ALEX NEIL has revealed the secret to how he won over a sceptical Norwich City dressing room when he first came down from Hamilton as an unknown manager.
The former Hamilton boss will be the only Scottish manager in the Barclays Premier League next season after guiding Norwich through world football's richest game as he helped his club collect an estimated £120m of riches after beating Middlesbrough 2-0 at Wembley in the play-off final.
But there were plenty of unconvinced voices in the Carrow Road dressing room when they announced the appointment of rookie Neil in January. Critics were baffled as to why a club that had been in England's top flight the previous season would look north for an unknown manager, in English terms anyway.
But the 33-year-old has become a Norwich legend after leading them to their first win at Wembley since a League Cup success is 1985. And Neil has revealed just how he managed to turn the doubters around when he came down from New Douglas Park.
"I think people will treat you how you allow them to treat you," Neil said. "The one thing about me is that I am very straight, but I am thorough and fair. If they do as much work for me as I want, I will make sure I help them and try to guide them as much as I can.
"I believe we can achieve success and we have managed to do that. Norwich is a fantastic club - Delia Smith, the chief executive David McNally, everybody connected with the club - the players, it really is a family club.
"I am fortunate and delighted to be there. It is important that I am made to feel welcome - I have got to enjoy my job because money isn't the most important thing.
"We managed to achieve what we set out to do and that makes it all worthwhile. When I got the job, I felt I was capable of doing it. It is easy to say that in hindsight, but I've said that all along. I just believe the message I have put across is clear. I felt with the squad at our disposal we could go and achieve promotion. Thankfully, we did."
Neil was cheered to glory by a contingent from his former club, including Hamilton boss Martin Canning and vice-chairman Ronnie MacDonald, and one man in the Carrow Road dressing room he had no trouble in convincing was former Hamilton player Tony Andreu, the French midfielder Neil paid Hamilton £1m to sign in January.
"Two years ago I was at Livingston and this is unbelievable," Andreu said. "I'm not surprised by anything the manager does. He's done incredibly well and at Wembley in a big game, we had another big performance.
"That's two promotions in two years for him and I could not have thought about what has happened. Winning promotion with Hamilton and winning promotion here, it's amazing.
"How did the manager win the players over? With his work ethic. He is honest and he knows what he is doing."
The Wembley win in front of almost 90,000 fans was all a far cry to his first game of this season - managing Hamilton to a 2-1 home win against Arbroath in front of just 730. And Neil was quick to acknowledge the role in his success played by the Lanarkshire side, achieved a year to the day after he led Accies to a shock play-off win over Hibs.
"A few of the Hamilton boys came down and I saw them the night before at the hotel," Neil added. "It was good that they came down - the two back-to-back play-offs have been kind to me. I am just really happy that is the case.
"People had mentioned it was a year to the day after beating Hibs to me, but I didn't take too much notice to it as I was just focused on the job.
"I knew what I wanted to do no how we would go about trying to achieve that. And we did."
Now Neil can start planning for the Premier League after he takes his family for a well-earned break.
He said: "It will be great but I don't get overawed by things. It is what it is. We will go there and give it our best shot.
"Hopefully, we can go and compete and give a good account of ourselves.
"My wife and two kids will come down after the summer which allowed me to focus on the job. It probably worked out so that was good.
"It has been difficult not being with my wife and kids, this is the longest I have been away from them. I see them from time to time, they come and watch a lot of the home games and I have managed to get up twice since I moved down.
"It has probably been a good thing in a way because my sole focus is on getting the team prepared for winning games.
"It has allowed me to really get stuck into the job and that has certainly benefitted me."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article