IN THE RECENT Pep Guardiola documentary, there is a clip of the Catalan coach speaking emotionally about divorcing his wife.
It is also during a turbulent spell for Man City; after a run of remarkable success, the team have begun to struggle.
The pressure was getting to the Catalan coach, and now he is out of management.
Guardiola is one of the most acclaimed coaches of all time, yet the toll it has taken on his life has been evident.
What must it be like, therefore, for coaches who don’t enjoy the same level of success as the Barcelona legend?
In the League of Ireland, life as a manager is arguably even more stressful and challenging than in the Premier League.
Irish football does not have the enormous riches of the top level in England, so coaches are fighting not just for their reputation but their livelihood.
Normally, at this time of year, Tim Clancy would be under pressure as the business end of the season approaches.
Instead, when we catch up, he has just returned from a holiday in Spain.
Since making his debut on loan at Weymouth in the Southern Football League during the 2003-04 campaign, Clancy’s involvement in the game was virtually non-stop until he resigned as manager of Cork City in May of last year.
The past 17 months are the longest the 42-year-old has been out of the sport since he was a teenager.
Not that he hasn’t been busy, though. Last year, Clancy and his wife, Seaneen, opened a gym – 41 Fitness – in his native Trim.
After a hectic summer, the 10-day break abroad was badly needed.
And by the sound of it, he doesn’t miss management too much.
“The second you get up to the second you go to bed, you’re constantly speaking to people, and even more so around transfer windows and stuff like that,” Clancy, who managed Drogheda, St Pat’s and Cork City between 2017 and 2025, tells The 42.
“It’s not really set hours. You’re never off your phone.
“As long as you’re awake, you’re working more or less. It is full-on. The massive difference between a player and the manager is that the manager never stops. A player can go home after training and switch off. But the manager doesn’t.”
Clancy gives one example at Cork City where there was no opposition analyst. Ahead of a game with Bohemians on a Friday, he went to see them play in Derry City on the Monday.
After training finished at 1pm, he and assistant manager Jamie Hamill made the five-and-a-half-hour trip up to Derry. Straight after the game, they made another five-and-a-half-hour journey home.
By the time Clancy got back, it was nearly 5am. They were at training the next day at 9am.
He was in charge of Cork City for 18 months, but these arduous tasks made it feel much longer.
Given that Clancy is based in Trim, coaching the Leesiders was also less than ideal from a location perspective.
He initially lived in shared accommodation with his assistant, so he could not bring his family down, even for weekends.
“As soon as I left, the new manager got a three- or four-bedroom house to himself. So you can read into that what you want, but it was certainly not made any easier for me. And I ended up commuting [for about six months], which was three hours down and three hours back, so I was leaving at 5am.”
Given these restricted conditions, Clancy felt the expectations at the club did not always reflect the reality of their predicament.
“I don’t think the fan base realised the difference in budget between what the top teams had and what City had available.
“If you want to be successful in management, I don’t care what anyone else says, [it’s about] resources and finances.”
Because of the stress and immersive nature of management, diet, sleep and a focus on general well-being can also be easily neglected.
“That’s probably one thing that I wish I had done more of: physically stay in better shape as a manager. And again, the fact that you’re commuting, and you’re in the car quite a lot – it takes a lot of discipline to eat healthily.
“If someone’s physically in good shape, they’re mentally in better shape, and they’re clearer, and they’re healthier and have more energy. So that’s probably something that a lot of managers don’t take enough interest in.”
Clancy’s wife instigated the lifestyle change. She qualified as a personal trainer during Covid and ran fitness classes out of sports halls for a couple of years.
“I couldn’t rely solely on football being the main income coming into the house. It’s such an unstable job, which plays into the mental side of things and the anxiety.
“When you’re at a level where you don’t have millions behind you financially, subconsciously you can start managing to stay in a job as opposed to trying to progress the team.
“Nine days before I left Pat’s, we were second in the league, then a loss on a Friday, Monday, Friday, and you’re out of a job.
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“So the fragility of life as a football manager, it’s not great, and I always looked at saying I wanted something else away from football to secure the family’s income.
“I said, ‘Look, I’m opening the gym now, and I don’t think it’s worth it to stay in football management, when I’ve got something else on the go.’”
Tim Clancy pictured during his time in charge of St Patrick's Athletic. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Inevitably, family life also suffers amid the 24-7 world of management.
