Roy Hodgson
Why now? What has made you come to this decision? It’s quite a moment.
Yeah, it is of course, you’re quite right. It is a decision which hasn’t exactly been taken overnight. It’s really been brewing a long time. It’s been at the back of my mind that it might be the right time to leave the club and maybe even to leave football for a while albeit at the end of the season.
I’m pleased that despite the speculation of the last two or three months we’ve still been able to keep things on an even keel and it looks like we’re going to be ending the season in a very dignified way.
That was important to me because I didn’t want to end this very important period of my career with Crystal Palace Football Club in a way that wasn’t in any way reflective of what we’ve been doing together over the last four years.
You don’t actually mention retirement in your statement. Are you just stepping away from Crystal Palace? Would you like to continue in another role going forward? Are you not done just yet?
No, one never knows. I think it’s a dangerous thing to do when you still feel good and enjoy your life in football, it’s dangerous to suddenly start making bold statements about retirement and this is the end of me in the world of football.
I really don’t know, I’ve got to say. I’m certainly not leaving Crystal Palace with the idea of putting myself back on the market and trying to get another job. I really am stepping down and stepping away from football for a while.
But who knows what the future will bring? I’m still excited by the fact that I still have a future that I’m looking forward to whether that be in football or elsewhere, but I’ll wait and see what happens. It’s a never say never moment, I think.
What’s been the highlight of your time at Crystal Palace?
It’s a very good question and I think in some ways when you’ve been here four years and it’s been a very productive four years, I think both for the club and myself, one does need to look at it more globally. Each year has been a challenge, each year has been a tough one for us to compete against teams sometimes who certainly on paper look a lot stronger than us.
But to keep ourselves away from the relegation zone during that period of time if we discount those early weeks in September when I joined: I think that in itself is probably going to stick most in my memory. There will be individual games.
I think the other thing that will stick in my memory is the pleasure I’ve had every day coming to the training ground and working with this group of players.
I’ve been well supported, as I say in the statement, by the club’s owners, and every other member of staff that I’ve been working with. But it’s the pleasure to be found working with these players every day, of course that’s the thing that one will miss.
When you step away from a football club, or step away from football for a while, if you’ve been in it for as long as I’ve been in it, it would be foolish not to think there’s going to be some things you will miss, but there will be other things I won’t miss. So hopefully those two things will even out with the distance of time.
How important was your career spent abroad? The fact that you are multilingual? You’ve learned football culture in other countries – how has that helped your ability to manage? What are your fondest memories of managing in other countries?
I think it’s given me an incredibly varied life and an incredibly rich life perhaps I wouldn’t have had if I’d have spent every month or year of my career had been spent in my homeland.
So I’m very grateful, really, for the opportunity I was given in particular in Sweden all those years ago as a 28/29-year-old to take charge of a top division club there. That’s the type of opportunity you’re going to be very fortunate to get, doesn’t seem to be coming up as often these days perhaps as it did in the 1970s. They certainly set the tone for my career.
It also meant I was never afraid of going to another country or worried about when an opportunities came up to move to Switzerland, then Italy, later of course to places like Denmark, Norway and Finland – I’ve never feared that because I know what it’s like to go and live abroad and I know I can be very happy living abroad.
You’re too kind really when you mention the languages, I think they certainly fade with lack of practice. I would say there was plenty of time back in Italy and Sweden and Switzerland brushing up on languages, but it’s been nice to learn them and nice to know that I could boast one day that I once could speak some.
How important is it that you managed England? That you have that on your CV? That you got to the pinnacle?
I think I said at the time – when David Bernstein was kind enough to give me the opportunity – I said at the time that this is really the pinnacle of any career that I could ever have dreamt of, to be quite honest.
Because coaching and managing has always been my raison d’etre. To get that opportunity to manage England…
I’ve been able to manage the Swiss national team, for which I was very proud and the Finnish national team. Perhaps a little bit less so in the UAE because that was a strange period of time and there weren’t that many national team games during my two years there.
