”

A spell in Portugal, where they like to pass you to death, furthered his education in the game’s finer points. “Folk thought I was mad going there but I just wanted to play.” He says he’s always had to “hunt” for a career in football: as a player and when he hung up his boots at Reading to become an under-nines coach-cum-driver-cum-translator, so he could stay involved.

At Blackburn, despite everything, he’s still involved. Things got so bad for Kean that eventually people started to feel sorry for him. But he doesn’t need sympathy, he just wants “a few more wins, and quickly”. I wish him luck because no one likes to see a fellow Scot suffer, least of all in England, and for the first time there’s a proper, hearty laugh. And he’s dignified to the end when he says: “Is there something in the Scottish character which prevents you from saying you’re beat? Maybe. I know I can do this, but come the time when I have I’m not going to be rubbing any noses in it.”

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azza234

Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 05:48 PM

and blackburn got where they are now on merit and playing as a team we havent got the biggest squad when we got back in the prem but we got back there and belong there unlike u seem to think

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azza234

Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 05:46 PM

so ur saying blackburn are the only team to win the prem by buying players have u forgot the likes of chelsea doesnt matter how u look at it they done the same so u cant sit there and say blackburn bought the league u cant spend 100+ million like chelsea did and say they didnt buy the prem to

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SAS95

Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:24 PM

Watching Steve Kean's face on TV at the end of Bolton game, giving the abuse he had received during the match and how the game panned out, will go down as one of saddest memories in Sport. The man looked absolutely gutted. My wife was fairly upset at the time and I wasn't far behind her. Here was a man who looked certain to be sacked and was on the end of extreme humiliation at the hands of his own fans. It was horrific television. But, what happened next, leading right up to the draw at Goodison (which could have easily have been a win) is in my opinion one of the greatest ever managerial feats I have seen in my lifetime. Kean's interview after the Bolton was as dignified as ever...the team went to Anfield and got a draw and the whole world knows what happened at Old Trafford. The Fulham win with 10 man was also extraordinary. Kean has now steadied the ship and Rovers remain on track to make one of the greatest escapes in the history of English football. Teams above the bottom 3 will be dragged in to the relegation scrap over the coming months and if Rovers can continue to pick up points like they have done recently, I am convinced we will stay up. Before I Post comment here I have to remark on Kean's conduct in this difficult period. He has never blamed anybody else. He has never bagged a single player. He has never blamed the owners. He has never attacked the 'fans' for the horrendous way he has been treated. Never complained about the abuse. He gets villified for being too positive.. The night of the Bolton game, he did not move out of his area. He took all the sh1t that was poured on him. He has backbone. Bigger balls than me and certainly bigger than a lot of the idiots that are behind the campaign to get him out. He's never shied away from an interview. Always fronted up. That takes guts. Regardless of whether we stay up or not, Kean will always be a legend in my eyes.

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Trojan

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 03:45 PM

Aidan Smith has failed to ask any searching questions of Steve Kean. Firstly just how did he manage to get the Blackburn job in the first place. A man with no managerial experience given the top job in one of the world's most high profile football leagues. When Venky's bought Blackburn they readily admitted knowing nothing about football but were relying on 'advisors'. Steve Kean is very close to agent Jerome Anderson who was one of the said advisors. Within days manager Sam Allardyce was sacked and Kean was installed as caretaker manager. Alex Ferguson said at the time "You’ve got that issue at Blackburn of an agent involved and deciding the future of the club, Jerome Anderson, he couldn’t pick his nose. It’s baffling and it’s a serious threat to how clubs get run and how they conduct themselves.”[ Within a couple of days Kean had bypassed the highly respected board and taken it upon himself to fly to India to meet with the owners. This was regarded as highly disrespectful by the said board. Things deteriorated further when Kean and his pal, the agent Anderson, decamped to the training ground during the January transfer window and set about bringing in players with no reference to the board. SEM the agency demanded that the club secretary issued a mandate to a third party for the signing of a player. Days latter the Chairman John Williams left the club. Mrs Desai said that "I know that he did not get along with Steve (Kean) and he had struggled to accept Jerome (Anderson)'s role at the club." Little wonder. Kean has made statements about achieving Champions League football in three to four years. He has talked about signing Ronaldhino, Beckham and Raul. How did a football agent and his client (who was patently not qualified to manage an established premier league club) manage to worm their way into Blackburn Rovers and wield so much power and influence? Just what did they gain? Who picks transfer targets? Who is involved in negotiations? FA rules state that agents shall not ‘have an interest in a club’, which includes ‘being in a position or having any association that may enable the exercise of a material financial, commercial, administrative, managerial or any other influence over the affairs of the Club whether directly or indirectly and whether formally or informally.’ Several investigative journalists are looking into the KeanAnderson relationship with Blackburn Rovers. Why was a manager with one of the worst records in premier league history given a bumper new contract? Blackburn Rovers were an extremely well run, respected, established premier league club. A liitle over 13 months later KeanAndersonVenky's have brought probable relegation and financial collapse. How much was Kean involved in this charade? In a close knit community like Blackburn these events are well known. A proper journalist would be looking into these events and not be writing sugary articles about 'Wee Stevie'. Too scared to go out? Please. Best of all 500 'letters' a day,the majority in support? Wake up and smell the coffee Aidan.

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Waz

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 03:24 PM

Shug you muppet. We do accept that we are a small club in a big league. We do accept we bought the best players and won the league with them. We even accept that we are a middle ranking club (at best) What we don't accept is our club being raped and pillaged and being allowed to become a laughing stock in the football world. You need to realise that the Rovers fans know a damned site more about what is happening at ewood than you or the southern biased press do.

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Shug Hefner

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 02:18 PM

The Blackburn fans need to be realistic enough to realise that they are just a small club in a big league. They have no god given right to success, they bought the league once - but unless someone at that club is willing to outspend Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and a whole host of other clubs with a bigger budget then they need to accept their lot as a middle ranking club.

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