“There were 18 months at Cork where I wasn’t there for any of the school runs. You’re missing that type of thing, and it might sound small, but my eldest daughter moved out four years ago to go to college, and you see very little of her now. And then my second-eldest daughter finished school this year, so if I’d stayed down in Cork for another year, I would have spent very little time with her.
“There were sisters’ weddings that I missed out on, and other stuff that you don’t get to do because you don’t have a choice. You’re told when and where to be, and you have to be here at this time and whatever else, and it comes first, and that can have an effect.
“The wife used to say constantly: ‘You might as well not be here because you’re just on your phone constantly, and you’re not present.’
“So the last 17 months that I’ve had away from football have been brilliant.
“Stress levels have dropped massively, and I’m still getting the satisfaction of actually helping other people.”
Despite everything, and while he is “not desperate to get back in,” Clancy, who has also been working as a pundit for Virgin Media and Off the Ball in recent months, would not rule out a return to management at some point, though he has turned down offers since leaving Cork.
“[The gym is] going extremely well, and it’ll allow me, if I do go back in, to be going back in on my terms, and I’ll be doing it for the love of actually going back in, wanting to do a job as opposed to getting a wage out of it.”
The impact of fans on social media and its potential to influence owners are other factors that can increase pressure on managers.
“I’ve had experience myself where I’ve had owners of clubs saying: ‘You don’t need an analyst. Would you not use ChatGPT? They’ll give you a description of the opposition.’
“And you’re like: ‘Fuck me. It’s hard enough as it is without getting your hands tied behind your back,’ and then the other side of it is social media, and football fans have a huge part.
“Where previously they would have had a little moan in the stadium, you hear fuck all about it, but now it’s under every social media post. People are commenting negatively and whatever else. And it’s probably 5% of the fans commenting.”
Clancy adds that stepping away from football gave him a renewed perspective.
“You build it up, and think: ‘This is so important.’ And the second you leave a job and you walk away, you go: ‘Oh God, the biggest lot of shite ever.’ It’s not that important. Fans go to a game on a Friday night. It’s their release from their working life and problems that they have. They abuse, or they cheer, and then they go back to their own life and go: ‘Right, that’s grand, no matter.’
“And you only realise that when you step away from football, you go: ‘What a crock of horseshit that is! It’s not real.’
“It’s a massive bubble. I think you need to be in the bubble to be successful and have a professional career because there’s a lot of competition. A lot of people want to be professional footballers. I think you have to believe in the bullshit that you tell yourself to become successful and have a career. And then you believe in all the shite that’s said to you, and then you remove yourself from it.
“I think that’s why there are a lot of issues with players when they retire, and especially young lads if they get a knock-back at 19-20, they’ve been told they’ve been brilliant all their life up until they’re 20 years of age. Then they get a rejection, and they’ve never had a rejection in years of playing football since they were six, and they don’t like to deal with it.
“It’s the real world, and I just think [you need to] keep yourself on a level playing field and away from the bullshit and don’t believe the shite they say and don’t believe when they say you’re bad.”
****
Darren Purse was appointed Sligo Rovers manager in July. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
Darren Purse’s first role in senior management has been a baptism of fire.
The former England U21 defender had a long career as a player, including over 50 Premier League appearances with Birmingham and West Brom.
The 49-year-old also was as a director of football at Northampton, in addition to coaching at underage level with Oxford United and Cardiff City.
Last July, Sligo Rovers appointed Purse as manager on an 18-month contract.
When he took over, the Bit O’Red were five points from safety with 12 games left. The situation has not improved since then, and Friday’s loss to Shelbourne confirmed their relegation.
Nonetheless, in an interview two weeks before that result, Purse was upbeat on management, saying: “I really enjoy the job.”
There are downsides, of course. Travelling back from a game in Dublin, Purse normally wouldn’t be home until around 1-2am.
Unlike others, Purse likes aspects of the job such as dealing with players, opposition managers, agents, owners and the media.
The pressure, he adds, will intensify next season, when Purse has a chance at recruitment, and Sligo start to resemble more of “my team”.
While being a manager does affect family life, the Bit O’Red boss says he is fortunate in this regard.
“I’ve got a very understanding wife, and more often than not, she’ll come to a game with me. So [she is with me on] those late drives home. I’ve got a wife that actually enjoys watching football. So, from that point of view, we try and spend as much quality time with each other as we can.”
Aside from a short loan spell with Finnish team Vasa IFK at the start of his career, Purse had been based in Britain his entire time in football before the Sligo stint.
He admits it took a while to adapt to these new surroundings.
