PETER Grant still takes in two, three or four games every week.
He still spends lots of time on the training ground and he is constantly hitting the road to drive the length and breadth of England on another football assignment. He is pretty close to having the daily routine of a manager. If only he had a job.
Some of the large Celtic support in Amsterdam for last night's Champions League game with Ajax would have spotted Grant, who was in the ArenA in his occasional role as a match analyst for BBC Scotland. Being paid to go and watch football - and Celtic - is a satisfying substitute for what he really wants to be doing, but a substitute none the less. Since the end of Alex McLeish's absurdly brief spell as manager of Nottingham Forest - McLeish was appointed in January, took Grant as his assistant and then left the club after 40 days in charge - Grant has been out of work. It is a situation he is eager to change.
It is not exactly revelatory to say the Hibernian job interested him, or that the Inverness Caledonian Thistle one would too if and when Terry Butcher makes his anticipated move to the capital.
Grant was assistant manager at Bournemouth and then West Ham United before spending a year as manager of Norwich City between 2006 and 2007 and, after resigning at Carrow Road, he became Tony Mowbray's first-team coach at West Bromwich Albion the following year. When Mowbray came to Celtic in 2009, Grant was part of his backroom team, remaining until they were dismissed the following March. He then began a rewarding spell as one of McLeish's lieutenants, working with him at Birmingham City, Aston villa and, oh-so-briefly, Forest.
It has never been Grant's style to be anything other than humble and respectful about any potential vacancy. "Even when I was down in England in the Premier League or the Championship, whenever anyone asked me 'would you come back up the road' I would never say no. If somebody has the decency to speak to me and is interested in me, I owe it to them to speak to them.
"My current situation is absolutely no different. I love the game of football and I want to be involved. There are a lot of good guys and good professionals and top coaches and managers who are out of work. I'm no different from anybody else.
"I've knocked back jobs in the past because I was in the Championship and I wanted to make it to the Premiership and learn in there, working with the best players and coaching against the best managers. I've been down in England for just about 16 years now, barring the Celtic spell, but I've never taken my eye off Scottish football. I've kept abreast of the game in Scotland.
"I've worked in every division in England. I was at Bournemouth for three years: second division promoted to the first. At West Ham they had just been relegated to the Championship when we took them over and we got promoted to the Premiership. I've been to four play-off finals, an FA Cup final and a League Cup final."
Grant, 48, moved to Norfolk when he took the Norwich City job and anchored his family there long after he left the club because he was not prepared to uproot his sons, Peter and Raymond, while they were in secondary school. That inevitably impacted on his work prospects. Now that the boys have both left school, he is free to cast a wider net for work, including potential jobs in Scotland. His sons, incidentally, are footballers with Peterborough United and Norwich City respectively.
"I can see why Hibs would want Terry because he's done an excellent job at Inverness," added Grant. "But I've seen a lot of Scottish games over the last couple of years through television and radio work, and, in the last few months, I was scouting youngsters who were coming through, just to have a nosey on what was happening up in Scotland.
"I spend a lot of time on the road going to games. I've built up a lot of good contacts over the years so I don't have problems getting into training grounds to spend a week or whatever with a club. I do that when I go abroad. But nothing beats being out on the grass every morning. I would like to have that again."
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