The Bostik Friday Interview: "I don't have a CV, I dig holes!"

Corinthian-Casuals manager James Bracken on the fine line between success and failure, the joys of being an amateur, the passion of people in pink- and his own ambitions.


These days, when you talk about football, the subject of money is never far behind. Whether it’s the wages of Paul Pogba or Wayne Rooney, the spending of Ebsfleet United, the budget of Billericay Town or the difficulties currently being experienced by Dulwich Hamlet, whatever the level you focus on the same story floats to the top. Money talks, money buys success, money makes the football world go around.

So what happens when you don’t have any money? When you have a budget of zero, and it actually costs your players money to play for your club? Well, obviously, you qualify for the playoffs, get to the final, lose in a penalty shootout, see nine of your players depart and then despite having to rebuild your squad sit in second place in the Bostik South Division half way through November, whilst scoring goals for fun! Or perhaps that only happens if you are Corinthian-Casuals, and your manager is James Bracken.

We caught up with James as he prepared for a home clash with second bottom Ashford United, fresh from a 6-1 thrashing of South Park midweek, to talk about the pain of last season, the current campaign, Casuals amateur ethos and how it felt to have to look at a ten-foot flag with his face on it every weekend.

James makes his point! (image from Stuart Tree)

James makes his point! (image from Stuart Tree)

I’d like to start by taking you back to the end of last season, if I may. Just before your playoff final against Dorking Wanderers you commented that if you didn’t win the season would be a failure. In hindsight, was that a little harsh?

I suppose for anyone outside of the club then it would have looked as if we’d had a great season. We had no budget, which I suppose might- on paper anyway- have made us favourites to go down, and on that basis we’d overachieved. But when you know that you’re capable of promotion, and you know how hard you’ve worked, that your team is good enough- and then you go into the playoff final, dominate it, and then lose 5-4 on penalties- well it can’t feel like success. I can’t look at it as a successful season no matter how hard I try.

You’d had two seasons as manager at Casuals by that point. In the first, you were denied a shot at the playoffs by a points deduction, and then the second ends as we’ve just described. Did you feel that you’d been rather unlucky?

On reflection I wonder whether we’d have got promotion in that first season if we’d had the chance. We were in good form, confident, and certainly had we not gone up the experience of the playoffs would have stood us in good stead last April, but it wasn’t to be.

Then again, had we gone up in the first year we might not have been ready for the Premier Division and have come straight back down again. Everything happens for a reason.

Most of the play-off final side from April left in pre-season, so if you end up in the same position again you won’t have that experience this year, either. Did you expect them to go?

I expected to lose a few, although not nine if I’m honest. That said, in reflection I think it’s been a blessing. Don’t get me wrong, I lost some good lads, people who I like and who played incredibly well for me, but after the way the season ended we were all so disappointed. If we’d come back this year with the same squad there may well have been a little bit of a hangover, people wondering whether they wanted to put themselves through that again, and I think actually that perhaps that was the driving factor behind some of the departures. I think some of the lads couldn’t face the season after the disappointment of last year.

Bringing in so many players has given the whole place a fresh feel, and in pre-season I changed the shape a little, changed the approach, so that we’d feel as if we were starting with a clean slate. So far that’s gone really well.

The table certainly suggests that. But how do you go about rebuilding most of your squad in such a short time- particularly given that you’ve no financial incentive to give the new arrivals, indeed it costs them money?

The players who come here and stay do so because they enjoy playing for the club, they buy in to what the club is about, and they buy in to my ethos. I believe that we’re going to win every week, and I look players in the eye and tell them that if they join us they are going to win. For some players that’s worth more than the sixty or seventy quid a week they might earn at this level. The club might be amateur but it’s run extremely professionally, as well as any club in the Division above us, and it’s a great place to work, a great place to play. The players I bring in like being in that environment.

In many ways having no budget is a negative- I can’t go out and bring in a replacement quickly from another club if a player leaves, for example- but it’s a positive too, in that I don’t have any players who don’t like me or what I’m asking them to do just staying to pick up their pay cheque. That has a real benefit to team spirit; everyone that’s part of our squad is here just because they want to be, pure and simple.

On the subject of money, then, there was a programme article last season where your anger at those people who were claiming that you couldn’t possibly have such a good side without paying them was quite apparent. Does it still rile you?

I’m a little bit over it, I suppose. I take it partly as a compliment. Everyone knows our situation and people who make claims like that are probably overspending and underachieving, and if clutching at straws makes them feel better, then fine. As a club, we maintain a strict amateur status, and as an individual I’m not going to lie about it. Casuals should never have a budget; the club stands for something unique in football, and when I came here I did it to prove a point, to prove I didn’t need money to be successful. I’d won more than thirty trophies in nine years at Sutton United, and when I left to take a job with a zero budget and no salary it was suggested that I’d taken leave of my senses, but I’m proving a point.

It did seem a little bizarre, to an outsider, when you went from a club where you were being touted as the next big thing and needed an extension on your trophy cabinet to one where you had to rely entirely on your own ability. Proving a point is all well and good, but there must have been more to it than that?