But certainly if you take those European nations, I was very proud to have been the Swiss national team manager and the Finnish national team manager.
But when the chance came to manage England, that really was a present that was too good to be true. I can only hope that the four years I spent there will be with hindsight seen as a decent four years of work, and platform-laying for the big success I’m expecting in the years to come.
What would you like to do? The world is your oyster, to a degree, with your experience. What is something you’d like to do in football?
It’s another very good question. I probably haven’t given that as much thought as I should. Because my thoughts at the moment are more or less focused on some time to myself, some time when I don’t have to go home mulling over selection problems or any problems that have arisen at the club which require your managing skills, and of course the preparation for football matches. It would be nice for me to go to bed at night not having to think about who we’re playing at the weekend and what problems that’s likely to cause us.
I would like to travel. There’s a lot of places I’d like to travel to which of course you can’t do when you’re in full-time employment, training every day. It very much is a 9-5 job if not more than that. I’m looking forward to that, of course we’ll have to wait and see how things pans out with the Covid pandemic. With luck, I’ll get a chance to do a bit more travelling than I have been able to do.
And then really I’m just quite interested to see how life is going to be for me, what I’m going to feel like doing apart from the obvious. Knowing that it’s not going to be easy saying goodbye to something you’ve been doing for 45 years. I’m also confident that with my wife and son’s support, I’ll find plenty of things to not only occupy myself but finding things I’m going to really enjoy doing.
How important has your family unit been behind the scenes to allow you to have the career you’ve had thus far?
I think it would be a very dishonest football manager who doesn’t pay tribute to the love and support they get from family and the enormous job they do in the difficult moments.
They are the ones who know you best, they are the ones who read you best and they know sometimes what’s necessary to say to you in order to shake you out of black moods or maybe drag you down sometimes from the more euphoric moods.
I’ve been extremely lucky. My wife and my son never made demands upon me. Chris was very young when I went off to South Africa to play, still very young when we set off for Sweden in 1976. He’s had to accept swings in Sweden when he was getting a little bit settled there, setting off for Switzerland, where he had to learn a new language and start again.
And of course in particular my wife has backed up every decision I’ve made. I’ve been lucky, I think most of the decisions I’ve made have been pretty good ones. Maybe one or two that weren’t quite as good. Certainly one or two that I’ve taken which has taken her away from areas where she’s felt very comfortable and really enjoying life to have to start all over again. They’ve backed me up very much with this decision that I make like I do, that this is the right time to step aside and see what the future brings.
The only reason I’m not talking about retiring is that I’ve seen so many people with the fanfare blazing talking of ‘now is my time to retire, this is me finished in football’ only to surface somewhere in a fairly short of period of time. So I’m not going to do that.
The future will have some interesting things for me to do. Most importantly of all, I am looking forward to enjoying spending my time with my wife and son and maybe listening to what they want to do for once – it hasn’t happened very much in the last 50 years.
How hard was the decision to make? Did it become a bit of head over heart?
Yeah. Another question that’s a very good one. I can’t say that it’s been easy, but it’s not one that’s come upon me quickly. It’s something which I’ve almost planned for a long period of time, which has given me the chance also to come to terms very much with asking myself the questions: What are you doing? Are you doing the right thing? Are you totally comfortable with this thought that you’re going to move away?
I’ve been so well accepted and received here at Crystal Palace. It’s always been a club which is close to my heart, and I suppose that’s added a bit of extra spice to the situation and given me a little bit more to think about.
But the club’s in a very good place at the moment. We’re going to build on the last four years, we’re going to get stronger. The fan base, as you know and everyone knows, is quite incredible. I’m just happy to have been a part of it for these four years, very happy with the way they’ve treated me, the way they’ve treated Ray Lewington and the rest of the staff. Obviously I shall miss them too, but that’s part and parcel I’m afraid of all goodbyes. Often when you say goodbye you are going to miss someone.
Mikel Arteta cited you this morning as a legend of English football and touched on your remarkable career, as well as an influence on his career. What does it mean to you to be respected by so many peers of the game?
