Royle keeps his focus on the premier prize

Ipswich Town manager looks to repeat past successes with promotion and to steer new club to top-flight riches

Joe royle was only 16, a Scouser with an insatiable appetite for scoring goals, when he made his debut in the Everton first team. Imagine that. Only 16. Couldn't happen now.

Well, maybe it could. Wayne Rooney, however, reminds the Ipswich manager of himself not at all. "I was like Bambi on ice," says Royle, "whereas he's a chunky little beggar, who might have to watch his weight. And if I'd tried to express myself too much at that age I'd have been seen as a cocky bugger.

"I marvel at the presence he has for a young lad. He has a scant regard for reputation; his naïvety at times is marvellous to see. At the same time I didn't think it was quite right to play him for England. I would maybe like to have seen it 12 months down the line. Trevor Francis was equally a prodigy at 16, and went on to play for England, but he didn't go straight in."

Royle was the Everton manager, he adds, when Rooney was a ballboy. "He's been no big secret on Merseyside for a number of years. A great friend of mine [the Everton youth team coach] Colin Harvey, has been telling me about him for four years. And Colin is hard to please. I just hope he's allowed by the media to fulfil himself."

We are sitting in Royle's spacious office. Although a bright day, it has started to drizzle over Portman Road, which seems metaphorically apt. Not many days have passed since the chairman, David Sheepshanks, tearfully announced that the club, so recently synonymous with glorious over-achievement, has had to go into administration.

Promotion back into the Premiership is seen as the only way out of the mire and Royle, less Bambi these days than Baloo the bear, will need his broad shoulders. It is now not only the fans whose burden of expectation he must carry, but also the club's creditors.

When he arrived last November, to succeed the sacked George Burley, Ipswich were fourth from bottom of the First Division. Yet the last time I was in the manager's office at Portman Road, I tell Royle, was at a time when Burley was seriously being talked about as the heir-apparent to Sir Alex Ferguson.

He smiles. "Nothing surprises me in football any more. One or two things make me raise my eyebrows, but even they are increasingly few. Peter Taylor was the England manager, now he's at Hull. That doesn't mean he's lost his ability, but football takes you on circuitous routes. And people are nuts about it.

"There's a job down the road at Colchester up for grabs, and a long list of people who are after it. There's no money there, there's not going to be any money, yet people want the job."

During Royle's 18 months out of management, between losing the Manchester City job and taking the reins at Ipswich, he was sounded out about several other managerial positions. But he was happy working as a television pundit, and nothing came up that tickled his fancy. It seemed likely, in fact, that, like his mate Ron Atkinson, he would make a career of broadcasting and leave management behind.

"But when I came back from the World Cup, and then went up to do a game at Newcastle, against Sunderland, I thought: 'I'm missing this'. I knew I'd reached the stage where, if I was going to come back, it would have to be pretty soon.

"But I didn't want to go anywhere where there wasn't a chance. I didn't want to go to a situation like at Oldham (where Royle was manager for 12 years, several of them, looking back, almost unimaginably halcyon), where to start with there were 2,800 fans and 14 players, and it took seven or eight years to get near where we wanted to be. At 53 I didn't have time for that. I loved it, don't get me wrong, but without being immodest I'd done all that."

The move to Ipswich was brokered by his old friend Bill Kenwright, the vice-chairman of Everton. "I saw Bill at an Everton game. He said there was a man he respected deeply in football who was looking for a manager, and that if I was interested I'd probably hear from him.

"Sure enough, the call came from Sheepshanks and I met the board in London. They asked me my views on motivation, did I know the squad, how I felt about discipline. Well, anyone who came up under (the ferociously strict Everton manager) Harry Catterick knows about discipline. The meeting went very well, so much so that I got stroppy when I didn't hear from them for four days.

"In fact, truth be known, when the chairman did finally ring me, I turned the job down. But he was very persistent. He said I was always first choice, and that they had only been fulfilling their obligations to speak to other people."

Royle knew he was coming to "a lovely club, a proper club", and the Ipswich directors knew they were getting a man with plenty of previous in taking teams (Oldham Athletic, Manchester City) into the top tier.

However, it is sometimes asserted that Royle is a highly capable manager, and his trusty lieutenant, Willie Donachie, an able coach, without either having whatever it takes to pull it off at the highest level. Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I'm blindly biased in favour of a man who was my first football pin-up, circa 1970, and steered my team, Everton, to their only silverware for 15 years (the 1995 FA Cup). I'm a sucker, too, for his considerable wit and charm.

Moreover, it seems to me, and doubtless to him, that circumstances beyond his control – such as, in the past, disastrously myopic directors – have had more to do than any of his own failings with the setbacks he has suffered in management. The latest of these circumstances is Ipswich's financial plight, not that he intends to let it cramp his ambition. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"The club made an operating profit last year, but the loss of Premier League status, the loss of the Nationwide TV money, the closure of transfer windows, the recession in the transfer market, have all contributed to give the club a big problem," he says. "And we can't make up the missing millions with sponsorship, or increased gates, or Lottery money. Promotion is the only way."

But even promotion should be viewed, he adds, with circumspection. "West Brom this season have put an imprint down, not over-stretching themselves, so that if they come straight back down it's not with a Premier League wage bill, having to sell the assets off."

