There was no great buildup of suspense when Steve McClaren was finally confirmed as Newcastle United’s new head coach, although the club did manage an element of surprise by simultaneously appointing the former England manager to its board of directors.
McClaren effectively takes Mike Ashley’s place on the board, the owner having stepped down along with the finance director, John Irving, who is leaving the club. The chief scout, Graham Carr, and club ambassador Bob Moncur have also been given seats on the board, in a move the club feels adds strength to its football operation. Newcastle will be the only Premier League club with its head coach also a presence at board meetings and the managing director, Lee Charnley, described the move as a positive step forward.
“I am delighted that Steve, Graham and Bob will be joining me on the board,” Charnley said. “It was particularly important to make the head coach a board member in order to gain a full understanding and appreciation for the club as a whole, not just the football side. In Steve, we have an individual willing to embrace that responsibility.”
While Ashley appears willing to step aside and let the football board deal with the day-to-day running of the club, there is no suggestion he intends to relinquish any personal power or responsibility. He was never the most enthusiastic attender of board meetings in the past and is expected to continue to exert the same level of control over the club’s commercial direction. While the reshuffle may be partly to appease fans who resent his position as a figurehead, it could also be seen as a tacit admission that Ashley got a big football decision horribly wrong last season, in deciding not to replace Alan Pardew and almost suffering relegation as a result.
The long-expected appointment of McClaren is much more straightforward. The coach sacked by Derby County after failing to reach the play-offs has signed a contract for an initial three years, which could be extended to eight. The club has made advances to McClaren before, notably in his Middlesbrough days in 2004 and as recently as January after Pardew left, but in both cases he felt loyalty to the clubs that employed him and decided the timing was not right. This time the 54-year-old was available and he claimed his interest in Newcastle was revived as soon as Ashley made his promise at the end of last season to stick around until the club won something.
“I am privileged to be appointed head coach of Newcastle United, this is a big club with a wonderful heritage,” McClaren said. “There is a lot of work to do but the club has made it clear about wanting success and I would not have come here if I didn’t believe they were serious. I know how important Newcastle United is to the city and the region. The supporters are some of the most loyal, passionate and devoted in the world. This club has waited far too long to win a trophy, we owe it to the supporters to do everything we can to reward them with success. I am determined to give the supporters a team they can be proud of. I have already won trophies as a manager and a club the size of Newcastle should be winning cups and finishing in the top eight of the Premier League.”
McClaren has, indeed, won trophies as a manager, the League Cup in 2004 and the Dutch title with Twente in 2010, although whether that makes him the sort of saviour who can guide Newcastle to their first silverware since Kevin Keegan’s side came up from Division One as champions in 1993 is a moot point. Newcastle have not won anything at the top level since the FA Cup in 1955, or the Uefa Cup – when it was still known as the Fairs Cup – in 1969, and managers of the calibre of Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Sir Bobby Robson are among those to have endured that drought.
McClaren left Middlesbrough after modest success to manage England, an episode that did not end well, and although he showed courage and application in rebuilding his career in the Netherlands, he was subsequently dismissed from posts at Wolfsburg and Derby and resigned as Nottingham Forest manager after taking only eight points from his first 10 league games.
Nevertheless, Newcastle’s managing director called him an “innovative and forward-thinking coach”, a description that seemed to skip several recent events and settle instead on the reputation McClaren enjoyed around the time he joined Manchester United as assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson. “He can develop and improve players, which was a key quality we sought,” Charnley said. “He has been tasked to secure a top-eight finish and heavily incentivised to try to win a cup competition but the immediate focus will be assessing the squad and appointing his backroom staff.”
