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Paul Tisdale's talent factory: Second only to Arsene Wenger as England’s longest-serving manager and still battling to keep Exeter City afloat
By Ian Herbert For The Daily Mail
22:30 05 Jan 2018, updated 22:30 05 Jan 2018
Exeter City's manager Paul Tisdale remains dedicated to the club's cause
Tisdale is England's second longest-serving manager, behind Arsene Wenger
The 44-year-old have been with the League Two side since 2006
Exeter host Alan Pardew's West Brom in their FA Cup third-round tie on Saturday
He has been at Exeter, one of League Two’s remotest outposts, since before first light, leaving his home near Bath at 6.30am for the hour-and-a-half drive across to the Cat and Fiddle training ground which is named after a nearby pub.
Paul Tisdale has become hardwired to the same routine after a shade less than 12 years as Exeter City manager. Only Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger has been in charge for longer in the professional leagues.
Exeter City's manager Paul Tisdale remains dedicated to the League Two club's cause
‘I’m a little bit detached,’ says Tisdale. ‘I’ve not had my eye to the world of looking for a job, where everybody is after the next thing before they’ve got hold of the first thing.’
This man of supreme sartorial elegance and panache has sported tweed jackets, cravats, deerstalker hats: been there, worn it and got the Ted Baker T-shirt, as someone once memorably put it.
But what is even more striking is the picture he paints of how the targets become more sophisticated when you find the security which is now so pitifully elusive in football.
Tisdale is England's second longest-serving manager, behind Arsenal's Arsene Wenger
For a time, in 2006, when he had taken over an Exeter side marooned in the Conference, there was the usual survival and win-at-all-costs instinct. Then, with security, comes a capacity to buy more players for what they will yield Sunday, rather than on Saturday.
‘You can be more bullish in how you recruit,’ Tisdale says. ‘The primary aim starts to become the health of the club, then developing players to sell who become a major source of income. And then winning matches, which flows from that.’
The numbers tell the story. The 44-year-old has virtually a zero net spend on players and coaching staff across a tenure in which Exeter were once eighth in League One and been to Wembley twice.
The last 18 months have taught him that no one is immune from the profession’s usual ravages. His side started last season badly, were bottom of League Two in November 2016, and the supporters’ trust which owns the club told the board to serve notice on Tisdale’s rolling two-year contract: effectively telling him there was no guarantee he would be manager beyond this summer.
The 44-year-old, who has been with the Grecians since 2006, prepares his side for Saturday
It turned out to be a temporary struggle from which Tisdale navigated Exeter to a Wembley play-off final against Blackpool and three players reaped the club a financial dividend. Ollie Watkins left for Brentford for around £1.8million, winger David Wheeler to QPR for £500,000 and defender Ethan Ampadu to Chelsea, with an impending tribunal to rule on the fee.
The club have launched another promotion push this season, currently lying seventh, though Tisdale is running down his contract and it is hard to avoid the sense that the supporters’ vote cut him deeply.
‘At the time, the directive from the supporters was to ask the board to renegotiate the contract with me,’ he says. ‘It’s only going to be a contract on lesser terms. They knew as well as I did that wasn’t going to happen. Supporters at all clubs say they want a healthy club but when it comes down to it they all want to win
In a sense, management is about having the courage to prevail with a plan, when the supporters demand something else. ‘Say you’re one-nil down with 10 minutes to go,’ Tisdale explains in the highly acclaimed study of management, Living on the Volcano by Michael Calvin.
‘You’re desperately trying to get that goal, blocking the supporters out because they think about it for two hours every week and then they go home. You think about it 16 hours a day.’
But his outlook has changed since he found his job on the line those 18 months ago. ‘It becomes more about results,’ he says. ‘It has to be more short term.’
