3 days ago
Robbie Savage interview: I am awesome and I should not be afraid to say it
Robbie Savage is halfway through explaining why despite his apparent self-confidence, despite his 'bubbly personality', despite what he has achieved, he cannot help but look at the abuse directed towards him. Then he changes tack.
'I understand there will be loads of people hoping we lose. I get it, no problem. Because I read stuff, I see everything,' he says.
But why does he look at it and – even – look out for it?
'I don't know is the answer. Is it to get justification that I'm doing OK? I don't know what it is. It's bizarre,' Savage concedes.
It is then that he talks about a chance meeting in a cafe in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, close to his home.
'There's a thing called the Limitless Movement,' he says of the motivational company run by Chris Larsen and nutritionist Greg Marriott, who have worked with Premier League clubs and boxers including Tyson Fury.
'I'm having my lunch and they're sitting next to me and we started talking about football, fine margins, positivity mindset. So, they came here,' Savage says with 'here' being Forest Green Rovers where he was appointed manager on July 1 and who kick off their National League campaign away to Solihull Moors on Saturday.
'And the first thing they said – with a squad of 30 and staff in the room – was 'stand up if you think you're awesome'. And nobody stood up. People wanted to stand up. But nobody would stand up.
'And one of them said: 'I stand up every day because of what I've been through.' He said: 'I'm awesome. I am awesome. So, I'm not going to not do what I want to do because other people have a perception of me.'
'And it hit home. I wanted to stand up. I wanted to stand up and I should have stood up because I am awesome. I've two beautiful, amazing kids who are polite and respectful, I've had a successful football career, a media career. So, I should have stood up. But I'm thinking: 'What will other people think of me?'
After the meeting eight or nine players said they, too, had wanted to stand up. Only one did. 'Laurent Mendy,' Savage says, having brought the defender, and two other players, with him from Macclesfield FC. 'He was working in a kitchen as the pot washer when he was at Macc and now he's playing football every single day as a professional. So, he is awesome. They're the stories I want. It really hit home that. Yeah, I should have stood up.'
And Savage is awesome. Awesome is a good word to describe him because, even at 50, it captures the youthful enthusiasm he possesses, the exuberance, even the sense of jubilance and hyperbole.
And what he has done in his career, maximising his ability, is awesome. He captained four Premier League clubs, having been released by Manchester United and ending up in the B-team at Crewe Alexandra, he played 39 times for Wales, he has presented BBC Radio 5 Live's flagship 606 football phone-in show for 16 years – and will still do so even at Forest Green – and he is a high-profile pundit with TNT Sports. He even took on Strictly Come Dancing and broke his nose doing a knee slide.
But now he is – first and foremost – a football manager.
Last season, his first in such a role, he led Macclesfield to promotion, running away with the Northern Premier Division title and taking them into the National League North, the sixth tier of English football, one below Forest Green.
But it was more than that. Savage and his best friend Rob Smethurst, the co-owner, had saved Macclesfield, his local club, and relaunched them. First Savage was the director of football but, he concedes, that was a mistake. He needed to be the manager.
Why is he still driven?
'Because I've always got a point to prove,' Savage says. 'I've always been a fighter and I've survived numerous dressing rooms. The narrative after me leaving Macc – my partner business partner, Rob, whose been so supportive, we still speak five, six times a day – the disappointment from some fans hurt a little bit because I didn't expect the outpouring of abuse.'
Abuse? Savage tells of how, having left, he returned for a pre-season game he had arranged against Nigel Clough's Mansfield Town. He was with his 19-year-old son Freddie, a Manchester University student who plays for Macclesfield (his other son, Charlie, 22, is a midfielder with Reading)
'Some of the songs sung about me hurt. With hindsight I shouldn't have gone,' Savage says. 'I know football is tribal but when I think what Rob and I did for the club… it makes me even more determined, because a lot of people want me to fail.'
Panic attacks
Already, though, he feels leaving Macclesfield has been good for him. 'Winning the league with Macc was so much pressure and so much relief at the end of it. I'm less stressed now. We'll lose games of football. I've not lost consecutive games yet as a manager. But I will. I will. But I'm less stressed,' Savage says.
'I'm a different person already. I had a health scare at Macc because I was a bit anxious and had a couple of panic attacks. Things got on top of me. I got it under control and I'm here now.
