Wild about Harry- the Bostik Friday Interview

One hundred and thirty nine.

The number of a Shakespeare sonnet which has no other title, the atomic number of untriennium (remember that if you’re ever planning to appear on Pointless), and the number of times that Billericay Town have graced the pages of The Sun this season. The last one of those may be slightly exaggerated- although only slightly- but the number 139 does have a significance for Billericay Town this season- it is the percentage increase in their attendances so far.

Here’s another number for you- a smaller one this time. Seven. That’s another percentage- the percentage of the population of Billericay (approximately) who turned out for the top of the table clash with Hendon on 7th October. That might seem a far less impressive number, but consider this. If seven percent of the population of nearby Chelmsford turned out to watch Chelmsford City in National League South, they’d have an average attendance of over twelve thousand. Apply the same maths to Southend on Sea and United would be averaging twelve and a half thousand. The fact that even though both of these clubs are having remarkably successful seasons they aren’t getting anywhere near that number should serve to demonstrate the success that Billericay Town are having this season. Whether you like the business model they have chosen to apply or not, Glenn Tamplin has built it, and they have come.

With only one defeat all season Town currently sit in third place in the Bostik Premier League, five points behind leaders Dulwich Hamlet but with four games in hand. They are also through to the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, the Second Qualifying Round of the FA Trophy, and the Second Round of the Velocity Trophy, unbeaten in knockout competitions. As we look forward to their FA Cup clash at Leatherhead on Sunday we thought we’d catch up with the brains behind their on-field success, joint manager Harry Wheeler, to talk about the dynamics at the club, their media profile, that business model and their most difficult opponents. You might be surprised by some of the answers.

Let’s start with the big game to come, then! On Sunday you head to Fetcham Grove to take on the Tanners. Is the FA Cup important to you this season- and has the match got a bit of an edge to it? The last time you were there, on Good Friday, it ended in a widely reported incident between Jamie O’Hara and some of the home faithful.

So far as the Good Friday incident goes, we’ve got almost an entirely different team now, and they have a different manager. Jamie won’t be available, either. It might be something that causes an edge in the minds of the home supporters, but it’s ancient history for us. Most of our players wouldn’t even know what we were talking about. In any case, nobody likes us anyway, whether it’s Leatherhead or anyone else!

The FA Cup is really important, though. When we did our planning we targeted the League, FA Cup and FA Trophy as competitions we wanted to do well in, so it’s massive. We’ve got a great opportunity, a winnable game, and we’re very focused on it.

That leads us nicely on to a question from one of your supporters on social media. With a backlog of games already are you concerned that trying to compete in four cup competitions is going to take its toll on your title challenge?

We’d be naïve not to be concerned. From experience we are aware that it can have an impact, particularly if we pick up injuries. But when you get onto the pitch your competitive nature means that you want to win every game, so we’ve tried to make sure that we have a big enough squad to cope with that. It isn’t just about having numbers, it’s about having a squad that’s well balanced in terms of ability so that when we rotate the side we aren’t weakening it.

There can’t be a lot of weakness in that squad, can there?

No, not at all. I’ve been coaching for years and this is the first time that I’ve ever been in a position that, when we have a training session and I split them into teams, it doesn’t matter who I put on each side as they are equally as good.

From a managers perspective that must be a dream come true, mustn’t it?

Absolutely. I look at the bench and I know that everyone I can bring on is as good as the player I’ll be taking off. The opposite side of that is that it can be a headache about who to pick, but that’s a nice problem to have.

Thinking about your position, then, you’re a joint manager. How does that work in practice?

It works very well. Glenn is very good at the psychology and motivation, that’s very much his department, but he leaves the team and the tactics very much to me. We don’t clash, we both know our strengths, and we complement each other. We have different roles and responsibilities.

You did something similar at Welling United prior to joining Billericay, didn’t you? But that didn’t end quite so well. At that point you were working for Mark Goldberg- another man with a larger than life personality. Is there a comparison between Mark and Glenn?

