BOWYER THE MANAGER
The numbers alone expose the Bowyer Effect. Charlton have already sold 20,000 tickets for Saturday’s visit of Leeds, guaranteeing them their biggest gate to date of this term, and anticipate a walk-up which could push the attendance closer to the 25,000 who were at the League One play-off semi-final second leg against Doncaster Rovers in May. The majority had squirmed through proceedings that night, the agony prolonged into extra-time, but they need not have fretted.
As was proved at Wembley nine days later, the management had everything under control.
At first glance, that this club should suddenly feel resurgent is incongruous. The kindest way of assessing the fanbase’s relationship with the ownership would be to suggest they are tolerating the current status quo. Roland Duchatelet will never be welcome in these parts and Charlton, one of a quartet of teams in the Belgian’s portfolio, remain up for sale. All the familiar, grim issues that have blighted them for over five years rumble on in the background; proper progress will have to wait for regime change.
But in the context of a club where protest has become the norm, whether it has been plastic pigs or crisp packets raining down from the stands, or supporters marching on the Belgian embassy in London’s Belgravia seeking answers, Bowyer’s presence has been restorative. Even reassuring. He had delivered his wilder moments as a player, but the rookie manager has become a voice of sanity at The Valley.
“It helped that he’s a Charlton lad, which meant we had the crowd on our side from the moment he took over,” said Johnnie Jackson, a veteran of 279 appearances for the club who was appointed Bowyer’s assistant once he took the reins. “Before that, the fans had fallen a bit out of love with the team. Perhaps they couldn’t relate to them. We needed to get them back on side and give them a team they could be proud of.
“That was the first thing we did, recruiting the right types, all based on hard work, work ethic, intensity. That is the minimum requirement we want. Lee won’t accept anything less than that. We can accept lads making mistakes or having bad games, of course, but nothing less than 100 per cent effort. The fans want that: it’s a working-class, south London club, and they want to see a team giving their all for the badge. They want to see honest lads out there giving their all. We’ve delivered that so far.”
What makes their promotion and progress all the more remarkable is that Bowyer, whose playing career had fizzled out with relegation at Birmingham and a year in the Championship at Ipswich, had never envisaged returning to the game. He was through with football. Done with it all. The boy from Canning Town had ventured over to France and bought a 12-acre plot of land in Champagne-Ardenne which included two tree-lined lakes called La Fritterie, renamed it Etang de Bows (Bow’s Lake) and turned a longstanding love of carp fishing into a business. For three years, that had been enough.
Then came a request to help out his former Leeds team-mate, Harry Kewell, with Watford’s under-23s and, over a six-week uncontracted spell on the coaching staff, all the old cravings returned. The busy hubbub of the training ground, the thrill of a match day, the adrenaline rush after a win, the thanks received from parents for the visible improvements his coaching had made on their sons: he was hooked once more.
It was Karl Robinson who brought him back to Charlton for two days a week to oversee the development of a crop of promising young midfielders, mentoring Joe Aribo and Ezri Konsa over “the right times to make runs, the little triggers that should go off”. That pair are now at Rangers and Brentford respectively. His influence can similarly be seen in the subsequent progress made by loanees such as West Ham’s Josh Cullen and Krystian Bielik, now at Derby. When Robinson left for Oxford United, it was as if Bowyer had sleep-walked into full-time football management.
He has reinvented himself from the snarling midfielder of his playing days in the period since.
“He’s very detailed in his approach, very diligent studying opposition, and loves the tactical side of it all — coming up with different formations for certain opponents,” said Jackson. “He’s a very good man-manager, knows the right time to put an arm round the player or give him a kick up the backside. He’s not afraid to do that — if it’s needed at half-time or full-time — but never to excess. He’s only lost his rag on the odd occasion, and only then when it’s been warranted. He’s aware that overkill of that style can have a negative effect. Use of the hairdryer hasn’t been over the top. He has a good feel for what needs to be said at certain times. His instinct is usually right.”
The mantra has always been collective responsibility. He demands feverish work-rate and has plucked attributes from all those managers under whom he served, an illustrious list, and used them to make his own impact.
He has cited the tactical acumen of Terry Venables and Sir Bobby Robson, their shadow play in preparation for specific opposition, their ability to judge the right time to lighten the mood or demand greater focus, and the way they protected the side in public after setbacks. There was a defeat at Rochdale early last season which might have had Bowyer: the player’s instincts screaming to tear into his side, “but I thought about Terry and took a step back”. He felt the same about last weekend’s loss to Wigan Athletic, a second successive defeat to check momentum after a fine start to the campaign, “but it’s been once in 18 months that we’ve played that poorly, so I can allow them that.”
He pointed to O’Leary’s man-management skills as “exceptional” and key to “eking the best out of Mark Viduka” at Leeds. And then there was Graham, who had replaced Wilkinson at the helm at Elland Road shortly after his arrival back in the summer of 1996. “George set about making us work hard as a team at Leeds, and I’m the same with my lads here,” he said. “You can’t play with individuals. You have to play as a group.
“George left me out. I was just getting forward, trying to score, and wasn’t really doing the defensive side of the game. So he said, ‘You ain’t playing until you track back, tackle, help out. Basically until you’re better for the team.’ He left me out for eight weeks, but I benefited. That’s what I do with my players. If you’re not prepared to put in a shift for the team, then you don’t play. That’s what I drill into them. Team first.
“Everything boils down to hard work. It’s not just about me, or the goalie, or (the forward) Lyle Taylor. It’s about what we do as a group. I can say whatever I want but, unless they trust and respect me, they won’t give me what I want. We’re as one here. We respect each other. If there’s anything on their mind, they can come and speak to me and we have man-to-man or group conversations. They know I’m firm but fair and treat them all the same, and all with respect.”
He and a small staff — Jackson, goalkeeping coach Andy Marshall, head of performance analysis Brett Shaw, head of recruitment Steve Gallen — are of a similar age and socialise together off the pitch. They have taken to spending Friday nights on the eve of away matches brainstorming over a meal in the team hotel. “It’s an open forum, talking about football, with Lee happy for everyone to throw ideas around,” said Jackson. “That’s when we get a lot of our informal discussion done. It’s a real open-door policy and everyone has their input. He encourages that massively. We’re all learning off the cuff. But, considering we were all thrown together, it’s almost unique how brilliantly it’s all knitted.”
That said, his own invite to Etang de Bows must still be in the post.
There has been self-analysis as well, not least after the League One play-off campaign in 2018 culminated in anti-climax and disappointment. The staff were intent on learning from the mistakes made that spring — the timing of substitutions, when to rotate a squad to freshen up weary limbs, the tactical approach to certain matches — with their success last term evidence of improvement.
In truth, Bowyer will always struggle with losing. “Whether I’m playing tennis or golf, or managing this team, I have to win,” he added. “That’s the same mentality I’ve tried to instil here — that winning’s everything. We had a good taste of that last year, and at the start of this season as well. We’re realists about what we can achieve. Talk of promotion is ridiculous. But we work, we work, and we see where that takes us.”
Now for Leeds, the “best team in the division”, a packed house and a reunion where victory might feel that little bit sweeter still.
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