THE paths of Ronny Deila and Arild Stavrum have diverged somewhat.
The pair became acquainted while doing their UEFA Pro Licence coaching badges back in 2010. At that time Deila was just starting to make waves as manager of Stromsgodset, leading the small Norwegian club to cup success as well as their best league finish in 13 years. He would add the Norwegian title three years later before moving to become Celtic manager this summer.
Stavrum ended up turning his back on professional football, the only players he coaches now a group of local high school pupils. The former Aberdeen striker has instead embraced a new career as a writer, publishing a series of children's books and this month his second novel, Exposed At The Back, his first work to be translated into English.
In an ideal world he would have remained in senior football while pursuing his dream to become an author but he knew that was always an unlikely prospect. "Football becomes all-consuming," he said from his publisher's office in Glasgow. "As a manager you have to be there all the time, It takes over your whole life. I wanted to write as well and to do both was impossible. I had to choose and I really wanted to write. That was my decision."
His interest in football, however, is undiminished, even if he now views developments from the outside looking in. He retains a keen interest in the fortunes of Norway's managerial exports and hopes Deila can succeed where others, such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Henning Berg and have failed. Stavrum does not pretend he and Deila are close friends but he picked up enough during their time together on the coaching course to offer the view that Deila is a coach who will prosper at Celtic if given sufficient time to implement his ideas.
"He's quite a modern manager," Stavrum offers, "He is always seeking knowledge. He goes to visit the clubs he thinks are the best and tries to learn from them. He does that to develop as a manager. I think, given time and resources, he will be a fantastic manager for Celtic.
"The only reason to employ him is if you want to him to be there for the long term. He is really good at building a team. If Celtic want a manager who can just win games like that [clicks his fingers] then they have the wrong man. But if they want someone to build from the beginning then Ronny is fantastic for that. I hope they give him time."
The pair also lined up against each other during their playing days, Stavrum the striker against Deila the defender. "He was a really thoughtful footballer," Stavrum added. "He played centre half and was good at setting up play from the back. He wasn't a killer, he was a player. A good one."
Stavrum has leaned heavily on his football experiences in his early writing works. Diego Maradona features in his children's stories, while his latest offering delves into the murkier side of the game; corruption, match-fixing, and the exploitation of youth players all feature.
"You write about what you know. I always wanted to do crime fiction and the football environment came really naturally to me," Stavrum says. "Firstly, I know it and, secondly, there are so many options when it comes to crime stories. A lot of this book is based on what I've seen, heard and done.
"Then you twist it a bit and make it a story. It is not a documentary by any means but it could have happened. There are people killed in there! I would love this book to become a movie. There are great stories to tell in football. You have all the possibilities for corruption, bad guys, different nationalities, everything"
Stavrum, though, does not want to glamorise the dark side of the game, quite the opposite in fact. "I'm an idealist when it comes to football," he says. "I love watching kids play just for the pure pleasure, with a ball and goals and that's all.
"The idea that you don't need anything and you have the same possibilities growing up in Nigeria as you do in Norway. That fascinates me. Football is there for everyone.
"But then people take money from the game, steal from it and ruin it. You see clubs going bankrupt because of bad decisions by management. These things are wrong and I want to point the finger at it. Football should be clean. It should be about a seven-year-old with a ball, not the crooks. I want to expose them and stir the world a bit. It's too easy to be a bad guy in football and get away with it."
Exposed At The Back is published by Freight Books, priced £14.99.
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