Simon Grayson On Preston, Huddersfield, Sunderland And Managing In India | OneFootball

After the disappointment of losing your job at Leeds, you went back into management with Huddersfield Town. You led them into the Championship for the first time in 11 years. What was your thought process when Huddersfield approached you?

“I was only out of work for, I think, two weeks. Regarding the Leeds situation, I remember leaving as a player with a tear in my eye, and I left with a tear in my eye when I left as a manager because that’s how much it meant to me.

“But then, I got a call from Dean Hoyle, or my agent did, asking if I would be interested in going to Huddersfield.

“It was a strange call because Huddersfield were in the top six at the time and looked like they could really get promoted. Dean made the decision to sack the previous manager and felt that I could get them up.

“As it turned out, we went on to win promotion in the play off final at Wembley against Sheffield United. That meant a lot to me because it was another promotion for myself and one for the team.”

Your next job after Huddersfield came when you were appointed as manager of Preston North End in 2013. How do you reflect on your time at Deepdale?

“That was another one. I left Huddersfield, and I was only out of work for about 10 days or so. I remember being on holiday when I got the call asking if I would go to Preston.

“I was undecided about what I wanted to do because we were near the bottom end of League One at the time. But I looked into it, spoke to a few people, like David Moyes, quite a bit about the place, and got a feel for it.

“I already knew Peter Ridsdale from when he was on the board at Leeds when I was an apprentice, a young player. He was desperate to get me there, so I decided to take the job.

“The first year was about staying up. In the second year, we lost in the playoff semi-final, so it was a progression. We had a really good philosophy of what we were doing. Yes, we wanted results, but we were also buying a lot of players or getting them on free transfers from academies where they’d just been released—people like Callum Robinson, Ben Pearson, and Daniel Johnson.

“The big thing was that we were developing and coaching them and making them better, which ultimately led to us getting promoted at Wembley again—another great day. We broke the hoodoo of, I think it was nine attempts, of losing in playoff games for Preston, and then stabilised in the Championship.

“For two years, we had two top-11 finishes. I put together a really good squad, probably one of the most tight-knit groups I’ve ever worked with. They’d run through a brick wall for each other. We had some good players capable of doing anything on the pitch, and the club was progressing and going forward very steadily with the owners.

“Obviously, I then got a call to go to Sunderland, which was another opportunity I felt I had to take at the time.”

“The club was trying to be sold by Ellis Short at that particular time, and there was a lot of uncertainty about what was happening. But the one thing I looked at was that I’d gone into clubs with similar issues before and always managed to get them going again.

“Sunderland was a team that had just been relegated from the Premier League, a huge football club, which is why I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. My ambition was to manage in the Premier League, and I thought I could achieve that by taking Sunderland potentially straight back up or at least giving it a good shot.

“Previously, I’d turned down two opportunities to be a manager in the Premier League when I was at Leeds because I thought I could achieve that with Leeds.

“I thought Sunderland was going to be another opportunity, but it wasn’t until I got in there that I understood the full extent of what was happening. The club had sold £50 million worth of players and then brought in 12 players for £1 million players, which shows you where the club was.

“There was a lot of unrest among the players, and it was a really difficult environment. These things happen. Chris Coleman came in, didn’t manage to turn things around, and the club got relegated.

“We both got labeled as unsuccessful, but there were a lot of other factors that contributed to where the club was and still is. It should be in the Premier League, but it was in League One for a few years. The one thing people always ask me is whether I regret leaving Preston.

“I don’t have any regrets. I always think you can only regret things you don’t do. The last thing I wanted was for someone else to get Sunderland promoted and think, ‘That could have been me.’ So I don’t regret going.

“The only thing I wish I could have done was take the whole group of players from Preston with me and swap them for the ones at Sunderland because they had a lot more about them—a better attitude and a greater willingness to work and learn—whereas, at Sunderland, I don’t think they did.”

After Sunderland, you had short spells with Blackpool and Bradford before moving to India to manage Bengaluru FC. What was it like to live and work in abroad for the first time?

“I’d gone just before lockdown. Martin Bain, who was the CEO at Sunderland, was working out in the Indian league running the league, and he said, ‘Why don’t you just come out for a holiday, see Mumbai, and maybe watch a bit of football? The finals are on when you come out.’

“So I went out and enjoyed a part of the world that I’d never been to, never thought I would ever see again. Then lockdown happened, I took a couple of jobs, and later I got an opportunity to go to another Indian club.

“Then Bengaluru came in for me, and I just thought, why not do it? I wanted to do something different. I’d done nearly 750 games in England, and I just thought, why not do it?

“I knew everybody in England, and I just fancied doing something else. But I still thought I probably wouldn’t have the guts to sign and do it because it was completely out of my comfort zone in terms of culture, players, humidity, climate—anything you can think of.

“It was going to be out of my comfort zone, but that’s what I wanted. I wanted to test myself. I wanted to learn about myself both professionally and personally as well.

“We won the Durand Cup final, which was like a pre-season tournament but equivalent to probably the Carabao Cup. We had a mixed start to the season but then won something like 10 or 11 games on the trot.

“Probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life as a manager was dropping the icon of Indian-Asian football, Sunil Chhetri. He was like the greatest footballer of his generation out there.

“Up until recently, when he just retired from international football, he was the third leading goal scorer in world football behind Ronaldo and Messi, so that tells you how big a player he is. And I dropped him.

“We went on this run, and people thought I was crazy to do it, but that led to us getting on the run, and he had to stay out of the team. Then we got to the equivalent of the Super League grand final—we lost on penalties.

“We also got to a Super Cup final, which we lost, but overall, in that first year, it was incredible. You were learning, developing younger players, giving them their debuts.

“I went back for the second year, and circumstances changed. The owners wanted to reduce the budget; they wanted more younger players coming through, which I didn’t have a problem with. But with that, you’re maybe going to get inconsistent results, and we did. I came back a little earlier than I was probably due to, but it was a wonderful experience personally as well.

“I was in a part of the world where you’re sampling so many different things. I went to see the Taj Mahal, to Sri Lanka. I went to all the cities that you visit when you’re playing: Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Goa, Mumbai. Incredible place. I’m so proud of myself that I took the opportunity to go there and proud of how successful I thought I was.”

Finally, Simon, having experienced management abroad, what are you hoping to do next? Are you open to another experience managing abroad or would you like to work in the UK again?

“Well, since I’ve been back at Christmas, I’ve been offered a couple of jobs in the EFL, which I didn’t think were right for me at that particular time. I’ve been close to getting a national team job as well recently, and that would have been in Asia. But I’ve been away from home for two years, and I sort of just want a bit of time around with my family—my parents.

“My son plays professionally, so I was fortunate when I came back. He won the FA Trophy at Wembley, so that was a proud moment after all the times I’ve won there. And my dad seeing me lift a trophy and win there—it was really nice for me to see my son win there with his granddad as well. That was a special moment.

“I want to go back to work at some point and in the meantime, I will do a lot of media work on games now that the season has started. I do Sky, TalkSport, Five Live, etc., co-commentary and things like that.

“I’ll do bits like that and wait for an opportunity to come around, because the one thing that’s inevitable in football now is that jobs are going to be coming up frequently, which I don’t agree with because I think back when I started, we had a lot more time to implement ideas. Now, it’s very much a must-happen-now situation, which I don’t think is great for it. But that’s a ruthless part of our sport—waiting for a friend to lose his job potentially, and you step back in.

“I’m hungry to go again and I’m a better coach than ever I’ve been from my experience in India and all the other games. I think if I went back to work soon, people would be getting a better Simon Grayson than the version that won four promotions previously.”