It worked quite well at Welling in terms of results, but I don’t mind someone being an authority figure if they’re willing to take responsibility for their decisions. Here we’re both very up front, in the limelight together, we win together, we lose together, we share responsibility.

Glenn is very open with his thoughts, his feelings. He’s open to criticism, he’s open to new ideas, and he appreciates what I’m good at- and vice-versa. We debate things and then we find common ground, and actually we don’t disagree very often at all.

Glenn is working very hard to raise the profile of Billericay Town across the country to great success. Is there a downside to that, though? The controversy, the constant media attention, the fact that you’ve become almost tabloid darlings over the past few months. Is it difficult to stop all of that from becoming a distraction?

It doesn’t really have much of an impact on the playing squad. We don’t find it a problem. I think when we first started out there was an awful lot of negativity, but that’s lessened to some extent now. The players have been pretty well unaffected by it all, but I suppose when you have high profile players they’re probably used to it- it’s hardly new to them. It might be a little newer for Glenn, but he embraces it quite well, to be honest!

Indeed. He seems to be rather robust of character?

He’s very thick skinned, generally. Glenn is one of those people who doesn’t really worry about what everyone else thinks. He puts himself out there to be shot at, and he usually copes well with the outcome of that. If he thinks he’s doing the right thing he won’t be shaken from that path. He’s very good with the team, too, backs them, supports them, but leaves me to sort out the tactics and pick the team, which as you can image can be quite difficult.

You started off as a player, even though you started coaching at a very, very young age. A question from a supporter on social media fits in nicely here- do you think that players appreciate how difficult it is for managers and coaches to have to make on the spot decisions, until perhaps they themselves make that transition to a managerial role?

We have players here who aren’t really used to being on the bench, and it’s been a bit of a culture shock for some of them. It has meant that some of them have had the chance to see the game a little differently, to understand the difficulties a manager has to face, and the fact that we’ve such a strong squad means that they’ve had to get used to not always being first choice. To give them credit, they’ve all embraced the fact that they won’t all get to play, they’ve been respectful of each other and of the competition they face to get in the team, there’s no “I should be starting, I’m better than him” mentality. We’ve had no sulking! We’ve a real family mentality, and they appreciate that the decisions I make are for the best reasons.

Glenn and Harry- Billericay's dynamic duo! Image by Nicky Hayes.

Also, we made it clear to all of our players when we signed them that they wouldn’t have a guaranteed starting spot. They knew what they were getting into.

Are you having a bit of a blip at the moment, though? You said after the game against Tooting and Mitcham United that the team had played poorly despite winning, and after the draw at Needham Market midweek you said that you weren’t at your best.

On Tuesday night we didn’t deserve to win the game. Needham Market played very, very well, and we didn’t. But it’s important that you don’t get too carried away with the high points and too low after the poorer performances. We can’t win every week. If our winning run had to come to an end, then at least it came to an end in a draw, not a loss. We said to them after the match that if we were going to win the league we’d now have to go on another run of victories, so we need to focus and make sure we do that. We set targets but we’re realistic. It doesn’t matter what you spend, look at Chelsea when they lost to Burnley. We’re not going to win every game, what’s important is that when we don’t win we bounce back. They don’t really need a wake up call, but sometimes it’s good to reflect on your performances and work out what you can do better. We’re in a good position- win out games in hand and we’ll be clear at the top. But hopefully the FA Cup will start the next winning run for us.

Will you be making any changes for the cup match on Sunday?

We’ve done some analysis, so we might well be making some changes and being a little more attacking. We’ll also make adjustments to counter the strengths of the opposition- we’ve played them already, we know what they’re good at.

Earlier you talked about nobody liking Billericay. Supporters of other clubs in our league have been very vocal about the imbalance of resources weighted in your favour. Can you see their point?

