Website designed and maintained by Website4u How different is it being a player/manager rather than just a player? The biggest difference is the added responsibility, as a player you are mainly responsible for yourself but as a manager your responsibilities are endless (well, at least I haven’t reached the end yet but it’s still early doors). How have you adapted to the dual role? I think everyone that follows football are managers at heart and have their opinions on how things should be run at their team, as a player I was no different and now that I’m the gaffer it gives me the chance to put my ideas into practice. What have you found to be the most difficult part of that role? Being the manager takes up unbelievable amounts of time so keeping the wife happy is definitely the most difficult bit. What frustrates you most as a player/manager? The same things frustrate me now that have always frustrated me but top of the list must be players taking holidays during the season and punctuality. What have you enjoyed most as a player/manager? Again, the same as always, WINNING. Although helping the club avoid relegation last season would be up there with my junior footballing achievements. As a manager what pressures do you feel on the pitch? Regardless of my role, I have never felt pressure on a football pitch, playing football has always been my escape and for 90 minutes I forget about everything else. Pressure is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, not doing something you love. Both on and off the park, how do you influence the attitudes of players? I try and lead by example, I don’t ask the players to do anything I won’t do myself and if that doesn’t work I always have the power of selection. In what areas do you think the team can improve? Improvement is all relevant to the level of football you wish to play at and if it’s floating about the premier league and reaches the latter stages of the odd cup then no improvement needed but if we are to take the next step and compete for promotion, I believe we need better consistency and commitment from the players. As a manager, how do you go about getting consistency of performance? Consistency can only be achieved by repetition, firstly we have to find something that works and then repeat it over and over again, unfortunately, to often this season we have had to make whole sale changes to our starting 11 which has made consistency impossible. Once we limit our changes to 1 or 2 then we will start to see better consistency. If you were to model yourself on a manager, who would it be and why? Any manager that plays attacking football and plays games to win, I hate managers that set out with the ambition of just avoiding defeat. Have a go, you know it makes sense. Finally, tell us something about yourself that people don’t know about. I enjoy classical music, sssshhhh! An Interview with Craig Meikle