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Andy Yiadom, left, was in fine form for Barnsley on Saturday despite returning to training after the Africa Cup of Nations only two days earlier.
Andy Yiadom, left, was in fine form for Barnsley on Saturday despite returning to training after the Africa Cup of Nations only two days earlier. Photograph: David Horton/CameraSport via Getty Images
Andy Yiadom, left, was in fine form for Barnsley on Saturday despite returning to training after the Africa Cup of Nations only two days earlier. Photograph: David Horton/CameraSport via Getty Images

Paul Heckingbottom stoic in face of another Barnsley mission impossible

This article is more than 7 years old

Manager has had to battle player departures as well as off-field disruptions but his no-excuses philosophy is reaping remarkable reward

It has been quite some 12 months for Paul Heckingbottom since taking control of Barnsley, initially as a caretaker manager, for the second time. Heckingbottom cancelled his beach holiday last year, booked while fighting relegation to League Two, to make an unlikely engagement: the League One play-off final. Since winning promotion, Heckingbottom has been at the centre of another mission impossible.

Barnsley, with one of the smallest budgets in the division, are looking good for a top-10 finish and the Championship play-offs remain in view after a goalless draw at Reading on Saturday.

Heckingbottom, as the travelling supporters so proudly sang at the Madejski Stadium, is one of their own. Tykes supporters idolise him. One fan has a tattoo of the 39-year-old’s face. “It’s just surreal,” Heckingbottom says. “I just do not know what to make of it.”

Born in Barnsley, Heckingbottom was a trainee at Manchester United before moves to Sunderland and then, in 1999, to Darlington. He went on to play for his boyhood club and began coaching Barnsley’s under-14s on a part-time basis six years ago. Since then, he has undertaken almost every role at Oakwell – officially and unofficially – until being appointed head coach permanently last summer.

It has been a busy few weeks for Heckingbottom, after losing his captain, Conor Hourihane, and top scorer, Sam Winnall, to Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday, respectively, in January. The defender James Bree, a 19-year-old academy graduate, also left for Villa. All three were out of contract in the summer. There have been injuries to contend with, too, and a bout of food poisoning further depleted the Barnsley squad that travelled to Berkshire.

Heckingbottom also lost his right-hand man, Tommy Wright, in September after he was sacked as a result of bung allegations; Wright has denied wrongdoing. Add in the fact the club are again searching for a chief executive after Linton Brown left midway through January and it had the recipe for a disaster. Brown had replaced Ben Mansford, poached by Leeds United in the summer. Meanwhile, the club’s owner, Patrick Cryne, continues to undergo treatment for cancer.

“We would not allow anything else,” Heckingbottom says of his team’s reaction to upheaval. “You can go in any pub in the world and there is always a person in there who never made it as a footballer because of something, but you do not go into a pub and somebody sits alongside you with a reason why they have not failed.

“And that’s what we believe in. Anyone can have an excuse as to why they have not performed but we are the opposite and we have reasons why we do not fail. It is the standards we have set, and in the short time I have been doing this job there’s been all sorts to deal with.”

Heckingbottom found himself multitasking his way through the transfer window, aided by the chairman, Maurice Watkins, a director at Manchester United for almost three decades. The club did some seemingly smart business, too, adding Alex Mowatt, Ryan Hedges, Gethin Jones, Cole Kpekawa and Matty James – four of whom are 21 or younger.

Heckingbottom was appointed Barnsley’s permanent manager last summer. Photograph: Tom Jacobs/Reuters

Barnsley have a knack of developing and then selling young, talented players – especially defenders. John Stones, Mason Holgate and Bree are products of the Barnsley academy, headed by Mark Burton following Ronnie Branson’s departure last summer. Heckingbottom nurtured Stones through every age group before the England defender joined Everton in 2013.

They have recruited well, too, with an emphasis on signing young, hungry players, such as Alfie Mawson, who joined Swansea City for £5m in the summer after an impressive debut season. Barnsley have been a victim of their own success, with Winnall and Hourihane (who more than quadrupled his wages) recently moving on, but they have an exciting next generation.

