Managing Craig Bellamy was once compared to juggling a live firework. Intense, combustible, and volatile, the opening chapter of the Wales manager’s autobiography is titled, “The Human Snarl”. A summary of how he was viewed as a player, the old perceptions are now being re-evaluated by his approach to football management.
In his book, Bellamy wound the clock back to a weekend break in Donegal with Celtic team-mates during a six-month loan spell in 2005 when he stumbled upon a bar to watch the FA Cup semi-final between parent club Newcastle and Manchester United. A 4-1 defeat was followed by Magpies legend Alan Shearer using a television interview to throw defensive team-mates under a bus. Bellamy felt the England legend should have shouldered more of the responsibility and took out his mobile phone to tell him so. In blunt, strident terms. Shearer responded by threatening to knock him out.
A divisive, polarising figure, Bellamy the player had that effect on team-mates, managers and opponents alike. That Bellamy the manager of Wales prefers his players to savour every minute in his company and leave them wanting more explains why clubs like Celtic and Burnley might be willing to overlook the indiscretions of the past.
“I want the players to think, ‘I can’t wait to play again’,” he said recently. “And I want anyone who comes away from a game like, ‘I love that, I love that. That’s what I want’.
“And I believe that, to me, is my identity. Full gas, 100 miles per hour, that’s my plan A. My plan B is even more full gas and even more intensity. That’s where I want us, that’s where I want us to be.”
Struggling with a divorce and the death of his great friend Gary Speed was the turning point. Seeking therapy from Steve Peters, the psychiatrist best known for working with Chris Hoy and Victoria Pembleton, the journey from edgy, unpredictable striker to considered methodical manager of Wales gathered momentum.
While the inner fire and obsessive perfectionism remains, he is a more mellow and mature and considered figure these days.
Speaking to Jake Humphrey’s High Performance podcast, he recently opened up on his past mistakes.
“Those moments haunt me, even now. There is a period, then, where you have got to let go. You have to let go. You have to start being kind to yourself and saying, ‘It’s done’. It’s part of your life and you can move away now. It can’t keep hanging over you. Where is the future? Where do you want to go?”
The redemption arc will feature a move to club football at some point. Newly-relegated Burnley want to hire him after parting company from Scott Parker at the end of the season and, with Jens Berthel Askou completing his move from Motherwell to Toulouse, Celtic may need to move quickly if they decide that he is the man they want.
After the Wilfried Nancy fiasco, Bellamy’s lack of experience as a club manager might be a gamble for a conservative board of directors.
Interim manager Martin O’Neill offers the safest bet and adding the Scottish Cup to the Premiership title would add to the appeal of another year or two. O’Neill has also shown that he can work with Shaun Maloney, earmarked for a senior football operations role.
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Grateful though they are for his efforts to salvage a bin fire of a season, some fans remain unconvinced by the appointment of O’Neill or Robbie Keane, whose imminent departure from Ferencvaros set the rumour mill alight yesterday.
Coach of a Ferencvaros side toppled from their perch for the first time in seven years, Keane’s time in Hungary is up. If the Irishman really is the candidate controlling shareholder Dermot Desmond favours then that might be all it takes. If he thinks he can secure a return to London with, say, Fulham or Crystal Palace, then Celtic might be a harder sell than people seem to think.
Celtic need someone in quickly. Up to 18 players could leave the club this summer and a dozen or so will move in. With a Champions League qualifier on the horizon, the new man would need to hit the ground running and offer decent odds of avoiding the same fate as Nancy.
Offsetting a lack of front-line club management for Bellamy is the fact that he worked with Vincent Kompany at both Anderlecht and Burnley – describing his time working with the current coach of Bayern Munich as an “education”.
Encouraging his teams to play fearless, full-throttle football, training sessions come with a purpose and every game starts with a plan. Staying calm is key and he rarely rants or raves in the dressing room. The desire to outline things to his players in full stems from his own experiences – both good and bad – at 11 different clubs. To be a successful coach, the Craig Bellamy who used to take on the world had to change his approach to life.
“I go back to school and if you were telling me, ‘Do this, do that’, it ain’t working for me,” he told High Performance. “I won’t do that. But if you give me a reason why, then I am there.
“I was more complicated than most. And if I was coaching a young me I would say, ‘This is what you need and this is why you need it’.
“I don’t believe that any player is ‘a problem’. I feel that’s mismanagement again.
“If I felt I couldn’t connect with a player then I have to do more. Spend time with him. Speak to him, not even about football. Talk about brothers and sisters, the partner, because the more you get to know that person the more you should be able to coach him.”
He acknowledges that he never enjoyed his playing days as much as he should have. Leaving Cardiff for Norwich as a teenager, he was crippled by homesickness. Marrying young, the divorce played havoc with his state of mind. There were times when he would not leave the house for two or three days before a game to save his legs. If he won a game, he would wake at the same time the next Saturday, leave the house at the same time, drive the same route, wear the same suit.
An exhausting way to live his life, he strives to take pleasure, now, in the small things. To live in the moment and savour what he has in a way he rarely could when he played the game and tortured himself over winning medals and trophies.
He said: “The older you get, the better you learn about yourself and I am coming into an age where I have been through all these experiences and they have helped me. So you are probably getting the best version of me right now.
“I’ll tell you one thing now, I am going to enjoy this. No hesitation, I am enjoying this ride and I am going to enjoy it no matter where it takes me or where it goes. Defeats, wins, draws, I don’t care where this road goes. But I am going to enjoy every second of it.”
