Claridge's successful on-the-job training

Thrust into the caretaker role at short notice, Portsmouth's new player-manager is adjusting well to the testing task. By Greg Wood

Had Steve Claridge needed to apply for the position of player-manager at Portsmouth FC, an uncensored copy of his CV would have made for interesting reading. During his 17 years in football he has been a goalscorer, a punter, a part-time gardener and greengrocer, at one point even a boxer - with John Beck, his manager at Cambridge, cast in the role of opponent. And as for the section on previous employers, well, how long have you got?

Had Steve Claridge needed to apply for the position of player-manager at Portsmouth FC, an uncensored copy of his CV would have made for interesting reading. During his 17 years in football he has been a goalscorer, a punter, a part-time gardener and greengrocer, at one point even a boxer - with John Beck, his manager at Cambridge, cast in the role of opponent. And as for the section on previous employers, well, how long have you got?

But Claridge did not need to apply for the job. One moment he was simply leading the line for Pompey, his home-town team, the next he was the manager too, albeit officially in a caretaker capacity while Tony Pulis sorts out his differences with Gillingham. There was no training, no preparation, no time to settle himself in, just an offer he could not refuse - to go out there and manage the team he supported as a boy.

So far, Claridge has been managing rather well. Pompey are undefeated in five matches since Claridge took over and he scored has goals that proved crucial to the first three of those victories. As a result, the club have risen to the heights of 11th in the First Division, which by their standards is the borderline of giddy. And this has been achieved while Claridge faced the first test of his new dual career, an injury crisis which has left him with barely enough senior pros to fill a team sheet.

The lack of advance warning has not been a problem for Claridge, but then he never expected that it would be.

"I've played for some managers who could have done courses for 20 years and it wouldn't have made them tactically aware," he said this week, after a training session with the handful of players still available to him.

"Look at people like Kevin Keegan - by his own admission, it wouldn't have mattered what he'd done. You can't coach tactics any more than you can coach a player's ability. You're either going to be a manager or you're not. You can't give someone a tactical awareness or good man-management - that's in their nature."

You can still pick up plenty of tips along the way, however, and Claridge is living proof that travel broadens the mind. Though his heart has always said Portsmouth - "even when I was old enough to realise what's what," he says, "there's only been one team for me" - the needs of his wallet (not to mention his bookie) have taken him on a winding path since Pompey let him go after a spell as an apprentice.

After periods spent at Fareham Town, Weymouth, Bournemouth, Aldershot, Luton, Cambridge (twice) and Birmingham, he was well on his way to becoming a million-pound player, albeit in almost a dozen installments. But then a £1.2m move to Leicester took both player and team into the big time, with Claridge scoring the winning goal in the play-off which secured Leicester's Premiership status, and again in the Worthington Cup final a year later.

"I've learned a lot from every manager," he says, "but I think the most important thing is that I served under Martin O'Neill. You get your tactical awareness, the way you treat and handle players, and you get a grip on how to spot a good player. A lot of the characteristics he looked for in players were the sort of things I like as well."

Premiership wages were good news for local bookmakers, too. Claridge once estimated that he had lost £300,000 over the years, but his hard-earned manager's salary is treated with more respect.

"I've not had a bet now for about three and a half months, believe it or not. I don't get a lot of time, to be honest," he says. "I'm not saying I won't, because I probably will start again - I love horseracing, love everything to do with it. But it doesn't play as big a part in my life as it did then."

You can sense the camaraderie and good humour in the squad as Claridge puts the players through their paces, and one member confirms that training sessions are less rigidly structured now than under Pulis. It is said to be one of the hardest things in football to go from being one of the gang to being the man in charge, but Claridge seems to have found it easy enough. Perhaps he was the leader of the gang anyway, so the shift in status is less marked. It is certainly hard to imagine any of the Pompey players resorting to fisticuffs with the gaffer, as Claridge once did at Cambridge.

"You learn a lot from different managers," he says, "and I can only say I certainly won't be doing to my players what he [John Beck] did to me. And, anyway, I must add that it was self-defence." The Claridge approach these days is to "take a step away. I'm all for a bit of fun, but on Saturday it gets serious. I want to win as much as anybody, and that will show through in the way I run the club."

This is not said in the manner of a caretaker. Claridge is somewhat fatalistic (and which true gambler isn't?) when it comes to the long-term prospects of management, acknowledging: "I'm going to get sacked at some stage, and I won't outstay my welcome".

But he also hopes to be at Fratton Park for the long haul. "I'm not looking to go back to being just a player," Claridge says. "We'll see how it pans out, but I think it would be a difficult situation if that did arise."

And if the results keep coming, they may be the only qualifications he will need for the job.