Darren Moore interview: Sheffield Wednesday axe took its toll – but it is part of the game
After pulling off the seemingly impossible, how do football managers find it within themselves to go again? The answer will be in the Etihad Stadium technical area this weekend when Darren Moore, who masterminded a football miracle last season, faces treble-winner Pep Guardiola.
Guardiola describes the season following success as starting at the bottom of the mountain. For Moore, the circumstances were different after sealing Sheffield Wednesday’s promotion from League One after falling 4-0 down in the play-offs against Peterborough. He left the club three weeks later, which was not only a surprise but took a mental and physical toll.
There was only one cure. When the Huddersfield Town job came up, Moore had three interviews to be part of the club’s vision under new American owner Kevin M Nagle, just 30 miles from where he had just left.
“My body just felt like a ton,” Moore said. “Everything was really heavy. You switch off and end up feeling tired in the daytime. But it is because you’ve totally switched off. Your body is aching, your shoulders are aching, you are knotted up and go to your chiropractor. You’re not thinking. Everything after that seemed an effort.
“But you end up picking yourself back up after thinking you don’t want to do anything. But management is bang, bang, bang, you keep going with games, getting in, driving the team, going again on the touchline, watching videos until 3am and going back into work. When I look back, from the first year in the play-off’s [with Wednesday] I had to go back after five days. But I just had to go back.”
When football is in the blood, managers like Guardiola and Moore cannot stay away for too long. Moore is comfortable in his new surroundings at Huddersfield’s training complex. Not so long ago there was a bowls club and bar next to the pitches, but after building work and expansion it is one of the better facilities in the Championship.
‘If you have bitterness and envy, you end up carrying it with you’
At Sheffield Wednesday, Moore was a one-man band, while at his new club he works closely with a CEO in Jake Edwards and sporting director Mark Cartwright. It is a football environment which Moore enjoys being around as he looks to put his imprint on another club. After last season, there was never a chance of having much of a break.
“It was a surprise. Did I expect it to happen? No,” said Moore. “Did it happen? Yes. But you understand that it is part of the game.
“When these decisions come you accept them for yourself, knowing whether you did as best as you could in that situation. Did you do everything right by the club? Yes, I did. I understand they just want to go a different way and you have to accept that. As long as you are answerable to yourself, you are able to keep moving on.
“If you have bitterness and envy, you end up carrying it with you. All you ever want is to say the time we had there we did a good job and the feeling it brought to everyone as a team. That is all I wanted, as a player or at a club. Now I can go back to any one of my clubs and get a round of applause, only because they associate me with working hard and giving my all.”
Facing Guardiola this weekend comes after meeting him early in his coaching career when Tony Pulis, while at West Brom, invited Moore into his office to be part of his post-match debrief with opposition managers, often over a glass of wine. Moore says he learnt more from those occasions than anything in an FA coaching course.
“He was asking after your family but also showed a love and passion for the game. Not just the Premier League but the whole pyramid and how hard the game was,” said Moore.
“Really respectful. He came in with his staff and I was more eulogising and bouncing with Brian Kidd who was on his staff at the time. It was nice that someone of that ilk, that size within the game globally, be so humble and respectful.”
With Huddersfield just a place above the Championship relegation zone, Moore could be forgiven for thinking the FA Cup was not the priority, but he has told his young players to cherish their moment against the best team in the world.
“I told the boys it is a wonderful occasion for us to be facing the holders and probably the best team in the world,” he added. “What a moment for us to step into that arena and be against the very best. I would imagine, if you were ever dreaming as a boy about being a footballer and what it would look like, Sunday would be it.
“Playing in that arena against that calibre of player. As a boy you would say that arena. Some of the boys will have a reality check with that. It is not something you brush over, it is something to be cherished and that is what I feel in terms of my emotions, but remain professional as I would for all games.”
