“YOU COULDN’T GIVE A TEAM TALK ON THE PITCH TODAY, LIKE I DID – BUT YOU HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX”
The ex-Hull and Southend boss recalls being spotted playing pub football, before cutting his coaching teeth under Big Sam
Interview Richard Edwards
PHIL BROWN
How did your career start, in the late ’70s?
I was playing Sunday League football for a pub called The Red Duster and got spotted by a director of Hartlepool, who was walking his dog one morning. He invited me to train with the reserves and I eventually signed for £10 a week. I actually kept playing Sunday League, because I owed them my thanks for me getting scouted in the first place, so I was playing for Hartlepool but my loyalties lay with The Red Duster. Strangely enough that was illegal at the time, but I got away with it.
Is it true that you were an electrician on the side throughout your career?
I had an electrical business that I maintained pretty efficiently throughout my playing and coaching careers. It was ‘Phil Brown Electrical Engineers’, aptly enough. The business cards we put out around the town read ‘No Job Too Small’; one of my friends phoned to say he had a job for me as he was having technical problems, so I went over to his house and he asked me to plug in his Hoover. The cheeky bastard! I charged him a fiver for it. It made me appreciate the power of advertising – if anybody in the dressing room needed help with anything, I’d do it just to keep my eye in.
Did you ever get close to the First Division?
Not really, no – I wouldn’t class my playing career as a great one. I only had one season in what’s now the Championship. I always fancied coaching and liked the idea of going into management. I was named captain at Hartlepool from the age of 22. No disrespect to the other teams I joined, but signing for Bolton in 1988 was my best day as a player – they had all the history, the fans, the biggest stadium... that was a fantastic moment. The pinnacle was leading them out at Wembley and lifting the Sherpa Van Trophy in 1989.
And then you linked up with Sam Allardyce after joining Blackpool in 1994....
I didn’t actually sign for Big Sam as Blackpool were managerless – the person I signed for was Billy Bingham, head of recruitment. Then Sam came along and kick-started a brilliant part of my life – firstly, meeting the big fella, then working for him as a coach when Bobby Saxton moved on. Thos
