Boreham Wood: Winner Luke Garrard takes all on his bid for redemption

By Matt Badcock

Boreham Wood boss Luke Garrard was planting the seeds of success well before their National League South promotion final victory over Maidstone United.

He’d greet his players with a cheery, ‘Morning, winners!’ or, ‘How are we, champions?’

Breakfast was eaten to a backdrop of low-intensity music, bubbling away, sending out subliminal messages like Jamie Foxx’s track Winner.

“You know you looking at a winner, winner, winner. I can’t miss, can’t lose, can’t miss. You know you looking at a winner, winner, winner. Cause I’m a winner, yeah, I’m a winner.”

Negative seed

“Last year, after playing Ebbsfleet at their place in September, I set a negative seed by saying: We are relegation fodder,” Garrard tells The NLP.

“In life, you can set a seed whether it’s goings to be positive or negative.

“I set that seed last year.

“That was a big thing I learnt in my reset coming away ay from it – my language, my demeanour, the culture of the club is very much how you set it.

“When I walked back in, it was about winning.

“Winning, winning, winning.

“People can say, ‘No, it’s all about the grass and recruitment’, 100 per cent it is.

“But I do think that plays a part.”

Horrible

Garrard’s reset came last summer when he left the Wood after nine years in charge.

The 39-year-old had led them on epic FA Cup runs, including toppling Bournemouth away to set up a fifth-round trip to Everton in 2022.

His sides had also achieved three National League play-off campaigns with one final trip to Wembley, where they lost narrowly to Tranmere Rovers.

But last season unravelled, and weeks after announcing his intention to step down, the club were relegated to Step 2 on the final day of the season.

“Horrible,” Garrard says. “My wife’s seen me sit on the sofa and cry many a time.

“It’s not just a football club for me; Boreham Wood is family.

“To do what I did that year, it hurt me massively.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be afforded to write those wrongs.

“One minute you’re front page and centre.

“The next you are fish and chip paper; that’s how I felt.

Debt

“I said to the staff this year: I am not going to be happy until we get this club back.

“When we win 2-0, ok, next week we win 3-0.

“When we win 3-0, next week we win 4-0.

“It’s not enough, we need to do more.

“It massively hurt, hugely hurt.

“I was in debt with the football club – I’ve repaid my debt – now I’ve got to gain back credit.

“Yes, history tells me the FA Cup runs, history tells me three play-offs in the National League, Wembley.

“History also says I got the club relegated. History now says WE got the club promoted.

“I’ve cleared that debt of relegation.

“Now I need to get back to credit and making sure we are looking at the top end of the table as opposed to over our shoulder next year.”

Humbling

Garrard returned in September after his replacement Ross Jenkins was axed following a tricky start.

He’d used the time to reset and recharge.

A period he describes as “tough, humbling” he spent time picking the brains of contacts at every level from the Premier League down.

“I went and met people for coffees,” he says.

“That’s something I need to continue because it was a massive growth for me as an individual, me as a manager.”

He turned down some offers that just didn’t feel right.

When Boreham Wood chief Danny Hunter’s name flashed up on his phone, he answered it and jumped at the chance to return.

Winning the title was the aim, and in his 38 games back at the helm, they boasted the division’s best points per game ratio.

Lucky

But in a bonkers title race where six teams could have won it on the final day, they fell three points shy.

An indifferent March of three defeats on the spin, including a 4-0 pasting from Maidstone, arguably cost them.

But it was also their making.

“I’d rather be lucky than good,” Garrard says.

“That’s a big thing I adhere too because there were things I wasn’t able to control, and it enabled us to change shape, it enabled us to bring in different personnel, and it had the desired effect.

“I had good conversations with the chairman.

“He’s been an unbelievable support network for me – in the nine years I was here previously and in the eight months I’ve been back.

“I speak to him on a daily basis, I asked for advice, he’s a sounding board.

New energy

“Thankfully, after the 4-0 drumming at Maidstone, injuries, lack of personnel in key areas, we had to go to a different shape.

“It brought a freshness, a new energy, new people in the starting XI.

“If we’d have gone to Maidstone and drawn 1-1 or won 1-0, not lost the injuries we did on the day, I probably would have still had the same shape limping into the play-offs.

“The fact we had the bad injury to Josh Hare, a drumming, it was like, ‘Nah, now is the time (to change)’.

“Thankfully, we went and won eight games.”

That included a helter-skelter come-from-behind 4-3 play-off eliminator win over Dorking Wanderers before beating Torquay United in their own backyard.

A 1-0 victory over Maidstone last Sunday completed the redemption on the same pitch they’d lost their National League status a year earlier.

“Fast-forward 12 months, if you could write a book, it would be nailed down from start, middle, to end,” Garrard says of how the tale has panned out.

“To right the wrongs was important.

“People will say, ‘He shouldn’t have gone back’, but it was the right fit.

“I am a strong believer in things happening for a reason.”

National League South Team of the Season

Nathan Ashmore – Boreham Wood

Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain – Truro City

Ollie Kensdale – Eastbourne Borough

Sam Dreyer – Torquay United

Ben Brookes – Maidstone United

Charlie Carter – Dorking Wanderers

Luke Coulson – Weston-super-Mare

Tom Whelan – Boreham Wood

Tyler Harvey – Truro City

Danny Cashman – Worthing

Jordan Young – Torquay United

READ MORE: Boreham Wood: Promotion glory is so sweet for Callum Reynolds