Cambridge United manager Mark Bonner is following in the footsteps of some of the game's great minds.
Like legendary AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi, Bonner has not kicked a ball in professional football.
'I never realised that in order to become a successful jockey you have to have been a horse first,' Sacchi said when his credentials were questioned.
Cambridge United manager Mark Bonner (left) is following in Arrigo Sacchi's (right) footsteps
He earned a living as a shoe salesman before coaching in Italy's semi-professional leagues and working his way up to the AC Milan job, where he won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990.
So a stellar playing career does not necessarily translate to the dugout. Premier League greats Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger are living proof of that.
Even so, in a city famous for punts, appointing Bonner was an almighty one for Cambridge — and yet the gamble has paid significant dividends.
Before taking this job, Bonner was a coach of the club's Under 8 team, then had roles as academy manager, first-team coach and assistant manager.
The AC Milan coach was a shoe salesman before coaching in Italy's semi-professional leagues
He took the manager's job a fortnight before the first Covid-enforced lockdown last year. The season was curtailed, with Cambridge finishing in League Two's bottom half, and Bonner, now 36, was furloughed.
That time away allowed him to forge a masterplan of how his team would play.
Cambridge took League Two by storm last season, winning promotion as runners-up and climbing into England's third tier for the first time since 2002.
In that year, Bonner was working as a coach in the club's schools' programme, as a teenage Cambridge fan. So like the club, Bonner is punching above his weight. Eight years ago this weekend, they were playing Salisbury in an FA Trophy tie in
