Joey, what was the key message to the players before the match and at half time?
I put our previous team talks up all around the dressing room and said it’s nothing you haven’t heard from me all season. It was about keeping it simple today. We knew we had an opponent and we had to respect that and make sure we got the first goal and the second goal.
The fans were incredible for 20 minutes and then it went flat which I presumed was Northampton scoring at Barrow, but I didn’t realise they’d score three in something like 20 minutes.
But again the spirit and the endeavour of the players and the fanbase supporting them at every junction. 7-0 is not a normal football score. I’m surprisingly speechless.
In the second half you perhaps cottoned onto a team that were used to losing games and that once you got two or three you could sense they might keep coming because of where Scunthorpe are as a club at the moment.
For me, it was a case of believing in the group. We’ve worked tirelessly every single training session. The lads have turned up and they’ve competed and it’s my belief that if you do that over the course of a season, you get what you deserve.
We weren’t in the top three all season. I think we’ve been in there for ten minutes but they’re the most important ten minutes. But again the challenge for me now is to build this.
I think I can build a proper army here in this city, something that has not been done at least in the North part of the city before.
I’m quite calm, I’m already thinking about next season and pushing this again.
Let's go back to earlier this season, 20 games in you were 17th in the table, what has changed since the turn of the year?
Just players. It takes a period of time to turn over a playing group. I said some things that were very close to the bone but also I’m not here to waste time. I’m here to get results and luckily due to the career I had, I don’t do this for any other reason than that because I love what I’m doing.
If there’s poor standards in and around the place, it just won’t happen in the culture we want to build. We recruited those types of lads in the summer. It was a huge turnaround of players.
In January we had to tweak that model and there were lots of people calling for an experienced centre half. The results were poor and you do doubt yourself from time to time but the credit for me has to go to the players because they take to the pitch every Saturday and Saturday-Tuesday as it came at us thick and fast with covid.
I’m so lucky to coach a very special group of people, we’ve just got to keep building.
A football manager, just like every other job in the pandemic, in front of empty stadiums, that was probably quite a grim experience and you contrast it with the way the supporters are out there now...
Again, we’ve seen how important the role of the supporter is. We couldn't have got promoted this season if we’d have had an average away following. If we’d have had an average home following we wouldn’t have got the job done.
The fact we have an exceptional support base that follows us everywhere in numbers. That was the difference.
You’ve seen today that we’ve gone up on goals scored and if it wasn’t for those guys at Port Vale or Walsall, I can go back to so many different sliding doors moments for the group, but without the special fanbase we’ve got, we would not have got the job done. So massive credit to them.
You said credit to the players, but every player I’ve spoken to and the owner have said credit must go to you too, how proud of a moment for you personally is this?
It’s my first promotion I’ve got as a manager. We got close at Fleetwood but the covid pandemic shut us down.
It was a disjointed play-off campaign after that, I’m so gutted for the people of Fleetwood to put Fleetwood into the Championship would have been an incredible achievement, something I believe would have stood the test of time.
Unfortunately the financial ramifications of that bit hard. It bit the core business owner Andy Pilley who’s a superb guy and I’m so pleased Fleetwood stayed up.
That affected the third season and that was tough for me as a manager because I’m intent on getting as far as I can in the game.
Six weeks later Wael rings me and we have a chat about me coming here. I will admit when I first got here I thought ‘what the f*** have I got myself into’? You put your career at stake.
I can’t use any other language than that because it was a tricky situation.
There’s been loads of times that I’ve probably been close to getting sacked. If you ask Wael I don’t think he’ll say that but I definitely felt that pressure. As I say I’ve put myself in the mindset of ‘if you turn up every day and you put one foot in front of the other and you keep looking after people and your players, they will reward you’.
Enormous credit to the players if it wasn’t for them and it wasn’t for our fans, all I do is pick the team on a Saturday.
Well Joey, how do you try to put the afternoon into words?
It’s tough, but you’ve covered us all year and you’ve been part of this journey as well with the highs and lows. There have been some tough moments, but one thing that can’t ever be questioned is the character of our team and our players.
As a direct consequence of that, the fans have turned up and supported them because they knew they give everything for the quarters. You get special days at football clubs if you get that kind of recipe.
I’m so proud. I remember standing in front of you at Blackpool last year. Someone sent me the team this week and Rodders was starting up front, I think, young Jed Ward in goal and Pablo Martinez in holding midfield. To the situation we were in today…
I didn’t expect us to win 7-0, I didn’t think anybody did. I was hoping for a Barrow draw, but were we going to do it any other way? Does this group do it easy?
Who wins 7-0 on the final day to get promoted on goals scored?
