Jimmy Quinn

Good article in the Sunday Times how Jimmy Quinn has turned aroun Cambridge. It is noticable that he took the players to an army camp for their pre-season training. Wonder where he got that idea from....

“LISTEN,” says Jimmy Quinn, Cambridge United’s manager, nursing a glass of water in the club’s trim boardroom. “Some people look at cup competitions as a hindrance to the league. Not me. Since we were drawn at Wolves I’ve seen them three times. Let me tell you this: we’re not going there to get beaten.”

Since they missed being inaugural members of the Premier League only after losing to Leicester City in the 1992 playoff semi-finals, times have been tough for Cambridge United.

There has been administration; the surreal reign of peripatetic manager Claude Le Roy (who it turned out had signed a “moral” rather than, say, an actual contract), currently in control of Ghana (“a nice guy; he’d fly in every so often to make a guest appearance,” remembers full-back Dan Gleeson) and the loss of league status. Last April, on the final day of the Conference season, only a victory over an already relegated Tamworth prevented further demotion.

Indeed, the chalice was so poisoned that when Quinn took over from Rob Newman in September 2006, Halifax Town’s Chris Wilder had already turned the job down.

“I didn’t apply for it,” he explains, “Cambridge chairman Lee Power rang me up after I’d been recommended. I know other members of the board were looking in other directions, but he persevered.” As Quinn’s wife pointed out when the Cambridge job was mooted, the former Northern Ireland striker was leading a comfortable life as an England scout, dashing around the Premier League assessing England players or whizzing around the world assessing England’s opponents.

“I saw Croatia in Moscow and my report said to watch Eduardo as he was small but excellent in the air. Whether they took any notice of it I don’t know, but a few weeks later he scored against England with a header. I just had to come back to club management, though.”

He did not like what he found. “There was talk of the playoffs, but the atmosphere was so gloomy, it was like a 1700s workshop. Everyone was so down in the dumps.” By Christmas, the vultures were circling, but former Norwich City centre-forward Power held his nerve. In March, after successive 5-0 Conference defeats and Cambridge looking relegation certainties, Quinn resigned Gleeson, who had been released by Newman the previous summer.

Gleeson had been biding his time at Notts County, but he was exactly what Quinn was looking for. Cambridge-born, he and his family had followed United since the days of Dion Dublin, Steve Claridge and Jody Craddock, currently at Wolves. Indeed, when Gleeson made his maiden start against Northampton in 2004, he had not yet been offered his first professional contract. More importantly, it was the day after his beloved grandfather had died. “I wish he could have seen it, I know how proud he would have been, but playing helped me get over his passing.”

Gleeson’s return coincided with Cambridge winning five of their last seven games and Quinn attaining hero status. For this season, the dead wood was moved on, the new faces bonded at a preseason army camp, and Quinn introduced such notions as communal eating before training, monthly meetings between players and staff, weekly itineraries to aid those who travel long distances and detailed assessments of the opposition. The benefits are there in the Blue Square Premier table and FA Cup exits for Stafford Rangers, Aldershot and Weymouth.

“The reason we’re doing so well on the pitch,” explains Gleeson, “is because we get on so well off it.”

“It’s good organisation and planning,” suggests Quinn.

Times are now so good at the Abbey Stadium that they should take 5,000 across the country on Saturday. Molineux has been a happy hunting ground for Quinn since he scored a pair there (he claims it was a hat-trick) for Blackburn Rovers in 1984.

“I’d prefer to have been at home, but it could have been a lot worse. Even if we put on a good show, people will want to come back and watch us for the rest of the season. But if our lads can cope with the big stadium and 20,000 fans, we’ve got some good footballers who can cause Wolves some problems.”

And if they win? Gleeson smiles and allows himself a little peak into his crystal ball. “I’d love to play at Stamford Bridge. Or Old Trafford. Or The Emirates. Or any Premier League team, just to get a memory of facing the best players in the world. We’ve seen them on Match Of The Day and it would be nice to play against them. Ronaldo’s really the one; I’d certainly let him know I was here. If, that is, I could get close enough to him.”