O'Connell reflects on his time in Kent

Former Dover Athletic and Margate star Iain O’Connell, the current manager of Essex side Great Wakering Rovers, speaks to Roger Jefferies on www.doverathletic.com "LEGENDS" series: 

Like most professional and semi-professional sportspeople Iain O’Connell is a life-long athlete.

“I started kicking a football around when I was about five,” he told me in our late evening telephone chat immediately following the Holland v Argentina World Cup clash in Germany.

“I love watching the Argentinians play,” he added quickly, “they’ve got so much strength in depth.”

And he agreed that strength in depth was the key to the success of Chris Kinnear’s Dover Athletic side that won promotion to the Conference in 1993.

“I progressed through the usual channels,” Iain said, “school teams and then I went to Southend United, signing apprentice forms in the summer of 1987.”

Two years as a Southend apprentice led to a professional contract for a further year before he was snapped up by Chris Kinnear to join Dover Athletic in 1990.

“Several clubs came in for me,” Iain said, “including Gravesend and Chelmsford City (a club that was to play a part some years later in Iain’s career) but I wanted to get back into the Football League. Everybody I spoke to at the time told me that Dover Athletic was the club to go for. At the time they were really on the way up; the biggest side in non-league football and, it seemed, definitely League bound.”             

Iain joined the Whites at the start of the 1990-91 season, the year after their record 102 points championship haul in The Beazer Homes League Premier Division.

“Yeah,” he said, “I just missed that. I only played eleven games in my first season at Crabble. There was a lot of bench time but by the following season I’d cemented my place in the first team. We finished second in the league to Bromsgrove Rovers (who’d come from nowhere to win the league that year).”

That was the year of the then record Crabble attendance for the Thursday evening clash against Bromsgrove Rovers.

“They said there were 4,035 fans in the ground,” Iain said. "But, like me, he thought that the official figure was, probably, pure fiction.

“They were jammed in really tight,” he said. “It was a brilliant night and, although we didn’t win that match (in fact, it ended in a 2-2 draw in a match that swung both ways in front of an intensely partisan crowd) it, probably, didn’t cost us the championship. We needed to put a few more wins together but couldn’t. That’s what cost us.

"I’ve got some fantastic memories of Dover,” he said. “There were some great players there in those days. I made some good friends in Tony Rogers, Bert Davis and Lennie Lee among others. The personalities were great too: Barry Little was captain in the promotion year. Barry always had an answer to everybody and then there was Joe Jackson; with Russell Milton, Joe was one of the best players who ever turned out for Dover Athletic. I can remember Nicky Dent scoring from the half-way line in one of our matches. What a memory.”

Iain agreed that Kinnear was a good judge of footballing ability.

“Just look at the players he brought in,” Iain said. “There were a few who didn’t make it, or didn’t fit in, or whatever but there weren’t many.

“My best year must have been the 1992-93 season. I won three player of the year trophies: Players’ player, Supporters’ player, Sponsors’ player.

“We got into the Conference and, for a while, thought we were going straight through. Dave Leworthy arrived and what a difference he made. He was a goal scoring machine. He took us up another level.

“In the end, it was lack of strength in depth that did for us that year. A few injuries in the winter months and we finished eighth.

“Bill Williams offered me a new contract in the summer of 1997 but we couldn’t negotiate the right terms. It wasn’t quite right for me. Dover gave me a testimonial before I left. That was brilliant.”

And, even after all this time, Iain can still roll off, from memory, the string of managers who succeeded Kinnear at Crabble.

And Kinnear who, by 1997 had, himself, moved on to Margate with several former Dover stalwarts that included former Dover director and then Margate chairman, Jim Parmenter, saw his chance to renew his acquaintance with a player that he still valued very highly.

“I went to Margate,” said Iain. “Chris contacted me in the United States. At that time they were coming up from nothing, in the Doc Martens Southern Division (Eastern) I think. I was there six-and-a-half years; the last three in the Conference. I think we topped the Conference for a few hours in the first season before finishing tenth.”

“Then we went through a difficult time,” Iain said, “ground-sharing at Crabble. I still don’t really know what happened there. We demolished our ground and then couldn’t get planning permission to re-build it.”

The directors’ plan had been to redevelop Hartsdown Park to comply with Football League ground standards in anticipation of a promotion challenge from the Conference.

