Carlton Fairweather, the ‘level-headed one’ in the Crazy Gang, now manages Sunderland Ladies

The former winger has taken Sunderland to the Women's Super League

(Getty Images)

They may have a ghetto blaster in there but it is tempting to ask what other similarities there can be between the Sunderland Ladies dressing room and the testosterone-fuelled one Carlton Fairweather knew in his days as a winger with Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang.

Yet Fairweather, who became manager of the newly promoted FA Women’s Super League side in December, suggests the differences are less pronounced than some might think. “With Wimbledon it was a case of playing tricks on each other and the teams we were playing against but I have been massively pleased and surprised by how my team stick together,” he tells The Independent.

He is not referring to the increased physicality in the WSL that England forward Natasha Dowie spoke of this week – a point underlined by Manchester City’s Jill Scott head-butting an opponent on Sunday – but rather an encouraging esprit de corps. “The willingness to win games and look after each other definitely shows within the women’s game,” he adds. “They encourage one another to do well even if somebody is going through a bad time in a game.”

Fairweather spent nine years with Wimbledon (Getty Images)

Fairweather, 53, had been working at the Sunderland academy for over a decade – he was lead coach of the Under-12s to U16s – when this opportunity arose. He has experience of coaching women from his time in the United States, where he spent the twilight of his playing career, but admits to being impressed by the technical ability, tactical awareness and sheer “will to win” of his new charges, who share the same facilities as the men and boys at the Academy of Light.

Indeed, his seven full-time players warm up each morning with the U18 and U21 groups (the other, part-time players train three nights a week). “The academy and first-team groups have been fantastic in the way they have accepted the girls,” he says.

On the pitch Sunderland have made a confidence-enhancing start to life in the elite division too, winning their opening fixture 2-1 at Liverpool and following that with a narrow 1-0 loss to Manchester City and 2-1 victory over Bristol Academy. “The end target is to make sure we stay up,” adds Fairweather, who first caught the coaching bug doing summer courses in the US while still a Wimbledon player.

Recruited from non-league Tooting & Mitcham, he was, in his words, “the most level-headed” player at Plough Lane, the non-drinker who drove his team-mates around – and picked up tips from the club’s “fantastic coaches”. “We had Don Howe, Alan Gillett, Bobby Gould and Dave Bassett,” he remembers. “They could manage players. A lot wasn’t done through brute force, it was talking to players – an arm around you if you needed it, or if you needed a bollocking, they’d give you one.”

He remembers Bassett taking him to one side and telling him to “start pulling your finger out”, despite the fact he was scoring goals. “Either you shaped up or you shipped out – that side of it is not as intense as it was back in our day. Managers in this era don’t want to upset the changing room.”

Wimbledon celebrate their shock 1988 FA Cup final victory over Liverpool - Fairweather had a broken leg and was unable to play (Getty Images)

That was never a concern at Wimbledon. “It was like a Sunday morning team but with a professional element. You had all the antics you would have with Sunday morning players where they stitch each other up and a lot of mickey-taking, but when it came down to playing the game the professionalism came out.”

Fairweather’s other claim to fame is that he once managed a team against Terry Venables’ England, in 1996, when he was player-manager of the Golden XI, the Hong Kong club side who faced England in a pre-Euro ’96 warm-up. “We knew we weren’t going to have much possession and tried a counter-attacking game and ended up only losing 1-0,” he recalls of a match followed by the infamous dentist’s chair drinking session at the China Jump bar. “It was something that happened at that bar all the time, regardless of whether it was Paul Gascoigne or Joe Bloggs,” he adds with the nonchalance of a man who survived for nine years in the Crazy Gang.