Saturday’s tie brings the same scope for a windfall that arrived with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, two years ago, when Exeter secured a 2-2 draw on an extraordinary Friday night at their St James Park ground, before losing at Anfield. ‘It was a muddy January day then and it’s going to be a muddy
By Ian Herbert For The Daily Mail
22:30 05 Jan 2018, updated 22:30 05 Jan 2018
Exeter City's manager Paul Tisdale remains dedicated to the club's cause
Tisdale is England's second longest-serving manager, behind Arsene Wenger
The 44-year-old have been with the League Two side since 2006
Exeter host Alan Pardew's West Brom in their FA Cup third-round tie on Saturday
He has been at Exeter, one of League Two’s remotest outposts, since before first light, leaving his home near Bath at 6.30am for the hour-and-a-half drive across to the Cat and Fiddle training ground which is named after a nearby pub.
Paul Tisdale has become hardwired to the same routine after a shade less than 12 years as Exeter City manager. Only Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger has been in charge for longer in the professional leagues.
Exeter City's manager Paul Tisdale remains dedicated to the League Two club's cause
‘I’m a little bit detached,’ says Tisdale. ‘I’ve not had my eye to the world of looking for a job, where everybody is after the next thing before they’ve got hold of the first thing.’
This man of supreme sartorial elegance and panache has sported tweed jackets, cravats, deerstalker hats: been there, worn it and got the Ted Baker T-shirt, as someone once memorably put it.
But what is even more striking is the picture he paints of how the targets become more sophisticated when you find the security which is now so pitifully elusive in football.
Tisdale is England's second longest-serving manager, behind Arsenal's Arsene Wenger
For a time, in 2006, when he had taken over an Exeter side marooned in the Conference, there was the usual survival and win-at-all-costs instinct. Then, with security, comes a capacity to buy more players for what they will yield Sunday, rather than on Saturday.
‘You can be more bullish in how you recruit,’ Tisdale says. ‘The primary aim starts to become the health of the club, then developing players to sell who become a major source of income. And then winning matches, which flows from that.’
The numbers tell the story. The 44-year-old has virtually a zero net spend on players and coaching staff across a tenure in which Exeter were once eighth in League One and been to Wembley twice.
The last 18 months have taught him that no one is immune from the profession’s usual ravages. His side started last season badly, were bottom of League Two in November 2016, and the supporters’ trust which owns the club told the board to serve notice on Tisdale’s rolling two-year contract: effectively telling him there was no guarantee he would be manager beyond this summer.
The 44-year-old, who has been with the Grecians since 2006, prepares his side for Saturday
It turned out to be a temporary struggle from which Tisdale navigated Exeter to a Wembley play-off final against Blackpool and three players reaped the club a financial dividend. Ollie Watkins left for Brentford for around £1.8million, winger David Wheeler to QPR for £500,000 and defender Ethan Ampadu to Chelsea, with an impending tribunal to rule on the fee.
The club have launched another promotion push this season, currently lying seventh, though Tisdale is running down his contract and it is hard to avoid the sense that the supporters’ vote cut him deeply.
‘At the time, the directive from the supporters was to ask the board to renegotiate the contract with me,’ he says. ‘It’s only going to be a contract on lesser terms. They knew as well as I did that wasn’t going to happen. Supporters at all clubs say they want a healthy club but when it comes down to it they all want to win
In a sense, management is about having the courage to prevail with a plan, when the supporters demand something else. ‘Say you’re one-nil down with 10 minutes to go,’ Tisdale explains in the highly acclaimed study of management, Living on the Volcano by Michael Calvin.
‘You’re desperately trying to get that goal, blocking the supporters out because they think about it for two hours every week and then they go home. You think about it 16 hours a day.’
But his outlook has changed since he found his job on the line those 18 months ago. ‘It becomes more about results,’ he says. ‘It has to be more short term.’
Saturday’s tie brings the same scope for a windfall that arrived with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, two years ago, when Exeter secured a 2-2 draw on an extraordinary Friday night at their St James Park ground, before losing at Anfield. ‘It was a muddy January day then and it’s going to be a muddy