Sam Allardyce harbours England manager ambition - 7M sport

Sam Allardyce harbours England manager ambition



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Posted Sunday, June 26, 2011 by People.co.uk

Sam Allardyce harbours England manager ambition

SAM ALLARDYCE has ­confessed he still dreams of becoming England manager.

The new West Ham boss even ­reckons that a successful debut season in the Upton Park hot-seat will put him in the frame to succeed Fabio Capello.

The 56-year-old is on a two-year contract and his priority is to take the Hammers back into the Premier League.

And if he achieves that, with his England ambitions still burning ­brightly, then the West Ham/Allardyce ­partnership could prove very ­successful indeed.

Allardyce said: “Without any dreams or goals I would need to pack in ­management.

“It was a pretty distant dream that I might one day be considered for the England manager’s job when I ­started out at Limerick, but 15 years later I went very close.

“You have to reset your goals and your dreams, and my dream, first and foremost, is to make West Ham as ­successful as I ­possibly can – not only by getting ­promoted, but by establishing them in the Premier League.

“But if by ­fulfilling that dream you are brought closer to another one, then obviously that’s what you consider. In fact, it’s what you do the job for.

“That’s not being disloyal to any football club, it’s about always having ambition and striving to be better.

“If you have achieved, the club has achieved.

“You try to leave a club in a better position than when you acquired it and I’ve always felt that’s the one thing I have done.

“Winning leagues and cups is deemed the ultimate success, but when you re-invent a football club and start putting processes in place for when you’ve left, then the basis of a ­sustainable, successful football club is there for somebody else to take on.

Chicken

“My job now is to re-invent West Ham in terms of stability.”

Allardyce clearly still feels he has a point to prove to Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, who sacked him in 2008, and to Venky’s, Blackburn’s chicken farmer owners who followed suit last season.

Despite his experiences at those clubs, however, he didn’t have to give much thought to working for another set of high-profile owners in David Sullivan and David Gold.

He added: “I like a challenge. This game is very challenging and I made a bad statement about 11 years ago when I said I would retire when I reached 55.

“This is the life I want to lead. As precarious as it might be, I have been doing it for such a long time and it is because of the feeling of winning and bringing success to a football club.

“There have been some decisions made that I couldn’t control and that hurt my reputation. Now I have to rebuild my ­reputation here at West Ham.

“This job is not very good for your health. It is pretty ­damaging but, ­unfortunately, it’s a bit like being addicted to cigarettes. You need the nicotine fix – and I need the fix.

“I need the adrenaline running through my veins on a Saturday and I need the feeling of guiding a team to victory.

“The only time I questioned if I’d had enough was when I had a couple of stents put in at Blackburn.

“I said to the cardiologist, Mr Rowlands, ‘Is that enough for me?’ and he said, ‘Not really, you’ll be all right and you can’t do without it’.

“This game can be close to giving you a heart attack at times, but I’ve survived so far.’’

West Ham fans will be ­desperately hoping he survives – and succeeds – this coming ­season... and keeps those England dreams bubbling.



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