“I was living between Airbnbs for the first six weeks. You’re working long hours. You’re not eating well. Probably not exercising as well as you could. Once you’ve got that settled life, things are a little easier.
“When you haven’t got somewhere to live permanently, it does become tough. And you do end up a little bit run down.
“[But] whatever you’re feeling, you can’t have it affect the players. So you have to sometimes put that face on when you walk in the building [giving the impression] that everything’s okay, even when you are feeling a little bit rough.”
And because the resources at League of Ireland can be so scant, like Clancy, Purse sometimes has to do the job of two or three people.
“The club hasn’t got a head of recruitment. So that’s left to me. My assistant’s really good for contacts. I think between the two of us, we know most people around the UK and Irish football. So having that draft of contacts that you can ring and do due diligence on players that you want to bring in [is important].
“We haven’t got an analyst. Where I’ve been before at Cardiff City and stuff, we always had analysts, so that’s something I’m trying to bring into the football club, not just for team prep, but individual prep for players.
“So there are a few strings to the bow you’ve got to have, but that’s part and parcel of managing where we are.”
****
Tommy Barrett has been in charge of Treaty United since the club were founded in 2020. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
Like Sligo and Purse, Tommy Barrett and Treaty United have had a difficult season.
The Limerick-based side are set for a ninth-place finish in the 10-team First Division amid a disappointing campaign.
Similarly to Clancy, Barrett finds the job exhausting.
“You’re on the phone constantly, whether it’s the players, staff, agents or people in the game; you’re constantly getting messages and WhatsApps and emails.
“A lot of time, and a lot of micro time. So it’s 15-minute phone calls, responding to messages.
“Last night, I was on the phone at 11 o’clock, so it doesn’t end.”
And unlike Premier Division managers, Barrett does not work in management full-time.
“It’s hard for me to respond in some cases in the daytime,” he adds. “But all my evenings and weekends are really taken up with it. It’s very difficult.”
The coach praises his “excellent” staff but says you need to “love” the game, because: “At this level, it’s not financially rewarding at all, really, even from the players’ point of view.
“And if you haven’t got a top budget in either division, it’s tough because the fans don’t understand what you have to do to win games and to get players in.”
Barrett has been involved with Treaty since the club’s foundation in 2020 and previously worked as both an underage and senior manager at Limerick FC.
That time has included tasks you would not normally associate with a manager.
“I’ve washed the kit in the past – that was several years ago now, not recently, but even to this day, I have a lot of gear when I’m going to work, sitting in the boot; I’ve got bags and balls in the back of my car. So that’s the glamour of League of Ireland.
“Meeting players off of aeroplanes. We’ve signed a couple of Canadians in the last number of years. You’re essentially the taxi. So you’re collecting them, and you’re getting them settled in the houses and stuff like that because we don’t have huge amounts of staff.”
It has been a difficult season at Markets Field for Treaty United. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
Now 47, Barrett expects Treaty to go full-time in “probably another year or two” – a move he won’t be part of.
“Hopefully the club can go full-time [soon], and then sure I’ll be looking for something to do.”
Barrett has been offered full-time jobs before, but explains: “You could be sacked in a year.
“Leaving full-time employment would be difficult, especially when I have a young family. I have a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old.
“In your 50s and 60s, it might suit better because you might be more financially secure, and your mortgage is paid, so potentially, that could be a time if you wanted to go full-time – the problem with football is that you’re quickly forgotten.
“But it would be really difficult for me to go full-time, particularly in the current financial state of the league; it’s still quite precarious, and it’s still not English professional level.”
Like Clancy and Purse, Barrett agrees that being a manager can disproportionately affect family life.
Though his wife is supportive, they make sacrifices. Winter, when the season ends, is the only opportunity for holidays and a sustained break.
Barrett agrees with Clancy that football takes place in a bubble, but has developed a healthier outlook on the sport in recent years.
“In the past, I probably would have got a bit of nervous excitement,” he says.
“But working other jobs gives you a lot of perspective, and that’s one good thing about me never being full-time. I always had jobs, and I started out working in computers, but I changed tack. I was a development officer at the FAI, and then I worked in social care.
“You’re not in the football bubble, and the stress that people are under even in this country [is eye-opening], and you see the levels of addiction and deprivation in communities. And there are a lot of good things happening in those communities as well.
“My wife would work in social care, and she worked in domestic abuse for many years. So she’d always look at me like: ‘It’s only a game of ball.’ Earlier in my career, I got a bit hyper and vexed. But really, it’s only noise that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. So I’m certainly lucky, and from the outside, you can see why people in full-time [football] get caught in that bubble.
