Richie Wellens and how Swindon Town became title winners

Phil Brown’s ten wins from 32 matches in charge had seen Swindon slip away from the playoffs the previous season, and a sluggish start had them in 16th in League Two.

Lee Power, never one to think inside the box for a new manager, turned to a 38-year-old with one previous job in management, during which he had been relegated from League One with Oldham Athletic. Richie Wellens.

As it turned out, Power had spoken to Wellens in the summer before eventually sticking with Brown, but to a lukewarm reception from a fan base with no clue what to expect, the former Manchester United youngster was his man.

Over the next 18 months, he would completely turn the ship around and invent one of the best winning machines of the 21st century for Swindon, resulting in a points-per-game Covid title and a return to League One.

“I didn’t know it would be the season after, but I did know he would do it,” said Jak McCourt. “When he came in, I knew he was going to be good.”

Swindon were in a difficult place when Wellens arrived, although the group were still pulling for Brown, and it remained a “little bit of a surprise” when he left after the 2-1 win over York.

“It wasn’t like there was a bad atmosphere or any bad eggs within the group,” said Marc Richards. “Although results weren’t going our way, Phil Brown certainly didn’t lose the respect or the morale within the group.”

Replacing someone who had managed in the Premier League in only his second job as a manager may have seemed daunting to some. However, that does not appear to be a thought which crossed his mind.

“I think as soon as he came in, he backed himself at Swindon, because he knew how much of a big club it was,” said McCourt, who had actually played alongside Wellens briefly as a youngster at Leicester City. “He just backed himself no matter what. He was always the loudmouth, and he’d give it out to people, in a good way, but then he would back it up.

“So, if he would moan at someone, he would literally just turn around and say, ‘This is how you do it’, and he would just do it. Like, he could just hit the crossbar or put the ball right in the little circle at the corner flag. He was very talented, and it did show, but you would also see the demands that he would have, and if you weren’t doing something right, then he would tell you. That is the way he is as a manager as well.”

Richards had never played with Wellens and was only two years his junior, yet still had that immediate deference for him.

“He’s a guy who holds respect in the game through what he achieved as a player. I think when you have a reputation as being a good footballer, it certainly gives you more strength and confidence from the players, whereby they absolutely respect your thoughts and opinions. He was not someone who needed to prove himself to us.

“As a coach, I didn’t know too much about him at the time, but I was really excited to get under his wing and experience what it was like playing the Wellens way. Lo and behold, it was a really nice, pretty on the eye, style of football that everyone would probably expect from a Swindon manager.”

“I wouldn’t say that it is a fear factor, but at some clubs now you can walk past a manager and there is no fear factor,” added McCourt. “But when I was at Leicester, every player, it didn’t matter if they were the first team or not, they all had that with Nigel Pearson. If you are walking down the corridor, it was always like, ‘Here comes the gaffer, put your head down,’ or you had to say ‘Good Morning.’ I think Richie has got that about him as well, but then he also has the joking side.

“He had that straight away. He didn’t need to come in and say, ‘I’m the manager, call me this, don’t call me Richie.’ He just had it, and that is a very good thing.”

He may have commanded instant respect from the Swindon players, but possibly not quite so much with the opposition. A 4-0 defeat to John Sheridan’s Carlisle United, and a side featuring Jerry Yates and Hallam Hope, at home, was not quite the start everyone would have been hoping for.

Although that was swiftly vanquished with three straight wins over Port Vale, Stevenage, and Newport County. During that time, Wellens appeared to be trying to find the right alchemy of his squad. Starting the initial game with a back three, then switching to 433, and personnel were switching about as well. Matty Taylor and Dion Conroy were both trialled as holding midfielders, along with Richards, Elijah Adebayo, Kaiyne Woolery, and Sol Pryce all starting as his lone striker.

“The way he sees the game,” said Richards when asked what Wellens’ main strength as a manager was. “He sees the game and he explains the game in a way that helps players to understand, and he knows what he wants from each and every person in the team.

“He also drives the standards. Even when he joined in training, he nutmegged me a couple of times. That riled me at the time, but to still have that quality as a player, and to join in when you know exactly what he wants as a manager, is a super strength.”

McCourt felt very similarly: “He is probably one of the best coaches I have had in my career. The knowledge of the game, he just seemed to know everything about football. He was just always football crazy. The sessions he does and the type of training are very intense, but it is good. You can have intense training when you are just constantly running, where this was very game-related. It is not like the way you played was structured, but you knew your job, and he got that across by demanding that from people.”

