Sol Campbell is sitting in a spartan first-floor room at a youth club on the outskirts of Knutsford, which serves as Macclesfield Town’s training ground. He is wearing a blue Macclesfield Town tracksuit. His hands rest on a formica table top. From the window, he sees a flat roof covered with gravel and, beyond it, a dirty green 3G football pitch. It is not much of a view.
This is football’s basement and Campbell is already thriving in it. He likes the parallels with the way he started his playing career.
He was from a working-class family in a deprived part of London, kicking a ball around on the streets, scrabbling around trying to make it. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. It is not as if he is a stranger to adversity.
Sol Campbell spoke to The Mail on Sunday following his first month as a professional manager
‘I have got to climb a mountain,’ Campbell says, opening his arms out wide. ‘But I look at it another way. I have the tools to climb the mountain so I don’t mind climbing mountains. I have climbed mountains since I was growing up in east London in Plaistow. I’m not scared of climbing mountains. When you get to the top, the view’s great. That’s what it’s all about.’
I have known Campbell for a long time, in the way that most journalists know most footballers: superficially. I have been to a lot of his press conferences down the years and watched a lot of his matches and interviewed him now and again. And I don’t think I have ever seen him as animated and as happy and as brimming with energy and enthusiasm as he is now.
Why? That is easy. He waited seven years for this opportunity. Seven years of wondering why he was being rejected by lowly clubs like Grimsby and Oldham for managerial positions, seven years of wondering why his 73 caps for England did not count for anything when it came to being given some responsibility, when it came to being trusted with leadership.
Seven years of growing dispirited at the lack of chances for aspiring black managers in our game, seven years of people saying his ambitions were overblown. Seven years of people saying he was a black man with a chip on his shoulder. Seven years of people saying: ‘Sol really doesn’t help himself, does he?’
The 44-year-old is loving every second after waiting seven long years for this opportunity
Seven years of studying for his Uefa B Licence, A Licence and his Pro Licence. Seven years of people saying he was lazy. Seven years of people saying he was a dilettante. Seven years of doing things right and still being ignored.
Seven years of stating his credentials and being laughed out of town. Seven years of seeing others get on the ladder. Seven years of seeing Frank Lampard get a job at Derby and Steven Gerrard get a job at Rangers.
‘I feel bloody happy, I feel at peace... I’m loving it. I feel alive'
And finally getting a post at Macclesfield Town, a League Two club that did not win a league game until October 20 this season, a club whose Moss Rose ground stands raised up on the edge of town at the beginning of the road to Leek, exposed and bitterly cold in winter, a club five points adrift at the bottom of the Football League when he took over. And still people said he did not deserve it and that he would be a disaster.
It is too early to make a judgement on that but the early signs are promising. Campbell was appointed Macclesfield manager at the end of November and the club have won three and drawn two of his eight games in charge. Despite conceding a late goal in a 2-1 loss to Swindon Town on Saturday, they are already off the bottom of the table. Campbell is thriving. ‘I don’t mind the hard work because this is what I want to do,’ he says. ‘I feel bloody happy about it. I feel at peace. I’m loving it. I like the responsibility.
Macclesfield have won three and drawn two their eight games since Campbell took charge
‘I’m definitely in the right place because I still get butterflies in my belly. I’m confident, I’m nervous, all sorts of things. That tells me I’m alive. Half-time, when you have 15 minutes to change things, that’s me. I’m wired like that.’
Anyone searching for a sense that Campbell feels he is above the job will be disappointed. Anybody wondering if he thinks he is slumming it in League Two will quickly be disabused of that notion. Anybody searching for that sense of entitlement so often attributed to him will be greeted with the roar of laughter that echoes round the sparse room and bounces off the formica top.
‘I’m from the streets,’ Campbell says. ‘I’m a street footballer. I’m from Plaistow. Have you been to Plaistow recently? It has gone backwards. That’s where I’m from. I’m very open. I’ve been brought up properly by my family and I appreciate things.
‘But for my first 18 years, it was hardcore for me. From 14 and below, it was rough and ready. I saw a lot of stuff growing up as a young kid that I don’t want my kids seeing.
‘People have to recognise I’m a working-class lad. Forget what I’ve done and where I’ve been. I’m a working-class lad. I’ve come from nothing and I’ve not forgotten that. If it was below me to be at Macclesfield Town, I wouldn’t be here. It’s a fantastic job for me to take and I’m enjoying it.
Campbell is happy to be starting from the bottom likes the parallels with his playing career
‘People talk about entitlement but I’ve done the hard yards. I’ve done it the correct way with the coaching badges. I have done watching the games, I have done listening to managers, I have done travelling around Europe watching other managers train, I have done a bit of TV work to help with analysis. I’ve done all that.
‘If you put a microscope on what I’ve been doing, you start saying: “Wow, he has done all that?” That’s part of the trouble: I don’t think people know