“And it’s like any job. People sometimes need to take a step back. I’ll probably get hammered by some people for saying that it’s not the end of the world; it’s a game, and we have to start treating it like that.”
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'I think you have to believe in the bullshit you tell yourself to become successful'
IN THE RECENT Pep Guardiola documentary, there is a clip of the Catalan coach speaking emotionally about divorcing his wife.
It is also during a turbulent spell for Man City; after a run of remarkable success, the team have begun to struggle.
The pressure was getting to the Catalan coach, and now he is out of management.
Guardiola is one of the most acclaimed coaches of all time, yet the toll it has taken on his life has been evident.
What must it be like, therefore, for coaches who don’t enjoy the same level of success as the Barcelona legend?
In the League of Ireland, life as a manager is arguably even more stressful and challenging than in the Premier League.
Irish football does not have the enormous riches of the top level in England, so coaches are fighting not just for their reputation but their livelihood.
Normally, at this time of year, Tim Clancy would be under pressure as the business end of the season approaches.
Instead, when we catch up, he has just returned from a holiday in Spain.
Since making his debut on loan at Weymouth in the Southern Football League during the 2003-04 campaign, Clancy’s involvement in the game was virtually non-stop until he resigned as manager of Cork City in May of last year.
The past 17 months are the longest the 42-year-old has been out of the sport since he was a teenager.
Not that he hasn’t been busy, though. Last year, Clancy and his wife, Seaneen, opened a gym – 41 Fitness – in his native Trim.
After a hectic summer, the 10-day break abroad was badly needed.
And by the sound of it, he doesn’t miss management too much.
“The second you get up to the second you go to bed, you’re constantly speaking to people, and even more so around transfer windows and stuff like that,” Clancy, who managed Drogheda, St Pat’s and Cork City between 2017 and 2025, tells The 42.
“It’s not really set hours. You’re never off your phone.
“As long as you’re awake, you’re working more or less. It is full-on. The massive difference between a player and the manager is that the manager never stops. A player can go home after training and switch off. But the manager doesn’t.”
Clancy gives one example at Cork City where there was no opposition analyst. Ahead of a game with Bohemians on a Friday, he went to see them play in Derry City on the Monday.
After training finished at 1pm, he and assistant manager Jamie Hamill made the five-and-a-half-hour trip up to Derry. Straight after the game, they made another five-and-a-half-hour journey home.
By the time Clancy got back, it was nearly 5am. They were at training the next day at 9am.
He was in charge of Cork City for 18 months, but these arduous tasks made it feel much longer.
Given that Clancy is based in Trim, coaching the Leesiders was also less than ideal from a location perspective.
He initially lived in shared accommodation with his assistant, so he could not bring his family down, even for weekends.
“As soon as I left, the new manager got a three- or four-bedroom house to himself. So you can read into that what you want, but it was certainly not made any easier for me. And I ended up commuting [for about six months], which was three hours down and three hours back, so I was leaving at 5am.”
Given these restricted conditions, Clancy felt the expectations at the club did not always reflect the reality of their predicament.
“I don’t think the fan base realised the difference in budget between what the top teams had and what City had available.
“If you want to be successful in management, I don’t care what anyone else says, [it’s about] resources and finances.”
Because of the stress and immersive nature of management, diet, sleep and a focus on general well-being can also be easily neglected.
“That’s probably one thing that I wish I had done more of: physically stay in better shape as a manager. And again, the fact that you’re commuting, and you’re in the car quite a lot – it takes a lot of discipline to eat healthily.
“If someone’s physically in good shape, they’re mentally in better shape, and they’re clearer, and they’re healthier and have more energy. So that’s probably something that a lot of managers don’t take enough interest in.”
Clancy’s wife instigated the lifestyle change. She qualified as a personal trainer during Covid and ran fitness classes out of sports halls for a couple of years.
“I couldn’t rely solely on football being the main income coming into the house. It’s such an unstable job, which plays into the mental side of things and the anxiety.
“When you’re at a level where you don’t have millions behind you financially, subconsciously you can start managing to stay in a job as opposed to trying to progress the team.
“Nine days before I left Pat’s, we were second in the league, then a loss on a Friday, Monday, Friday, and you’re out of a job.
“So the fragility of life as a football manager, it’s not great, and I always looked at saying I wanted something else away from football to secure the family’s income.
“I said, ‘Look, I’m opening the gym now, and I don’t think it’s worth it to stay in football management, when I’ve got something else on the go.’”