Not least of the paradoxes facing Ipswich is that selling off some of those assets, in the form of good players such as Matt Holland, might have kept administration at bay. Yet failure to do so gives Royle an improved chance (Wednesday's home defeat by Wolves notwithstanding) of making the play-offs.

"I've been left a good hand. Jamie Clapham is the only one who's gone. The two Darrens (Bent and Ambrose) everybody knows about, and I was dreading a take-it-or-leave-it bid on deadline day. We also have a young centre-half, Thomas Gaardsoe, a Danish boy, who is comfortable on the ball as foreign centre-halves tend to be, and is improving by the week. And a midfield player I call our secret, because I don't think football knows how good Tommy Miller is. He's a Premiership-class midfield player and I hope it's with us.

"So we have a good chance of making the play-offs. When I came we were in a trough, a hangover from relegation. We'd started well, beat Leicester by six, and everything looked set fair, but then depression sets in, whereby you think: 'God, we're going to Millwall or Rotherham this week, and no disrespect to them, but this time last season we were going to Anfield, Old Trafford and Goodison Park'."

I remind Royle that the last time I interviewed him, when he was at Manchester City, he ventured disapproval of the play-off system, maintaining that over 40 games a season ought to determine a one, two, three.

He grins. "That's not my view this year, it doesn't suit me. But if you asked me when I was impartial, I'd have said there was too much heartache.

"It probably goes back to when I was at Oldham, and we were the first-ever club to lose in the play-offs, to Leeds on away goals, having been ahead of Leeds all season in the league. On the other hand, I can see that in this division, this season, with the top two all but home and hosed, there would be only four or five interested in third place. As it is, maybe 14 or 15 all feel they can still make the play-offs, and the fans love it."

So leaving aside the not-so-vexed question of the play-offs, which plainly are here to stay, what other amendments would Royle make to the way football is run?

"I've felt for a long time there should be two full-time divisions, and two part-time regional divisions. Regional divisions would make it easier and cheaper for fans to travel, and for clubs to travel.

"There would still be the same promotion and relegation issues, but it would help the smaller clubs, and all changes in football in recent years have been to their detriment, like Bosman, like the Nationwide money disappearing, like transfer windows, which only give them a month to sell the players they need to, and can force them into taking a take-it-or-leave-it deal. All the finance, and all the influence, is being pushed tighter and tighter at the top, leaving the smaller clubs to fend for themselves.

"But there is a big wake-up call at the moment. Transfer fees are coming down to a more sensible level. [Jonathan] Woodgate cost a quarter of the money [Rio] Ferdinand was sold for, and Ferdinand is not four times the player Woodgate is.

"What we need now is a tighter control over players' salaries. The line agents used to use, when they asked for big money, was: 'If you don't, someone else will'. The clubs are now saying: 'We won't, so find someone who will'. That will make a big difference.

"I'm not bashing all agents, there are some good ones. But the fees some of them take for spending a few hours on the phone! And, don't forget, that money goes out of football and doesn't come back."

The would-be scourge of agents turns out, rather surprisingly, to be the champion of referees. Royle adds that he would like to ban television replays showing contentious refereeing decisions, and stop his fellow-managers from commenting negatively on an individual referee's performance.

"I'd also change the age at which they have to retire. I'd do it on fitness levels, whether they are 38 or 58, because for me they get better as they get older. I've had plenty of rucks with David Elleray, but he's never refereed better than he is now.

"Besides, bad decisions tend to level themselves out over a season. Evertonians still talk about the FA Cup semi-final goal disallowed by Clive Thomas [against Liverpool in 1977]. They've been talking about it for 25 years, and it is a horrible moment in history for us, but... the game lives on its past, but it needs to live for its future as well."

Joe Royle the life and times

Born: 8 April 1949, Liverpool.

Career highlights: 1966: Aged 16, Royle makes his Everton debut. During his 270 appearances for the Goodison Park club he scores 119 goals, becomes their youngest goalscorer (a record lost recently to Wayne Rooney) and is top scorer for five seasons.

1971: Makes England debut against Malta, going on to win six caps over the next five years.

1974: Moves to Manchester City for a fee of £170,000.

1977: Joins Bristol City before moving to Norwich three years later.

1982: A knee injury forces him to quit playing. He takes over as manager of Oldham Athletic in July, arriving in the back of a lorry after his car breaks down and he is forced to hitch a lift.

1991: Oldham promoted to the Premiership. Relegated in 1994.

1994: Returns to manage Everton who beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final in his first season. Royle's popularity drops, however, after selling fans' favourites Limpar and Amokachi.

1997: The day after transfer deadline day, Royle resigns after being refused the funds to sign the Norwegians Tore Andre Flo and Claus Lundekvam.

1998: Becomes manager of Manchester City after nearly a year out of the game. After relegation from the First Division, Royle leads City through a dramatic Second Division play-off victory, beating Gillingham on penalties despite being two goals down in the 89th minute.

2000: Manchester City promoted to the Premiership; relegated the next season. Royle is sacked as City cite 'fundamental differences' in opinion.

2002: Royle joins Ipswich Town.

They say: "Joe did a great job here and a lot of people felt maybe he should still have been in the job, and I understand that." Kevin Keegan after replacing Royle as manager at Maine Road.