Angus MacDonald and Andy Yiadom arrived from Torquay United and Barnet respectively over the summer and the captain Marc Roberts, the subject of interest from Burnley and West Bromwich Albion in January, joined from Halifax Town on a free almost two years ago.

Yiadom’s story gets even better, with the defender called up to Ghana’s Africa Cup of Nations squad. He returned to training only on Thursday and put in a workhorse performance at left-back against Reading, days after flying back from Gabon via Accra.

Others who excelled on Saturday, the forward Marley Watkins, the midfielder Josh Scowen and the goalkeeper Adam Davies, are key cogs plucked from relative obscurity. The Chester defender Sam Hughes is expected to be the next one, with the club likely to move for him at the end of the season.

Barnsley executed their gameplan to a tee, stifling Reading yet dangerous on the counterattack. But perhaps the most telling moment was seconds before kick-off, when every member of the Barnsley lineup went over to applaud the travelling support. At full time, they did so as a team once more, thanking each of the 744 away fans for making the trip.

Heckingbottom, who starred in Barnsley’s promotion to the Championship in 2006 as a player, has engineered success but he is not alone in doing so. His predecessors, Danny Wilson and Lee Johnson, got the club back on track after a difficult few years. As head coach, Heckingbottom has built a trusted team of coaching staff, comprising former team-mates and confidants, including the first-team coach Jamie Clapham, Bobby Hassell, Paul Harsley and Dale Tonge.

Heckingbottom is a pragmatist and is determined to keep Barnsley looking up rather than over their shoulder for the foreseeable future. “It’s never a hard-luck story,” he says. “You get what you deserve and if you want to achieve things you have to work hard. Nobody has an excuse. If you cheat on any little bit, you might concede a goal or it might be you do not become what you can be.”

Talking points

Bristol City, after surrendering leads against Cardiff City and Reading last month, got that all too familiar feeling again on Saturday, this time at Derby County. Lee Johnson’s side threw away a three-goal lead after Matty Taylor’s first goal for the club and Tammy Abraham’s double had put the Robins into dreamland. Abraham now has 21 goals this season but Derby fought back, scoring three goals in 24 second-half minutes. “As soon as they got their goal, it’s a big crowd, momentum swings and that’s a dangerous thing in football and they clawed their way back,” Taylor said.

In the bleak midwinter Norwich City froze and a month ago they were eight points off sixth place after defeat by Rotherham United, with Alex Neil seemingly on borrowed time. They lost Robbie Brady to Burnley but have otherwise kept a capable squad intact. Fast-forward six matches and the Canaries are lurking just outside the final play-off berth, currently occupied by Sheffield Wednesday. Jonny Howson’s rocket from 25 yards got the ball rolling in their 5-1 demolition of Nottingham Forest on Saturday, with Alex Pritchard later taking centre stage with two goals. “If we keep on going like this we will be in the play-off positions soon,” Neil said. Norwich face Newcastle United, and Ipswich Town in the East Anglia derby, before the month is out and then Wednesday at home in March. By then, their real capability ought to be all the clearer.

Tom Elliott scored a 92nd-minute equaliser for AFC Wimbledon against Charlton Athletic at Kingsmeadow but was sent off after picking up a second yellow card for his overzealous celebration. But that was only where the drama begun. Karl Robinson, the Charlton manager, left the field restrained by stewards and calmed by his own players Andrew Crofts and Jordan Botaka. Robinson said he was “disgusted” that a member of AFC Wimbledon’s ground staff confronted him at full-time, presumably rubbing salt into the wounds.

The AFC Wimbledon manager, Neil Ardley, said: “No matter what tensions there are in the game nobody should take it upon themselves to abuse people and take the law into their own hands – it’s wrong. Hopefully the club will do the right thing and deal with it in the right way.”

Will 2017 be remembered as the year Portsmouth finally started to climb back up the ladder? This is the fourth season the club have been in the bottom tier of the Football League, with a weight of expectation on Paul Cook to guide the club into League One, especially after last season’s play-off semi-final disappointment. “My job is to get this side promoted at the end of the season and I’ll move heaven and earth to get that done,” Cook said, before his side’s 2-0 win over Accrington Stanley at Fratton Park. Pompey remain sixth, but with a game in hand on their rivals.

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