I wanted to challenge myself, but I knew the club, and there was something special about it. My brother (keeper Danny) was there already, I’d probably seen them play around thirty times over the previous few seasons, and the whole place had a good feeling about it. Some Non-League grounds have no atmosphere, no solidarity, but Casuals were different. The supporters would turn up and really support the team every week; it didn’t matter if you were two-nil down at half time, they’d still be singing your name, still positive. I thought that I’d like to try and give them some success, they deserved it.


They certainly make up in volume for what they might lack in numbers…

Yes, but they don’t lack so much for numbers anymore, either. Crowds have risen every season, and that makes a huge difference to a small club like ourselves. And the atmosphere is superb; flags, singing, people having a good time- it’s everything that football should be. They help the players enormously- having people singing your name when you’re playing gives you a real boost, and they get behind the team at all times. We get a lot of love, and that creates a positive response.

When you’re playing at this level and the fans are standing behind a fence a few feet away telling you you’re rubbish, you hear every word. That’s not pleasant, and it certainly isn’t motivational. It doesn’t happen here. We have a really healthy relationship with our supporters, we inspire them and they inspire us. That’s how it should be.

How does it feel to walk out and see your face on a ten-foot flag every weekend?

Kind of odd! But at the same time, I was really touched. For the lads behind the goal to go out and invest their money in it, to lug it around every weekend and then have to spend time putting it up and taking it down when they could be in the bar with their mates, it’s just fabulous…and it’s a reminder to me every time I see it that we’re doing something right. When you’re putting in your time and effort for nothing, it’s great to get that appreciation, to know that people think I’m making a difference. I never expected recognition like that, and it still means an awful lot.

Back to this season, then. Five league victories in a row, second in the division, top goalscorers. When you were trying to rebuild back in the summer, did you expect that?

I always expect to be at the right end of the table. I didn’t expect to be top goalscorers, however- we lost Shaun Okojie in the summer and he scored forty goals last season, and that’s always going to be difficult to replace. There aren’t many players in our league like that; some players on 4-500 pounds a week won’t score half that many. I spent the summer looking at the way we needed to play to accommodate the players we had and to get the right results, to get tighter at the back and maybe break quickly, but as it’s happened the lads have all stood up to be counted and we’ve had goals from all areas. Dan Cunningham is our leading goalscorer but he’s not at the top of the scoring charts for the league. Everyone is chipping in, which is what you want, as if you rely on one goalscorer and he has a drought, you have a problem.

You face Ashford United tomorrow. They haven’t won since 23rd September, and you won 6-1 away from home on Tuesday night. Will you have to guard against over confidence?

Of course. Never take anyone lightly, things can change every weekend. We need to be focused. No disrespect to Ashford but they are in their first season at this level and ninety percent of the top sides in our division will take six points from them. We need to do the same, and if we’re to do that we need to be completely on our game. We can’t afford to relax, not for a moment- one slip and someone will take advantage.

Thinking about your career, then, how far do you think you can take Casuals?

Beyond this season? I think if we got promoted we’d be able to get to the playoffs, but it would be hard. There’s so much more financial clout in the division above, and that makes it difficult to compete. We’d also end up with clubs making our players offers that they couldn’t refuse; when you’re earning nothing and somebody offers you three or four hundred pounds a week to play then I’d have to encourage the players to think about that, to perhaps take that chance- that kind of money could be life changing. But we’d need to be realistic. I think we could sustain a top ten, top eight position, and then who knows?

What about yourself though? You talk about your players not being able to turn down big money- could you? You must be getting offers given the level of success you’ve had over the past few years?

Not perhaps as many as you might think, and not from clubs that I could see myself at. Look, I’ve never, ever applied for a job in my life- I don’t have a CV, I dig holes for a living, I’m a builder! I was offered the job I’m in; the club approached me, not the other way around. I’ve never touted myself around, I just let my results do the talking. I am ambitious, I just want to work for clubs where their ambition matches mine. I’m happy when I’m winning, and I’m winning, so I’m happy!

Money talks in football, but is the work you’ve done over the last couple of seasons proof positive that success doesn’t have to come with a chequebook- or is that perhaps a little naïve?

You look at any league, and you’ll tend to find that the clubs with the most money are up at the top, and the ones with the least money are down at the bottom. The rich clubs tend to gravitate upwards. Yes, there are occasionally exceptions, but not often. If you look at Billericay, for example, for them to bring in the calibre of player they have and not to be successful, well that would be a catastrophe. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way, because sometimes the managers with a big budget don’t know what to do with it and don’t spend it wisely, but usually if you have the money you can buy the success. I don’t think we’ve been as successful as we can be yet, but I think we’re batting well above our weight, and that we’re doing that because of what the club is about. We do things the right way and attract the right people because of that.

To some extent having no finance holds us back at Casuals. There’s no point denying that. But on the other hand, some things are more important than money. What we have is unique, if it were to change that not only we would lose, but football would lose. The club should never change its ethos to fit in, or just to chase a dream. We need to chase that dream as best we can by being what we are.

Casuals take on Ashford United at King George’s Field tomorrow, kicking off at 3PM.

Many thanks to Stuart Tree, ‘Dan’ and ‘The Chief of Grief’ for asking questions via social media.

All images courtesy of Stuart Tree.

Where next?

The Bostik League Show- Episode 21 The Back of the Net team- and the excitement of the cup!
The Bostik League Show- Episode 20 Goals galore from the Back of the Net team

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