There can’t be many managers out there who end an interview by inviting you to give them an admonishing phone call should they ever field a weakened team in the FA Cup, but then Gareth Ainsworth wears his heart on his sleeve like few others.
For Wycombe Wanderers’ manager, talk of the old trophy comes laced with a deep affection dating back to the Cup final days of his youth – when fittingly, given the identity of tonight’s fourth-round visitors to Adams Park, Tottenham Hotspur played a significant part.
“I’ve got flashbacks of the Ricky Villa final,” he says citing the 1981 final on the eve of his eighth birthday, though his strongest memory is of Coventry’s 3-2 triumph over Spurs in 1987.
“It was a big day in our house. My dad used to do this family sweepstake and I got Clive Allen and he scored the first goal in that final, so yes, it was a special moment: me and my brother, mum and dad, and grandad who always came round. Back then, it was the biggest day of the season. Arguably, I think winning the FA Cup was on a par with winning the title. I’m a Blackburn fan and I remember in the 80s I was proud that Blackburn had won it six times, even though some of them were in the 1800s!”
It was three decades on from that 1987 final that Ainsworth’s Wycombe side came close to upsetting Tottenham when the teams met at this same stage in 2017.
He confesses to “counting my chickens” after Garry Thompson had headed Wycombe, then a League Two side, 3-2 in front after 83 minutes at White Hart Lane.
“I actually made a grave mistake of turning to my assistant manager, Richard Dobson, on about 86 minutes and saying, ‘I think we might get a replay at the worst’.” Instead Dele Alli equalised before a Son Heung-min winner in the 97th minute.
“We only had six minutes of injury time,” he says ruefully. A happier memory was his post-match chat with Spurs’ then manager, Mauricio Pochettino. Ainsworth, whose wife is Venezuelan, explains: “With my very basic Spanish I think he was impressed that I made an attempt to speak a bit of Spanish to him and with something like that breaking the ice, he then opened up a little bit. I think he realised how much the FA Cup did mean to somebody.”
Four years on from his tête-à-tête with Pochettino, who later sent him a video message on his five-year anniversary as Wycombe boss, Covid protocols will prevent any such opportunity with Jose Mourinho – a pity as “to say I’m a big fan would be something I’d want to say”.
After all, behind his Jim Morrison hair and hobby fronting a rock band is a deep-rooted humility. “I’m still this lad from Blackburn who dreamed about playing professional football. I’ve still got that, I’ve kept that with me. I never think I’ve made it ever and I never will so to be on the same sideline as Pochettino and now Mourinho, I don’t mind admitting I’ll be, ‘Wow, this is José Mourinho’. But the competitor in me will want to beat them. I remember having a tactical battle with Pochettino and we actually came out of the blocks, rather than stay and wait and let them have the ball.” (A ploy, incidentally, that brought a 2-0 half-time lead.)
This time Wycombe are a Championship side, albeit bottom of the division in their first second-tier campaign. It has been a “huge” step, the 47-year-old admits, yet “every cell in my body wakes up every day and goes, ‘Right, let’s go and compete in the Championship’.”
Transmitting that feeling in these Covid days – and Wycombe’s training ground reopened on Thursday after a week’s closure and two cancelled matches – is not easy, however.
“The moments that have made Wycombe Wanderers what it is aren’t always football moments, they’re moments off the pitch when the boys have been talking about their families or their life off the pitch in the canteen, the gym, the dressing rooms. The bonds you build in football, the greater bonds, are when you’re not talking about football and that’s what we’ve struggled with a little bit.”
He describes how with the training-ground canteen closed, “the boys have got to go and eat in their cars” while “the gym is cold because the doors are always open” and adds: “It’s really difficult because you’re trying to force the boys to interact and you can’t build relationships over Zoom and over FaceTime and over messages.”
Amid the current European Super League speculation, a conversation with Ainsworth acts as a salve given his honesty, enthusiasm and appreciation of his sport’s emotional ties.
“I’m gutted the fans can’t be here because these are the days that football fans remember,” he says of Monday night’s game.
“They remember Wycombe playing Middlesbrough in the 70s in the FA Cup. They remember Leicester [the quarter-final win in 2001] and Roy Essandoh’s winner.”
Ainsworth himself remembers that 2001 semi-final run for the less happy fact he was in the Wimbledon side that Wycombe beat on penalties in the fifth round.
He adds: “I just hope we can create some memories on the TV, which isn’t the same but [would mean] they can be proud. Not being at the ground is such a big thing for some fans, I really feel for them because it’s a ritual.”
And, like those boyhood cup final days he knew and loved, these things matter.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3c5ss08
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