'The thing was with Macc – the majority of people said: 'Let's see how he gets on because he's basically given himself the job.' I was that scared of losing consecutive games and it all falling apart.'
Did he ever suffer from anxiety as a player?
'No, never,' Savage says. 'It was just because the pressure was that great on me. And it got to me. Everything was on me. If something happened in the bar, I'd be on it. If there's something needed changing, I'd be on it. If a sign blows down, I was on it. It was everything. It was too much and I would, because I've got that personality. I want to fix it and I'll ring somebody 28 times in an hour if I can't get hold of them. My mind works like that.
'So, it was not just the football side. It was off the pitch, it was everything. It was everything and it was coming on top of me. So, this is just purely football. I absolutely love it. It's amazing.'
The seed for him becoming Forest Green's manager, succeeding Steve Cotterill, who was sacked after losing in the play-offs, was probably sown when Charlie was on loan at the club, in League One, in January 2023 when Duncan Ferguson was in charge. It was then that Savage met owner Dale Vince, who appointed the midfielder's former Wales team-mate Mark Bowen as director of football in the summer.
'And I'm not here because I'm his [Bowen's] mate,' Savage protests. 'He knows what I can do. He knows what I'm like. He's seen me in the dressing room as a leader. So he knows me, he knows my characteristics and as a person and how I can get the best out of people.'
Savage, who is starting his A-licence coaching course in September, adds: 'Am I the best coach in the world? No, I've got my coaches who I believe are better than me. So why don't they coach. I'll be the manager who oversees stuff and gets the best out of people. And that's what drives me on.'
Leaving Macclesfield also, he says, took him out of the 'comfort zone' adding: 'I could have stayed there for 10 years and not got sacked. I would only have left for something special. People were surprised. You read what they say and it's: 'Why Forest Green?' Because people thought I'd have stepped up into the league or to a club with a bigger fanbase. But that wasn't the case. As soon as I met Dale and Asif [Rehmanwala, the chief executive] and Mark, seeing the training ground, seeing the plan, seeing the new stadium [a 5,000 new all-timber arena designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, to be built] and how everyone wants to get to the Championship, seeing in depth how they go about everything. For me, it was a no-brainer.
'Is it a risk appointing a manager on one year's experience? Well, time will tell, but my years dedicating, sacrificing, 30-odd years of being in professional football or in the game, I don't think it is.
'But the biggest thing that made me go was my two boys who said – when I was umming and ahhing – they both said: 'Listen, Dad, you're a fighter, you're a winner. What's the worst that can happen? The worst is that you get the sack.' But they both said: 'Go on, you've earned the right. Give it your best shot.''
Both sons visited their father in midweek – he is renting a flat close to Forest Green's current stadium in the Cotswolds village of Nailsworth – while his wife, Sarah, also comes down.
'I'm not scared of the sack'
If Savage's management career continues to succeed there is one area of his life that will have to change: the media. For now he will continue presenting 606 on Sundays with Chris Sutton and work for TNT – but only, probably, on domestic games.
'If we get promoted [to League Two] I am not naive enough to think it can carry on forever,' Savage says, having signed a four-year contract to become Forest Green's sixth full-time manager in two years. 'But if I lose numerous games… I'm not scared of that. Never been scared. Always been willing to give anything a go. Always put myself at the forefront of things. And I'm not scared of the sack.'
Despite being outside the Football League, Forest Green is a relatively high-profile appointment. The pressure will be on Savage – and he knows it.
'Also, because this club does things differently: how green the club is, the kit, which is brilliant [with its striking black leopard print pattern] by the way. Vegan. The food's amazing. Honestly, the food's amazing,' he says.
'We have a high-profile owner and with me coming in as well, obviously it adds to even more pressure. But that's what I've been used to all my life and there will be a spotlight. There are some huge clubs in this league, some with big characters, some big managers.'
Indeed there is already one fixture, in particular, he is looking forward to: away to Carlisle United on October 18. 'My birthday,' Savage says. 'I'm up against my hero [Mark Hughes is the Carlisle manager].
'I can't wait. He's my hero. Brilliant. And now I am managing in the same league as him.
'I'll still be a bit shy around him because he was my team-mate, my manager. But there's nothing more I'd like than to get three points against him. And I want my players to think everybody wants to beat us, we're going to be everybody's cup final. I want that.'
Proving people wrong. That, again, would be awesome.
