Paul Ince: Breaking Down Glass Ceilings?

So, Paul Ince is the new Blackburn Rovers manager. The media have been falling over themselves to celebrate his appointment, noting he is the first black Briton to manage a Premier League team.

Much like US Presidential candidate Barack Obama, "the Guv’nor" is being credited with breaking down more than a few glass ceilings.

But the reality is not quite as groundbreaking. The Premiership has already had a few black managers—as Ruud Gullit and Jean Tigana will both attest. While Ince has the opportunity to become the most successful, he is certainly not the first. And it goes without saying that England’s top flight has had more than its share of British managers.

While Ince is (so far) unique in that he ticks both boxes, the really impressive thing is that he has been recruited from a lower league of English football, with no managerial experience at the highest level.

When was the last time that happened? David Moyes’ move from Preston to Everton? It has certainly been a while.

While Ince’s managerial prospects have undoubtedly been enhanced by his playing career, he was never going to start life in the dugout at a top club. Unlike, for instance, Gareth Southgate, Ince’s nomadic ending to his career prevented him gaining a job higher up the league. His last major club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, may have given him an opportunity, but his desire to keep playing led him to move on, to Swindon.

Southgate, a stalwart of Middlesbrough for so many years, obviously did enough to persuade chairman Steve Gibson he knew enough about the workings of the Teeside club, and management, to be the natural successor to Steve Mclaren.

Ince took a player-coach role at Swindon Town, so it could be said that the end to Ince’s playing career was also the start of his managerial one. Only playing three games though, he soon left the club by mutual consent.

Since starting management proper, however, Ince has worked wonders. Beginning life with a Macclesfield side that looked destined for relegation (they were bottom of League Two, seven points from their nearest rivals), he went on to install a fitness regime and fighting spirit that propelled the club up the league, culminating in survival on the last day of the season.

This success drew the attention of Milton Keynes Dons, who saw the former West Ham, Manchester United, Liverpool and Inter Milan midfielder as the ideal candidate to bring the club success. He certainly achieved that, winning the League Two title and taking home the Johnson’s Paint Trophy, all in his first season.

It was a fantastic achievement for a club that had fallen in the play offs the previous year, and had been yet to taste silverware in its short history. Ince had got his players playing expansive football, unusual for the lower leagues, but the Wembley cup final also proved they could win "ugly." Unsurprising then, that Blackburn would come calling.

Undoubtedly, Ince’s career has been helped by his playing days. The media attention surrounding him has been beyond what most other lower league managers could dream of, and has constantly reminded chairmen of his successful progress. He was not necessarily the best manager in League Two last year (Hereford’s Graham Turner beat him to the Manager of the Year Award—a deserved result for a second promotion in three years) and there are other managers with records that are both as impressive, and a lot longer.

Bristol City’s Gary Johnson, another manager who has done wonders in the lower leagues, must be bemoaning his lack of international caps. But that is not to take anything away from the new Rovers man.

Ince is trailblazing, of that we already know. He has broken one glass ceiling, but there is another he could yet shatter. England is notoriously harsh on its managers, discarding them for life after just one failed attempt. Equally, Premier League clubs seem to prefer to look abroad in preference to anyone without top-flight experience. This makes it very hard for most managers to get a chance at the top table.

But the likes of Benitez, Ramos and Wenger all started their careers at lower league clubs, and often had more than one failure before they eventually saw silverware. In Italy, current managers in Serie A average six previous jobs (in England it is more like three)—there is a lot more room for failures in Serie A.

For a country that produces managers like Capello, Lippi and Spaletti the system obviously works—perhaps because they have to serve a longer apprenticeship. If Ince can prove a success at Blackburn, then he may pave the way for Championship and Football League managers to be considered for Premier League jobs, in a way that is currently unthinkable.

He might prove that lower league experience is an equally sufficient apprenticeship to anything the foreign intellectuals get up to.

In Mark Hughes, Blackburn have already had success utilising a similar approach. If Ince can do a similarly impressive job, the likes of Gary Johnson etc. might suddenly find themselves in demand. Who knows, in the future we could have an England manager who started his career at the footballing hotbed of Boston United, or even Macclesfield.

Whatever the case, Ince’s career at Ewood Park should be followed with interest for more reasons than simply the colour of his skin.