Inevitably, family life also suffers amid the 24-7 world of management.
“There were 18 months at Cork where I wasn’t there for any of the school runs. You’re missing that type of thing, and it might sound small, but my eldest daughter moved out four years ago to go to college, and you see very little of her now. And then my second-eldest daughter finished school this year, so if I’d stayed down in Cork for another year, I would have spent very little time with her.
“There were sisters’ weddings that I missed out on, and other stuff that you don’t get to do because you don’t have a choice. You’re told when and where to be, and you have to be here at this time and whatever else, and it comes first, and that can have an effect.
“The wife used to say constantly: ‘You might as well not be here because you’re just on your phone constantly, and you’re not present.’
“So the last 17 months that I’ve had away from football have been brilliant.
“Stress levels have dropped massively, and I’m still getting the satisfaction of actually helping other people.”
Despite everything, and while he is “not desperate to get back in,” Clancy, who has also been working as a pundit for Virgin Media and Off the Ball in recent months, would not rule out a return to management at some point, though he has turned down offers since leaving Cork.
“[The gym is] going extremely well, and it’ll allow me, if I do go back in, to be going back in on my terms, and I’ll be doing it for the love of actually going back in, wanting to do a job as opposed to getting a wage out of it.”
The impact of fans on social media and its potential to influence owners are other factors that can increase pressure on managers.
“I’ve had experience myself where I’ve had owners of clubs saying: ‘You don’t need an analyst. Would you not use ChatGPT? They’ll give you a description of the opposition.’
“And you’re like: ‘Fuck me. It’s hard enough as it is without getting your hands tied behind your back,’ and then the other side of it is social media, and football fans have a huge part.
“Where previously they would have had a little moan in the stadium, you hear fuck all about it, but now it’s under every social media post. People are commenting negatively and whatever else. And it’s probably 5% of the fans commenting.”
Clancy adds that stepping away from football gave him a renewed perspective.
“And you only realise that when you step away from football, you go: ‘What a crock of horseshit that is! It’s not real.’
“It’s a massive bubble. I think you need to be in the bubble to be successful and have a professional career because there’s a lot of competition. A lot of people want to be professional footballers. I think you have to believe in the bullshit that you tell yourself to become successful and have a career. And then you believe in all the shite that’s said to you, and then you remove yourself from it.
“I think that’s why there are a lot of issues with players when they retire, and especially young lads if they get a knock-back at 19-20, they’ve been told they’ve been brilliant all their life up until they’re 20 years of age. Then they get a rejection, and they’ve never had a rejection in years of playing football since they were six, and they don’t like to deal with it.
“It’s the real world, and I just think [you need to] keep yourself on a level playing field and away from the bullshit and don’t believe the shite they say and don’t believe when they say you’re bad.”
****
Darren Purse’s first role in senior management has been a baptism of fire.
The former England U21 defender had a long career as a player, including over 50 Premier League appearances with Birmingham and West Brom.
The 49-year-old also was as a director of football at Northampton, in addition to coaching at underage level with Oxford United and Cardiff City.
Last July, Sligo Rovers appointed Purse as manager on an 18-month contract.
When he took over, the Bit O’Red were five points from safety with 12 games left. The situation has not improved since then, and Friday’s loss to Shelbourne confirmed their relegation.
Nonetheless, in an interview two weeks before that result, Purse was upbeat on management, saying: “I really enjoy the job.”
There are downsides, of course. Travelling back from a game in Dublin, Purse normally wouldn’t be home until around 1-2am.
Unlike others, Purse likes aspects of the job such as dealing with players, opposition managers, agents, owners and the media.
The pressure, he adds, will intensify next season, when Purse has a chance at recruitment, and Sligo start to resemble more of “my team”.
While being a manager does affect family life, the Bit O’Red boss says he is fortunate in this regard.
“I’ve got a very understanding wife, and more often than not, she’ll come to a game with me. So [she is with me on] those late drives home. I’ve got a wife that actually enjoys watching football. So, from that point of view, we try and spend as much quality time with each other as we can.”
Aside from a short loan spell with Finnish team Vasa IFK at the start of his career, Purse had been based in Britain his entire time in football before the Sligo stint.
He admits it took a while to adapt to these new surroundings.
“I was living between Airbnbs for the first six weeks. You’re working long hours. You’re not eating well. Probably not exercising as well as you could. Once you’ve got that settled life, things are a little easier.
“When you haven’t got somewhere to live permanently, it does become tough. And you do end up a little bit run down.
