LEE ATTENBOROUGH may only be 30 years of age but the Loughborough Dynamo boss hopes the results since he took over three years ago are showing that age is no barrier.
Thought to be the youngest manager in Northern Premier League history when he stepped up from his role as Peter Ward's assistant aged 27, the Step 4 club have been up an upward trend ever since.
Joint-top with Leek Town when the Pitching In NPL Division One South East was curtailed, under Attenborough and his assistant Brad Munn, just 27 himself, Dynamo are no longer strugglers.
“When I took the job, it was a lot of pressure,” Attenborough told The NLP. “Some people might say, ‘It's only Step 4, you only have 200 fans watching'. But it was more the expectation from players – you're taking over a dressing room with a few ex-pros in there, 36 or 37-year-olds, and they were looking at me to say, ‘You've got to drive us forward'.
“I think it took me a couple of big decisions in terms of players and shifting some things around to, I wouldn't say gain respect because a lot of them were ex-teammates of mine. But of my first five games we lost four and you could almost feel the heat.
“People were looking at us saying, ‘Oh, they've got a 27-year-old gaffer'. People don't like to say it, but you know for a fact there are people who want you to fail. I don't know why it is but it's the way of the world at the moment.
“A couple more bad results and there would have been extra pressure. But we went on a good run around Christmas, ten unbeaten against some good sides. So I think over the course of three years we've earned the trust from the club and people around me that we know what we're doing.”
Attenborough went into management with Step 7 Sileby Town in 2016 but was quickly offered a chance closer to home with Step 6 outfit Ashby Ivanhoe, where they finished fifth.
A year as Ward's assistant at Dynamo followed before, earlier than expected, the top job opened up.
“The difference there (Ashby Ivanhoe) was that I'd played above a lot of the lads I was managing,” Attenborough, a head of geography by day, said. “So you kind of felt you had the respect that you'd played higher and things like that.
At Loughborough you're going into the level you've played at and you've got lads who have been above.
“They didn't have attitudes as if to say, ‘He can't tell us what to do,' and if anyone was like they got shown the door pretty quickly.
“It helped I was there for a year as assistant first because I inherited a squad comfortable with me. At the time I felt I could have done with another year under Pete, but when the opportunity arises you can't turn it down.
“It helps I am a teacher. I'm used to standing in front of 500 people in assemblies or speaking in staff meetings. I know it sounds something simple or small, but when you're stood there with 18 lads looking at you for direction, you've got to be able to deliver your messages clearly and get across what you want without sounding like you're flustered. I think that has helped me.
“It's strange because even though it's only a couple of years down the line, I feel like I've been doing it for years.
“So we had a few barriers to break down to start with. I think they are well and truly gone now. I don't go into training or games worried what the lads think of me –I think we've shown over the last two or three years the results have done the talking to us, which is the best way to do it.”
Challenge
A former player with Coalville Town, Shepshed and Loughborough, Attenborough was forced into early retirement following a shocking hit-and-run accident.
On a charity bike ride with two friends from London to Rome, the trio were knocked off their bikes just five miles from the channel crossing in Kent by a driver who has never been found.
Remarkably, Attenborough did make a return to playing a year later but, deep down, he knew he wasn't quite the same.
“I got back playing, I think a little bit through fear of, ‘What if I don't have football?' Like a lot of us, since I was four or five it's all I've known and since I was 16 it's been Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday at football.
“But it's the lads, the camaraderie, the nights out, the stress relief – it's all of it. Even when I wanted to stop playing because of the injury, I was almost scared of what will l actually do? If I couldn't play football it wouldn't bother me too much because I could play squash or tennis or keep fit, but I was giving up all kinds of sport because of my injury. So I had to find something else.”
That has come in the form of management and Attenborough says he gets more satisfaction of seeing his young players developing and his team getting a result on a Saturday.
Now, he says, the challenge is to show last season's start wasn't just a good run but that they can become a genuine contender.
“That's the gauntlet I've laid down to the players,” he said. “After about six games last season, we'd had a couple of ropey games where we'd got results but we didn't quite play well. I said to the lads, ‘Are we a good side that has gone through an amazing patch, or are we a top side that has had a couple of bad games'. That's our job, to prove we are a top side.”