I can’t describe it. It’s probably something when I’m in my rocking chair and the fact I’ve headed a lot of balls out at the near post area has caught up with me, I’ll remember this favourably with Wheatabix running down my chin and I’ll be thinking of the scenes at the Mem on this day.
We’re fortunate in this game to get paid very well for what we do, which is kick a football around. Moments like that are just priceless, to see the fanbase like that, to see the players, to see the emotion. You cannot put a price on that.
When you think about the season as a whole, the journey with the highs and lows, to end it like this. You promised this and you delivered.
I just really believed in the group and I really believed in what we were doing. I’ve had a cheat code all year. I've worked with Steve Black, who is the best I’ve ever seen in the world at what he does. He sadly passed away this year and I just knew all I had to do was follow the blueprint of Blacky’s.
I hope his missus and his kids see this today. That team today and that performance is the epitome of what Blacky preached to me on a daily basis.
When that seventh goal goes in, what is going through your head at that point?
Get the crowd off the pitch because we might need eight. That’s where we were at. We didn’t know what would happen in the other game.
I feel for Northampton, I do. They’ve gone and won 3-1 away from home, they’re five goals clear. Colin Calderwood is a great guy as I’ve said. I know I’ve rubbed Jon Brady up the wrong way but he has done a fantastic job this year as well.
They’ve sat in the top of three for a lot of the season. We’ve come and done them on the line. It’s still yet to sink in but they’ve had a fantastic season as well and I hope they go up in the play-offs.
When you think about the storied career you’ve had on the pitch and the success you’ve had, where does this fit into all that?
It’s definitely up there. My first promotion as a coach so I’ll remember that. Especially with us having two mad court cases in the middle of it. Had to get a CEO fired out of a cannon, a director of football get fired out of a cannon, plus about 15 people who were impersonating footballers.
It’s not easy and I know a lot of people didn’t believe, which is natural that people don’t believe that, because of what has gone before, but again we’ve got a fantastic group and all we can do is give the blue half of Bristol something to believe in.
The world is tough at the minute. There is a war in Europe for the first time in a long, long period. Inflation is on the rise. The cost of living is going through the roof.
Life is not fantastic for everybody but if we can give a little bit of an oasis in the middle of the week or on a weekend to people, where they can come and release and show that emotion and we can inspire in some way then that’s where football is at its best.
I’m seeing Jurgen Klopp do that in my city of Liverpool. Unfortunately, the blue half are having a tough year but now I can sit back and hopefully watch Frank Lampard and the boys remain in the Prem. Hopefully, Burnley stay in the Prem as well.
We can build for next season.
It’s only a few minutes after you’ve been promoted and you’re already thinking about next season.
You’ve got to haven’t you. I think for me this is just the start of the journey. I think we would have got promoted at Fleetwood had covid not come along. That was tough because I felt the club was in that slot.
I remember being at Barrow away, you guys thought I was probably going to get sanctioned very soon. Because he can’t actually believe in this team that can’t beat a team with ten men. At Exeter as well.
Was there a moment it changed though Joey? Obviously, you were in a bad position in 17th. Was there a moment where you thought ‘hang on’?
When the jury returned a not-guilty verdict in the Stendel trial because that was nonsense. It was absolute nonsense and it’s held me back. Having that in the ether is just not good. Credit to the lads I was in court for a period in Sheffield but the lads just got on with it. We turned up against Sutton in the FA Cup and the lads put in a performance.
Without them, this wouldn’t have been possible.
The older boy you’ve got in there Glenn Whelan, he seems to be a real cog in the machine for you?
Yeah, and he lost his mum this year in the midst of the run we were on. We were away in Swindon and he wasn’t with us. She was a big instigator in his football career in driving him on.
I genuinely thought he was outstanding today. I can’t remember anything he did wrong. Me and Whelo played in the same youth team together and he was a much better player than I was.
To see him play like that today. I want him to play on next season but you’d have to ask his missus about that but I thought he was unbelievable today.
His mum will be smiling down from heaven with Blacky there as well. Certainly really proud of his performance.
At the other end of the scale, Elliot Anderson, who looks one hell of a player.
He lifted this in the January period. We were going alright but we knew that window was key. We had to tighten the group.
Everyone was calling for an experienced centre half and I could see the logic behind that and James Connolly came in and I knew after a day he was the right person for us. He was so good today and all season. Connor Taylor alongside him. Hooley and Nick Anderton missed out today, I could be here all day talking about them. They’re a special group of people and some of them are just at the start of their career.
I said to them in there this is now how it ends every season, so just make sure you enjoy it.
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