Sol Campbell, King of the Northhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... -job-92nd/There might be a time, Sol Campbell wondered, when a black manager in English football’s top four divisions is less remarkable than it is in 2018, but for now one of the game’s most celebrated black players taking his first steps in a new career still felt like a big moment.
At Moss Rose, the home of the club 92nd in the professional game, they are running out of chances, without a manager since October, and it is amid that mood of desperation that their new man, with his sprinkling of star dust, has arrived. This giant of several England teams, now 44, seemed at times an incongruous figure in the McIlroy Suite, the most presentable part of a tired little stadium. For 20 years and over 73 caps, Campbell was one of the most recognisable figures in the game, and now here he was trying to rescue Macclesfield Town from sliding back into non-League.
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“I hope I’m not judged just on success, I hope I’m judged on what kind of ship I run,” he said. “In the end, hopefully the football wins and people start looking at all scenarios. In the end, I just want to become a manager, forget whatever colour you are, that’s the way it should be, really.”
Otherwise he was eager to turn his focus on a team already four points from safety and heading back to the National League from where they were promoted in May. He chuckled when the remarks of another former Macclesfield manager, Paul Ince, were put to him, that Campbell had to start at the very bottom club while others, such as Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, had been handed much more viable propositions as managers.
“You have to start somewhere,” Campbell said. “I am prepared to start anywhere. The opportunity came up and there was no messing about. It was very clean. It was one agent and the owner, very simple and I like that, a little bit old school. You’ve got to take your opportunities and I felt it was the right time.”
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