Managers offered lessons in life

For maltreated managers and cast-aside coaches, help is finally at hand: the League Managers' Association is briefing its members on how to cope with life outside the game.

For maltreated managers and cast-aside coaches, help is finally at hand: the League Managers' Association is briefing its members on how to cope with life outside the game.

With the new season little over a week away, the LMA's chief executive, John Barnwell, has revealed some new and damning statistics. Of 269 managers dismissed in the past six years, only 30 are still working in a similar role, while just 61 are involved in a coaching capacity.

"The figures are staggering," Barnwell said. "So many people have been cast adrift, especially from the lower leagues. Many people think managers leave one job and get back on the roundabout in a few months. But these figures show this is not the case and we at the LMA have a responsibility to address the situation

"In football you're always going to get winners and losers, that's the nature of the game. We need to try and help improve the standard of coaching, and we also need to educate managers better for the outside world."

Barnwell cited the case of a former manager who was so short of money he could not afford to heat his house. Another needed a hip replacement operation so he could climb the stairs to his bedroom, but could not afford the surgery. In both cases the LMA stepped in to help with money from its benevolent fund, which has been in place since 1992.

Barnwell, who has managed at the highest level with Wolves, believes there are many other deserving cases. "We want to make our members more capable of getting on with their life after football," he said.

The Leicester City striker Stan Collymore says he is raring to go in the forthcoming season after scoring his first goal since breaking his leg four months ago.

The 29-year-old scored, along with the Foxes' new £5m forward, Ade Akinbiyi, during his side's 3-0 friendly win at Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday, and revealed he had suffered no reaction to the injury in pre-season training.

"I was running around with no problems," he said. "I took a couple of whacks and there was no problem at all. I felt I got plenty of the ball - and as long as the lads keep giving me it I'm sure there'll be no problem."

Collymore revealed that Leicester's pre-season tour of Ireland had been a quiet affair, unlike the club's notorious trip to La Manga, in Spain, earlier this year. "There were a few pints of Guinness sunk in Ireland - but there are no stories this time," he said.