I think it’s probably meant more than anything, I really do think that gaining the respect of your peers: the players that you’re working with, the staff… you work with a lot of players, staff and colleagues and coaches.
I think if at the end of your time working at a club in that country or even at the end perhaps of your working career, if you’ve got people who are prepared to say that they have accepted you as a bona fide member of the football family, as someone whose work they appreciate, that means an awful lot.
Because the fanfares you get during a career at various moments can be transitory. You have a moment where everyone is lifting you up on a platform which you probably don’t deserve to be on, and other times when they’re probably trying to knock you too far down a ladder or a platform and you feel very upset about that.
I think that the respect of your colleagues, you take that with you at all times. It’s very, very nice.
On the word legend, I had a friend called Les Strong who is a very amusing man, unfortunately he always suggested the term legend should be pronounced ‘leg-end’, I’m not so certain I’m happy with that one.
Arsenal and Liverpool left. Are they fitting matches to see out your tenure?
In some ways, yes. They’re high profile matches and we’re playing two of the best teams in the country – two of the teams who traditionally are always up there amongst the top five or six teams in the country. Of course clubs with a fantastic tradition.
So I suppose in that respect. I’ve enjoyed these four years in the Premier League and perhaps it’s right that we should be pitting our wits or doing our best against teams once again will be favourites when the match starts. But we can roll up our sleeves as we did in the second half against Aston Villa and show that even against teams that maybe pose a bigger threat, we can on our best days not only match them but go out and beat them.
So that will be our aim. I am hoping that will happen, but you don’t always get what you want in life in that respect. But you can always hope.
How special will it be to step out at Selhurst Park tomorrow after a tough and unprecedented season, to welcome back the fans but also bid them farewell?
Strange as well, I suppose, but just a quirk of fate that the government have decided quite late on to allow fans back in.
You’re quite right to say that there’s a bit of a paradox there. For so long we’ve been wanting to welcome fans back, but no sooner than I get the chance to welcome them back I’ll be waving goodbye to them.
It’s a fact of the situation and I shall happily deal with it. I’m rather hoping fans will a) enjoy the game but most importantly I hope they’re going to show their appreciation for the team.
Because what this team have done not just for a season, it’s been almost a season and a third which has merged into one, I think what they’ve done in that period of time is well worthy of the fans’ appreciation. It’s going to be nice to see the players appreciated by the fans, and nice to see the fans back.
Do you think you will find it easy to step back? You’ll be the manager of your own time again.
Yes, that’s something I’ll have to learn to manage. For quite a long period of time now my life has been dictated in an almost military fashion. I know what time I’ve got to get up to get to work and when roughly I’m going to get home.
All those things will change, and that will be something new for me but my wife has had plenty of practice at that of course over the years as we’ve travelled from country to country and I’m sure she’ll teach me how to do it because I will need some of her patience along the way.
How nice has it been to get good receptions at all the clubs you’ve been at?
Yeah. Perhaps it isn’t all of them, I have to say that! But I’ve certainly been blessed with a lot more good ones than bad ones, and there’s been some outstanding ones along the way celebrating achievements that the team and club had during my time with them as manager.
Those memories will stay with me, that’s for sure, they’ve certainly always been really appreciated there’s no doubt about that.
It’s not something you can really expect or rely upon. People will give you the reception they think you deserve, and you have to be very grateful if that reception is a positive one.
When did you tell the players about your decision, and how did that go?
I think two and a half months of press conferences might have given them a bit of a clue when I’ve been batting back questions all the time and suggesting I would give you my thoughts in my own time.
I don’t think there were too many of them who have suddenly when they’ve found out said: “oh my God you’ve really caught us on the hop here.”
But I did that deliberately. It would have been nice in some ways to have given them more notice. I’d have had more chance to spend with them one a one-on-one basis to thank them really personally for all the work they’ve done rather than do it really globally as we did this morning.
