How to Be a Football Manager: Enter the hilarious and crazy world of the gaffer

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I'd like to wish everyone connected with Leicester City well for the future – the club will always remain close to my heart. He would entertain you with stories of the good, the bad and the ugly of the football world, and leave you feeling energised once more about the game, despite the latest VAR debacle, your out-of-nick striker and your penny-pinching owners. The board and Ollie had a joint vision, first to improve the league position, secondly to deliver top class training facilities and finally by relocation to a new community stadium. In February 2020, majority shareholder John Fenty announced he was going to be taking a step back and allowing Holloway more freedom and autonomy to run the club both on and off the field. Having agreed a compensation package for his services, he was announced in a press conference by Milan Mandarić as Leicester manager on 22 November, signing a 3 + 1⁄ 2-year contract.

He got QPR promoted from Division Two in 2003-04, then achieved promotion to the Premier League with both Blackpool (2009-10) and Crystal Palace (2012-13). Holloway went to Sir Bernard Lovell School in Oldland Common at the same time that Gary Penrice was at Chase School for Boys in Mangotsfield.Fenty says Holloway has committed to the club both professionally and personally, with the experienced manager agreeing to move to the area and even become a shareholder in the club. The twins were born profoundly deaf, as both Ian and Kim had a recessive form of a certain gene meaning that there was a higher chance that they would have deaf children. Biography: Born in Kingswood in Gloucestershire in 1963, Ian Holloway has been involved in professional football for four decades. We only had eight players, some were on international duty and I wasn't going to train them that hard anyway.

On 22 November 2020, following a 5–0 defeat against Tranmere Rovers, Holloway announced he had released one of his recent signings Bilel Mohsni despite recently stating "he is my leader, he is my Virgil van Dijk". Members of ' The Fishy', A Grimsby Town fan forum, started a fundraiser to raise money in support of Holloway, in a show of loyal support for him. Nine months later, he guided the club to the Premier League after winning the play-offs following a sixth-placed finish in The Championship, [22] becoming only the second Blackpool manager (after Les Shannon in 1970) to win promotion in his first full season.On 7 March 2020 the side played out their final game of the season with a 2–0 win away at local rivals Scunthorpe United [46] before the season was cut short and ended early due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ian and Kim have committed to selling up and moving into the area, seeing Grimsby as a long-term project. He then guided the club to Championship safety for the 2013–14 season as Millwall finished 19th, four points above the relegation places. For the last three years of his QPR career, Holloway commuted daily from Bristol to London, a 250-mile round trip, so the children could attend a deaf school in Bristol. Football management is like being a potato – you’re never too far from the sack and everyone is constantly chipping away at you.

Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you. On 28 June 2006, Holloway became the manager of Plymouth Argyle, and promised to take the club to the Premier League.

His reason for departing was his displeasure at John Fenty's decision to sell his shares in the club, claiming he did not want to carry on at the club without the people he came here to work with. In a long playing career ‘Ollie’ racked up 675 appearances across three separate stints at Bristol Rovers and spells at Wimbledon, Brentford, Torquay United (on loan) and QPR.

After they settled into their home near Pendle Hill, Blackpool's groundsman, Stan Raby, gave them seven turkeys. He was part of the Wimbledon team that won promotion to the top flight in 1986, a place they would remain for the next fourteen seasons. The charismatic manager, who previously guided both Blackpool and Crystal Palace to the Premier League, was in charge of the Mariners for less than a year, having taken over on 31 December 2019.

As mentioned already, one of the great strengths of Holloway, that comes across so explicitly in this book, is his honesty, but not only honesty, a complete candidness and forthrightness. On 12 January 2021, Grimsby Town became the first football club in England to be fined for breaking COVID-19 protocol after it was revealed that Holloway had played darts with some of his players at the club's training ground.