Shaun Derry has recalled the heartbreaking day he was sacked by his hometown club Notts County and says it was a “brutal learning curve”.
The former Magpies midfielder was dismissed in March 2015 just a season after he led the club to the Great Escape when he rescued their League One status against all the odds.
Derry had actually started the 2014-15 season in incredible fashion when he took Notts to the dizzying heights of fourth in the table with fans anticipating a push for promotion to the Championship.
But after loan players like Stephen McLaughlin and Louis Laing returned to Nottingham Forest and were replaced with fledgling talent, results took a downturn.
Derry was relieved of his duties in March as Notts slipped towards the bottom half of the table, before he was replaced by Ricardo Moniz, who couldn’t stop them from being relegated.
Recalling the day he received the call his services were no longer required by the club he supports, Derry told Coaches’ Voice that the senior players were aggrieved at the decision by then chairman Ray Trew.
“I remember the phonecall coming on a Sunday night, the day after we’d lost 4-1 to an MK Dons side that went on to get promoted that season,” he said.
“When I saw that it was the chairman’s wife calling, I knew it was curtains. She invited me to go and see her on the Monday morning, and I said yes.
“I wanted her to say what she needed to say to my face. And I wanted to go and shake hands properly. I think you can judge people a lot more astutely by looking them in the eye, to see how they’re reacting to a situation.
“All I wanted to do then was to go and see the players and rest of the staff. To thank them for their efforts, wish them well and give them a few words of encouragement, because I didn’t want Notts County to get relegated. It was my club – the club I supported as a fan, the club I had played for.
“So we drove up to the training ground and sat down with everyone.
"There were some tears shed by the close coaching staff that I had – we’d formed a fantastic team. Together with the senior players – Alan Smith, Gary Thompson, Gary Jones, Roy Carroll – there was a lot of experience in that room. They all felt aggrieved.
"And I shared that with them.
“But that’s the game. You’re always going to be passing through football clubs, whether you last 25 years like Arsène Wenger, or 25 minutes like those who’ve only dipped their toes into a job when they find themselves out of work again.
"Though that doesn’t change the fact that I felt the wrong decision was made.
"To be sacked from your hometown club, where you’d actually achieved some good things, was a real learning curve for me. A brutal one.