“[But] whatever you’re feeling, you can’t have it affect the players. So you have to sometimes put that face on when you walk in the building [giving the impression] that everything’s okay, even when you are feeling a little bit rough.”
And because the resources at League of Ireland can be so scant, like Clancy, Purse sometimes has to do the job of two or three people.
“The club hasn’t got a head of recruitment. So that’s left to me. My assistant’s really good for contacts. I think between the two of us, we know most people around the UK and Irish football. So having that draft of contacts that you can ring and do due diligence on players that you want to bring in [is important].
“We haven’t got an analyst. Where I’ve been before at Cardiff City and stuff, we always had analysts, so that’s something I’m trying to bring into the football club, not just for team prep, but individual prep for players.
“So there are a few strings to the bow you’ve got to have, but that’s part and parcel of managing where we are.”
****
Like Sligo and Purse, Tommy Barrett and Treaty United have had a difficult season.
The Limerick-based side are set for a ninth-place finish in the 10-team First Division amid a disappointing campaign.
Similarly to Clancy, Barrett finds the job exhausting.
“You’re on the phone constantly, whether it’s the players, staff, agents or people in the game; you’re constantly getting messages and WhatsApps and emails.
“A lot of time, and a lot of micro time. So it’s 15-minute phone calls, responding to messages.
“Last night, I was on the phone at 11 o’clock, so it doesn’t end.”
And unlike Premier Division managers, Barrett does not work in management full-time.
“It’s hard for me to respond in some cases in the daytime,” he adds. “But all my evenings and weekends are really taken up with it. It’s very difficult.”
The coach praises his “excellent” staff but says you need to “love” the game, because: “At this level, it’s not financially rewarding at all, really, even from the players’ point of view.
“And if you haven’t got a top budget in either division, it’s tough because the fans don’t understand what you have to do to win games and to get players in.”
Barrett has been involved with Treaty since the club’s foundation in 2020 and previously worked as both an underage and senior manager at Limerick FC.
That time has included tasks you would not normally associate with a manager.
“I’ve washed the kit in the past – that was several years ago now, not recently, but even to this day, I have a lot of gear when I’m going to work, sitting in the boot; I’ve got bags and balls in the back of my car. So that’s the glamour of League of Ireland.
“Meeting players off of aeroplanes. We’ve signed a couple of Canadians in the last number of years. You’re essentially the taxi. So you’re collecting them, and you’re getting them settled in the houses and stuff like that because we don’t have huge amounts of staff.”
Now 47, Barrett expects Treaty to go full-time in “probably another year or two” – a move he won’t be part of.
“Hopefully the club can go full-time [soon], and then sure I’ll be looking for something to do.”
Barrett has been offered full-time jobs before, but explains: “You could be sacked in a year.
“Leaving full-time employment would be difficult, especially when I have a young family. I have a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old.
“In your 50s and 60s, it might suit better because you might be more financially secure, and your mortgage is paid, so potentially, that could be a time if you wanted to go full-time – the problem with football is that you’re quickly forgotten.
“But it would be really difficult for me to go full-time, particularly in the current financial state of the league; it’s still quite precarious, and it’s still not English professional level.”
Like Clancy and Purse, Barrett agrees that being a manager can disproportionately affect family life.
Though his wife is supportive, they make sacrifices. Winter, when the season ends, is the only opportunity for holidays and a sustained break.
Barrett agrees with Clancy that football takes place in a bubble, but has developed a healthier outlook on the sport in recent years.
“In the past, I probably would have got a bit of nervous excitement,” he says.
“But working other jobs gives you a lot of perspective, and that’s one good thing about me never being full-time. I always had jobs, and I started out working in computers, but I changed tack. I was a development officer at the FAI, and then I worked in social care.
“You’re not in the football bubble, and the stress that people are under even in this country [is eye-opening], and you see the levels of addiction and deprivation in communities. And there are a lot of good things happening in those communities as well.
“My wife would work in social care, and she worked in domestic abuse for many years. So she’d always look at me like: ‘It’s only a game of ball.’ Earlier in my career, I got a bit hyper and vexed. But really, it’s only noise that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. So I’m certainly lucky, and from the outside, you can see why people in full-time [football] get caught in that bubble.
“And it’s like any job. People sometimes need to take a step back. I’ll probably get hammered by some people for saying that it’s not the end of the world; it’s a game, and we have to start treating it like that.”
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Darren Purse football managers League of Ireland LOI Managers problems Tim Clancy Tommy Barrett