THE CLUB THE FA CUP SAVED
Manchester United’s visit prevented Exeter City from folding
THE coaches’ meeting has been running for an hour now. Manager Paul Tisdale, director of football Steve Perryman, assistant Mel Gwinnett, player-coach Danny Butterfield and club captain Matt Oakley have been arguing the toss over the benefits of back three, a 4-4-2 or the diamond formation. Match analyst Marcus Flitcroft’s laptop is in danger of overheating as he presents a plethora of statistics to cover each option.
It’s 3 o’clock on New Year’s Eve and dusk looms over Exeter City’s Cat and Fiddle training ground on the edge of town. Butterfield smiles, suggesting to Flitcroft that he may still be tucked up here in the Boot Room singing Auld Lang Syne on his own at midnight, such is the quantity of information being demanded by Tisdale.
Butterfield has a potential tactical solution. Tisdale is all ears but wants to know: ‘Can I get that over to the players in a three-minute team talk 20 minutes before the game? I just don’t want the players being as confused as we are at the moment.’
All this effort and energy might be expected. After all, Liverpool visit St James’s Park on Friday in the FA Cup third round. The game is live on BBC TV and it’s the biggest occasion since the club, then in the Conference and on the brink of liquidation, brought Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney et al, back here for a replay 11 years ago at the same stage of the FA Cup.
Yet the head-scratching and brain storming is actually in honour of Dagenham and Redbridge, in League Two’s basement, who Exeter played yesterday. The Liverpool game will take care of itself, in the next few days.
Still, no one underestimates the significance of the occasion this week. Least of all former Ireland striker Clinton Morrison on whom the club took a punt in 2014.
The former Crystal Palace and Birmingham City player, who went to the 2002 World Cup, was seeing out his career at non-league Long Eaton United when Oakley persuaded him to join. He’s 37 now and a big personality at the club, even if his appearances may be limited to late cameos.
‘I fell out of love with the game in the last few years it became a grind,’ says Morrison. ‘But I came here and the lads are good, the people are good and the fans took to me. If you come here and you don’t feel vibes, I’m not going to travel all the way down for that.’
He won’t start but surely has a chance to come on at some stage. After all, he always scores when Exeter are on TV, including an overhead kick against Stevenage and the opener against Didcot in the FA Cup first round. And he has some unfinished business with Liverpool. There was an infamous interview he gave when a 21-year-old starlet going into a League Cup semifinal at Anfield in 2001 where he said he would teach Owen some lessons after Palace won the first leg 2-1.
He still winces at the mention. ‘It was a stupid thing! Obviously it got misinterpreted.’
He can remember the jeers from The Kop that greeted him that night as Palace went down 5-0. He smiles broadly. ‘I’ve said we should park the bus on Friday, get a replay, go back to Anfield and I can make my peace with Liverpool!’
Tales of games past will also be regurgitated for Perryman, a man synonymous with the FA Cup, having captained Tottenham to victory in 1981 and 1982. The 64-year-old Tottenham legend moved to Devon, possibly expecting a quieter life. Roped in to help by the Supporters’ Trust when Exeter faced financial oblivion in 2003 and the previous owners were jailed for fraud, he has been director of football ever since, serving as a managerial mentor first to Alex Inglethorpe and now to Tisdale.
‘I love it,’ he says, as he surveys training like a sailor watches the sea for clues; to the uninitiated it all looks the same.
THEY are braving the tail end of Storm Frank today and the rains that followed Storm Abigail in November means that they haven’t been able to train at the water-logged pitches at the Cat and Fiddle for days. Gyms and indoor arenas have to be borrowed to ensure the team get any pitch time at all between games.
Still, they battle on at Exeter. They know how fortunate they are. The financial meltdown of 2003 saw the club in administration and on the brink of liquidation. A Supporters’ Trust took over as they were relegated to the Conference and fans pledged money to keep the club alive. Even so, the finances were unmanageable until that tie against Manchester United back in 2005. Remarkably non-League Exeter drew 0-0 at Old Trafford and only lost 2-0 back at St James’s Park, the tie not secure until Rooney’s 87thminute goal.
‘The rumour was we were very close to the edge again,’ says Perryman. ‘And then we got £1million for the Man United game.’
Exeter City owe their existence to the FA Cup and now the imminent arrival of Jurgen Klopp and his team to their tiny away dressing room allows a moment to reflect on that lucky break again.
‘I was speaking to (former manager) Alex (Inglethorpe) the other day and he was reminding me that when we went to Manchester United, how good they were with us. You get a letter asking you not to swap shirts on the pitch, as they’ll bring all the shirts to your dressing room within 20 minutes of the finish. Sure enough, 20 minutes after the game the shirts arrived and there was a bit of a scramble. And Alex said: “Do you remember whose shirt was left at the end?” Gerard Pique! Probably the most-decorated defender in history of the game now.’
On Friday, the money generated will be welcome but the club are no longer on the verge of extinction. ‘About a third of money will go into the academy facilities, a third will go on my players’ budget and a third to the club to improve infrastructure,’ says Tisdale. There is a determination not to return to bad, old days.
We should park the bus, get a replay and I can make peace with Anfield