“In a way," Iain said, “it looked as though I might achieve at Margate what I had hoped to achieve at Dover; a return to League football. We only spent two seasons in the Doc Martens Premier Division before winning promotion to the Conference. We finished second in the first season and then won it.”

In fact, Margate pipped Burton Albion to the promotion spot that year with 91 points, winning the title with three points to spare over their East Midlands rivals.

But the desired promotion challenge into the Football League had to remain the dream for Margate that it still is for many clubs in a similar position.

“Even in the hard times Jim paid the wages,” Iain said. “He was always there for us.

“One of my best memories of Margate was our FA Cup 1st Round tie against Fulham at Hartsdown Park. That was such a good day.

“We battled away but lost 2-1. Martin Buglione (who played for a season under Iain’s management at Great Wakering Rovers) scored a penalty against us. Obviously, they were full-time professionals. They were a lot fitter than we were but what a day.

“After six and half years at Margate I moved on the Chelmsford City,” said Iain, “and then took over as player-manager at Great Wakering Rovers (in the Doc Martens League Eastern Division).

“I thought I’d like to have a go at management and this is local for me.

“I kept them up in my first season there. With the worst budget in the league we managed to finish 13th,” Iain said with a justified hint of pride in his voice.

And, like many clubs in their position, Great Wakering’s search for funding is never-ending.

“With any club in any league,” Iain said, “if you’re not in the top five or six in the autumn period the money tends to dry up. All of our income comes from the social club with a bit of occasional sponsorship.”

But he’s thrilled that Southend United is prepared to acknowledge his former services to them.

“Steve Tilson has agreed to bring a team to play us in a pre-season friendly,” said Iain. “They’re coming to Great Wakering on 19th July. And," he added with a tinge of excitement in his voice, “he’s agreed to bring the League One championship trophy with him.”

“Our ground is a good size,” he said, “but the police have restricted the gate to 2500 which will be well in excess of our current record attendance of 650.”

And with regular league attendances around the 150 mark, the match against Southend will be an important source of revenue for the club.

Iain says he still enjoys playing. He has played 40 games for Great Wakering during the 2005-06 season and he would like to continue playing.

“But combining the two roles (player and manager) is hard and getting harder," Iain said. "As manager you need to be on the touchline to see what’s going on. You just can’t do it as a player.”

“My days at Dover and then Margate were great days. I always look for Dover’s and Margate’s results whenever I open a newspaper,” Iain said. “I made some really good mates at Dover especially; former players like Tim Dixon, Maurice Munden, Tony MacDonald and Tony Rogers, among others, I still see. I go to Dover from time to time and usually stay with one of them.”

Iain’s plans are to stay in football management for as long as he can.

The energy in his voice when he speaks of Dover Athletic tells me how proud he is of his time there.

And the forthcoming pre-season friendly against Dover Athletic will, no doubt, rekindle many memories of past exploits at Crabble.

Football is, clearly, his passion.

It is a vocation which he combines with running his own cleaning business from his home in Leigh On Sea where Iain lives with his second wife, Kimberley (they were married in Ireland, in the small town of Adair, near Limerick, in 2002) and his two children, Sam, 14 (from his first marriage) and William, 2.

“Sam is not really very sporty,” said Iain, “but William kicks a ball around like a fanatic. He even goes to bed with a football for company.”

“Do you play golf?” he asked me towards the end of our chat. “If you do, go to Ireland. The courses are something else. There’s nowhere like it and they’re playing the Ryder Cup at the K Club in Killarney in September. It’ll be brilliant.”

“I play at the Adair Manor course,” said Iain. “Tiger Woods plays there too,” he said proudly, “but not on the same course. There are two courses there. The one Tiger plays charges 140 Euros in green fees so I play the other one,” he said with a chuckle.

It is likely that, from time to time, Iain may well be in Dover during the course of next season. If it doesn’t clash with his duties at Great Wakering I, for one, would be thrilled to see him in The Centre Spot bar again.

“I played under Clive Walker when he was assistant to Bill Williams,” Iain said. “He’s one of the best managers at this level. I’ve got a great deal of respect for him.”

And, who knows, when the time comes for Clive to move on, there may well be a certain young manager who, by then, will have perfected his skills at Great Wakering, and may well be waiting in the wings for his cue to succeed him.

 Visit the Dover Athletic website www.doverathletic.com