I can see their point, but I think it’s human nature- although having said that it’s perhaps part of the British nature, in the US they’d be embracing it but we’re critical of teams with such resources. We were critical of Chelsea when Abramovich took over, Manchester City when the money came in from the UAE, and closer to home Ebsfleet United got a lot of stick, complaining that they were buying the league- but after a couple of years it died a death and I’m sure it will do the same here. I understand the complaints but if you have the resources why wouldn’t you use them- and I’d expect that many of those who complain would swap positions in a heartbeat.

Is the level of expenditure sustainable in the long term, though? Your attendances are up significantly, but the wage bill- which Glenn has talked about regularly- is enormous for our level.

The fan base will only grow, and the increased gates are covering an ever larger proportion of expenditure at the moment. And more than that, Glenn isn’t struggling financially, far from it, and he’s absolutely committed to the club. He’s invested in the ground too- lots of clubs who have come into money have spent it all on players, look at the infrastructure at Whitehawk, for example- whilst we’ve taken an entirely different route. The community are on board, the local council, and we haven’t come very far on the journey yet. Glenn is the type of bloke for whom nothing is ever good enough; whatever he achieves he wants more, he wants better. He’s never likely to think, “oh, we’ve achieved that, I’m not interested anymore,” he’s always looking past that at the next objective. Glenn makes promises, and he delivers on them. That, in my experience, isn’t the norm in Non-League football.

Is League Two a serious aim, then?

Absolutely. Money always helps, let’s be honest. If we were in the league above we’d have the highest budget, and it would be competitive in the National League too. It’s realistic, definitely. Glenn has always said to us that he can back us all the way to League Two, and then he’d look to get other investors in to help, and he has friends ready to come on board. I hope that I’m not being naïve, but I think we’ve got a good chance of meeting those aims.

Another supporter question. Who have been your most difficult opponents this season, and who do you think might challenge you for the title?

Our most difficult opponents were on Tuesday night- Needham Market. We didn’t deserve anything from the game, and they were the most energetic, the bravest team we’ve played all season. Leatherhead were also very good and played the best football, but it was hard to judge them because we had ten men for most of the match. They try to play the right way- although I suppose the right way is the winning way, and they need more points. It’ll be interesting to see how they play on Sunday.

The title? At the beginning of the season I thought that our rivals would be Dulwich Hamlet, Margate, Leiston and Staines Town. I still think that.

Finally then, a little about your ambitions. You started coaching at seventeen, had your ‘A’ licence by 23, were a manager at 26, Head of Youth Development at Dagenham & Redbridge soon afterwards, joint manager at Welling United, and now at Billericay Town. That’s a lot of career progression in a short time. What are your dreams- and do you see yourself at Billericay in the long term?

Even when I was a kid at school I wanted to coach at the top level. Like Glenn is with business I am with football, I want to push myself, keep going, go as high as I can. There’s no reason why I can’t keep doing that at Billericay, and I’ve certainly enjoyed it more than I have anywhere else, but obviously never say never. At some point I expect to find myself at the top of the game.

So what’s the dream, then?

I suppose I’d like to be England manager!

Seriously? Recently that’s more like one of those dreams you’d have after eating too much cheese before bedtime.

Ha! Well perhaps Manchester United then! But my family are all Charlton Athletic fans, so that would probably be my dad’s dream, and perhaps that’s not too much to hope for. I suppose United have that kind of attraction- if we got to the Third Round of the FA Cup, for example, we’d want to go to Old Trafford, no question. It’s the tie that everybody wants, isn’t it? But I can see myself at Billericay Town for a long time yet- we’ve still got an awful lot left to achieve.

Love them or loathe them- and the jury is most definitely out- if there’s one thing you can’t do with Billericay Town it’s ignore them. It’s hard to believe that there won’t be a lot more noise- and an awful lot of success- at the AGP Arena over the next few years, and if the crowd continues to increase the way it has recently then Glenn Tamplin’s building works may not yet be over.

All images courtesy of Nicky Hayes, Billericay Town club photographer