Towards the back of the Laithwaite Community Stadium’s tin-roofed Directors’ Stand sits a long-disused telephone block terminal, once required to connect the football ground to the outside world. It is a relic almost as old as the stand itself, which has changed little in more than a century.
During a playing career primarily spent in the Premier League, trips to such non-league curiosities as Woking’s home ground were a rarity for Jermain Defoe; the type of banana-skin venue a world away from the glamour of football’s top flight.
While Defoe name-checked Wayne Rooney, Harry Redknapp, Gareth Southgate and Sam Allardyce during his unveiling as the Surrey team’s unlikely new manager, a smattering of volunteers who often form the core of fifth-tier clubs busied themselves around the ground, forking the pitch and tidying the terraces following a disappointing 1-1 National League draw at home to fellow mid-table outfit Altrincham the previous evening.
Defoe had watched from the stands as his new side toiled against their nine-man opposition, before he formally takes the reins for the visit of relegation-threatened Eastleigh on Good Friday in what will be the first match of his solo managerial career. It is an improbable turn of events for a figure who made 496 Premier League appearances and scored 20 international goals, but will now concern himself with the lower reaches of the English football pyramid usually only of interest to those in the immediate locality.
It has, suggested Defoe, “always been the plan”, with the former West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland striker explaining how “towards the back end of my career I knew I wanted to go into coaching”.
He fulfilled a player-coach role during his final season at Rangers – where he also formed part of an interim coaching unit that took charge for a brief period in 2021 – and then returned to Spurs as an academy coach upon his playing retirement in 2022. Nonetheless, turning up at a club beneath the English Football League was a move few had anticipated.
“My mum has always said to me in life you’ve got to be grateful for every opportunity you get,” said Defoe, who explained that he was smartly dressed in a buttoned-up white shirt and slick grey suit because his mum would be watching.
“It’s no different to when you’re a player. When I was a 16-year-old in the West Ham youth team, you had to earn your stripes and do your apprenticeship. Just because I’ve had a good career, I can’t just expect to get that big job.”
In the absence of personal experience, he has sought out the advice of others who have ploughed the non-league furrow to find out what it entails. More illustrious names he has also confided in include Allardyce, Redknapp and Robbie Keane. Ultimately, he insisted, playing in front of an average Laithwaite Community Stadium attendance of little over 2,500 should be no different to the Old Firm or north London derbies.
“At the end of the day, it’s a pitch with two goals, 11 v 11, and you have to win,” he said. “There can’t be any excuses. You prepare to win and it’s as simple as that.”
Following Liam Rosenior’s appointment at Chelsea earlier this year, he now adds his name to a woefully under-represented cohort of Black managers in the top five tiers of English football.
“It’s something that has been spoken about for many years,” he said, when asked about the paucity of Black coaches. “I remember, as a player, all the campaigns, and speaking to the likes of Les Ferdinand, Ian Wright, Andy Cole, that sort of generation before me who did their coaching badges and had a lack of opportunity.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity. I would like to think, going forward, other Black managers will get opportunities, and players still playing will get the opportunities in the future.”
The remainder of the season gives him something of a free hit. Woking sacked his predecessor Neal Ardley at the start of March after a poor run had all but extinguished promotion hopes. A first step up to the Football League in the club’s 139-year history remains the target by which Defoe will be judged, although he declined to divulge what his managerial playing style will be to achieve such a goal.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” said Defoe, who laughed off previous links with the Tottenham managerial job and offered his support to Roberto De Zerbi. “I’d want to be hard to play against first. I know it sounds boring, but you need to be hard to play against. I want a team that is exciting, creating a lot of chances and scoring goals. You have to give these fans something to cheer about when they come to the stadium.”
It may yet be the start of something big for Defoe as a manager; conversely, it could be a blunder destined for pub quiz obscurity.
“It’s always going to be a gamble,” he said. “It’s part and parcel. You can’t think like that. You have to be positive, back yourself and believe you are good enough.”