But I will still have one or two more chances before the end of the season to pull those people aside. So technically I suppose they found out just before you guys when the statement fell, but I think most of them had a pretty good idea that it doesn’t look like we’re going to be working with Roy and Ray next year.
The last week of the season, it could be your last week as a manager. Are you cherishing the moments?
Well I’ve got to say I don’t think I’ve had any sort of feelings in that regard until perhaps today. It’s a low-key training session because it’s Matchday-1. Secondly, having actually made the formal announcement to the players and knowing the formal announcement will be with the media this afternoon, I suppose that’s probably been the first time I’ve ever felt that there was ever a slight – not a slacking off, but more of a void in my feelings about it. We’ve been so focused on the games and getting it right that we’ve put the subject behind us, just like the players who are out of contract. There are still quite a few of those that Doug and Steve Parish will have to deal with. They’ve put it out of their minds as well.
We’ve tried to be 100% professional and show 100% pride in our profession, really. We believe it’s important that every time you take the field as a football player or as a coach trying to prepare that team, you’ve got to be giving it your best, giving it your all. And I think we’ve done that. I’m really hoping we’ll see that tomorrow night as well.
We showed certainly on [Sunday] what we’re capable of, and I think tomorrow night would be a wonderful occasion to do so again.
Are you looking forward to being able to say goodbye to the fans? And hearing an atmosphere again?
Yes, absolutely.
Goodbyes have never been my forte. I’m much better at hellos than goodbyes. Yes, I’m looking forward to it but it risks being an emotional occasion, and I’m not good at emotional occasions.
As emotional occasions go, is it fitting that you get to go out against one of your former clubs in Liverpool?
Yeah, that was such a brief sojourn up there really that I could be accused of exaggerating if I called them one of my former clubs. I think it was about five or six months that I had with the guys up there.
But yes, technically it’s one of my clubs, technically it’s one of the Premier League clubs I’ve worked at. It’s against the current champions of England. A team who’ve done so brilliantly well over the last few years under Jurgen Klopp.
It certainly would be a fitting match in the sense that you want to test yourself out one last time, here’s the test you’ve been looking for: try and deal with this lot up at Anfield.
Ray Lewington has been with you for a while, I imagine he’s been a real rock by your side over the last couple of decades almost.
Yeah, absolutely. Not quite two decades, obviously the time at Fulham, the time at England and the time here, they’ve been wonderfully profitable years.
For me personally, working alongside him, he’s been incredible in everything he’s done. We’ve worked pretty much in tandem for a long, long period of time. He, Dave Reddington and Dean Kiely deserve an awful lot of credit for the preparation that goes into our football matches because they take on such a lot of responsibility.
Ray is a top class football person, a wonderful coach really at the very highest level. An incredibly experienced, both as a coach and as a manager.
I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to count on him alongside me. He’s been not only helpful in terms of his advice and his opinions – the sounding board that every manager needs. But he’s also been exceptional in everything he does on the training field with the players, and that’s helped us in my opinion to become a better team and retain that Premier League status that has been so important for us over these last four years.
Has the lockdown given you a bit an insight into what time away from football might be like?
Good question. To be honest, when the real lockdown began where you were virtually imprisoned in your house or your apartment, I think that would have been the time to start thinking that this might be my life one day when I stop working full-time in football.
But I don’t think that I really did think that much about it because I was so convinced that the league would start up again and that we would finish that season. And that I would see out my contract by getting through the next season.
I think it will be something which I’ll have to confront anew. I’m not certain the lockdown experiences would have helped as much as they should have done if I’d have given it more thought at the time.
Which manager or opposition would you say you’ve learned most from about yourself and the job?
Blimey, that’s a really good one.
I think probably the closest I could come to really giving an answer to that would be when I left Sweden after all those years – the 12 out of the first 14 years spent at three Swedish clubs, a hiatus here at Bristol City in England in between times.
I think when I went to Switzerland that was probably the first time I was confronted with something very different in terms of mentality, culture, attitude and thoughts really from the owners of the club about how they expected the manager of their club to behave. That was the first time I really thought it was going to be very, very different to what I’d experienced before.