January arrived, and Swindon were still struggling, 14th in the table after a 2-0 loss to Exeter City on New Year’s Day. It was time for Wellens to get some players who fit his style a little bit better.

Ben House and Canice Carroll arrived swiftly, during a January window which would see Ali Koiki, Tom Broadbent, Danny Rose, Taylor Curran, Kyle Bennett, Cameron McGilp, and Theo Robinson all join the club.

“In a weird way, it was a no-brainer for me,” said Carroll. “You might think, as an Oxford lad, I would have chosen Bury, my other option, straight away, with them being at the top, but it was the vibe that I got. I’d watched a couple of his interviews, and the way he was talking about his players and how he wanted to play. You just get a feeling in football, and that felt like the right feeling.

“I think we trained at Wigan [Athletic] on the Friday [ahead of Carroll’s first game at Macclesfield]. Ben House signed on the same day as me, and the gaffer called us to one side, and he just looked at me and said, ‘You’ve played men’s football before, you know how it works, so just go and do what you would naturally do.’ I think he trusted me and knew I was a handful and I would put myself about, so he saw something in me that not a lot of people would have seen.”

Although with players coming in, some seemed to be less in favour, which Richards found out during that month.

“Initially, I was playing and I scored a couple of goals under his guidance. Then, the January transfer window came about, and I was almost pushed to one side a little bit because we got some people in, particularly in my position, and ultimately, that left me out. In terms of how it made me feel, I was disappointed, and we never really had that conversation around what my future looked like, and I was close to making a move to Port Vale in that window.”

However, this is where a key strength of Wellens’ came in. Each player mentioned his man-management skills and how honest he would be.

“One thing I really enjoyed with the gaffer was he wouldn’t say things needlessly,” said Carroll. “He was very straight to the point, he was direct, and just honest with you. In my career, that is all I have ever wanted.

“I remember he played me at right-back against Crawley at home, and I had an absolute stinker. We had a conversation, and he dropped me for the next game and then put me back in. He just told me I’d had a bad game, and I knew I’d had one, but to hear it was better, because I realised that I needed to sort myself out, get back in the team, and play well. His brutal honesty was always good for me; he was one of the two or three managers I really enjoyed working with.”

McCourt recalls having a rocky relationship with Wellens, by virtue of his nature as a younger player, but he was never someone who would hold grudges.

“I did have a little clash with him, but then afterwards we were ok. I remember one game, I think it was Walsall away, and we lost 3-1, and I remember having a big argument with him after the game in front of everyone. He blamed me for two of the goals, which had come from set pieces, and I wasn’t even in the box; I was on the edge. Back then, I would just go back at someone; it didn’t matter if they were the manager, and I just argued back.

“It was either the next day or on the Monday morning, he sent his assistant down, and he said, ‘The gaffer wants you,’ and I thought, ‘Oh s***, I am going to get fined here.’ I just remember him apologising and saying he shouldn’t have done it, and I said the same. It was things like that were why I felt I got on really well with him.

“I don’t think he would do that as much now. When he first came to Swindon, he would just say things, as he still had a little bit of that player head on. But that honesty is key. As a player, the worst thing you can have is someone who will just say things you want to hear. Those types of people won’t go that far.”

Ultimately, 2018/19 was no vintage season for Swindon. A finishing position of 13th was, at the time, the second lowest in club history. However, it still seemed there was something to build on.

“He joined in training,” said Carroll. “And it felt like he had that fight in him where he always wanted to win, regardless of what we were doing. It could be a possession game or a small-sided game, but he wanted to win. It did feel like that was what he was instilling, and that goes to show with what happened the season after. I went back with Carlisle, and it felt like they were always on top, and any time you looked at the scores, they had won again. I definitely feel like he instilled that mentality from the moment he went in.”

The summer following saw plenty of turnover from the squad, with only Michael Doughty, Keshi Anderson, Ellis Iandolo, Kaiyne Woolery, Luke McCormick, Dion Conroy, Rose, and Broadbent remaining. So, he had to go about building a new squad to get going.

“He set the ambitions and goals, and also said that I would be a big part of that,” said Jordan Lyden. “I felt wanted, which I hadn’t felt for quite a while in football terms. That gave me a confidence boost to hit the ground running. He knew how to speak to certain players to get the best out of them, whether that was putting an arm around them or having a go at them.

“I joined quite late in the summer, but I could see the levels the boys were already at. We all knew the shape and the patterns of play, and everyone knew they were part of a group. We had that belief from day one.”

And the rest, as they say, was beer and man love.