Then of course Inter was similar I think. Going from Switzerland where I think I did quickly come to terms with what it was about, being a head coach of a Swiss team and then moving on to coach the national team, I felt pretty comfortable in that. What Swiss football was about, the differences between what clubs in Sweden had taught me and clubs in Switzerland had taught me.
The next really big step which opened my eyes to a different world was coming to Inter. Suddenly I found myself coaching a club that not only interested the people in Milan, it interested the whole of the country and what’s more the Milan media were always in a frenzy to get stories about the club and the players. I had to sort of confront a pressure if you like that I hadn’t really been used to to that extent in my career up til then.
I think I would have to cite Malmo to Neuchatel as the first epiphany, and then an even greater epiphany after I left to join Inter.
You’ve mentioned things you’ll miss like teaching the players. Is that what you’ll miss the most about not being in the Premier League?
Did you say teaching the players?
Yes. How would you describe it?
I don’t quite know that I would go quite as far as that. I think when you get to the level we’re working at you’re very much trying to get the best out of players and trying to make certain they can bring their already considerable skills to the match and make certain that their skill can help make the team a better team and win.
I don’t know that I would regard myself as a teacher here, but I would like to think I and Ray together have coached the team and tried to make people realise what skills they do have and how they can sometimes maybe use them a little bit better. Not least of all for helping us to win as a team.
I certainly would accept an accolade for that, but I think the word teacher might be a bit strong.
What will you miss the least about managing in the Premier League?
I don’t know yet. It’s a stressful job, there’s no question of that. I think over the years I’ve learned to deal with the stress. I’m not suggesting for one minute that my decision to step aside now is because I can’t take the stress or find the stress is too much for me.
Far from it, really. I think I’m one of those people who probably thrive on a bit of stress, a bit of tension. That’s not going to be a problem as such.
I think that the thing I won’t miss is defeats. That is something which you rather hope as you get older and your CV starts to pile up and maybe look a little bit better, maybe your reputation in the game grows somewhat so you feel maybe that I’ve earned the right now to lose a few games because I’ve got so much behind me. But it doesn’t work that way.
I’m very sorry to say that the defeats that come my way now with Crystal Palace hurt me every bit as much as those defeats in the early part of 1976.
I was rather hoping that there’s something in football that would provide a shield for you, but I’ve realised that doesn’t exist.
The thing I certainly won’t miss is waking up during the night after a game that we’ve lost and then waking up in the morning after a bad night’s sleep once again trying to come to terms with the fact that we’ve lost and then having to wait another 24 hours until you can at least get back onto the field with the players at the training ground and to some extent exorcise the feelings you are feeling.
Gareth Southgate’s England Euros squad announcement is coming up. How difficult is it to tell top players they’re not in the squad for a major tournament?
I think it boils down to the fact that there’s no easy way to break somebody’s heart. That’s how it is.
When you’re telling a player who has set his heart on representing his country, and possibly has played a big part in the qualifiers and matches leading up to the tournament that he hasn’t quite made the 23, it’s a really, really nasty situation to find yourself in.
It’s one you sign up for when you become England manager. You realise this day is probably going to come. There are more than 23 now, but there are more than 23 England internationals so there is going to be a list of them that you’re going to have to deal with. It’s not a pleasant job, that’s for sure.
Unfortunately, it can be one that stays with you, sometimes. If you are unfortunate enough to maybe go to a guy and you really appreciate his work and appreciate him as a human being and you see the real disappointment on his face, when you say ‘Sorry, not for you on this occasion’, that can live with you for a little bit.
No-one really likes to be the bearer of that type of bad news. But it’s a job that Gareth’s done for a long time with the Under-23s before he became England manager, and of course at Middlesbrough when he was manager of the club.
He’s got all the experience in the world for dealing with it, but if you were to ask me today if I’d like to swap places with him doing that, I would say absolutely not, I just wish him well.
