published on May 07, 2024 in today

Fancy playing for Anguilla? Stern John needs you

A wonderfully-worded answer rolls off the tongue of Stern John as he tackles the testing early question about his new job as manager of Anguilla.

Why would you want to manage one of the worst teams in the world with a FIFA ranking of 209 out of 210?

“Because I started at the bottom as a player and made it into the Premier League and I want to do the same as a coach.”

It would be easy to assume that a sweet-sounding reply as good as the one John delivered had been manufactured over time. But this is the 44-year-old’s first interview since moving to the tiny Caribbean island to take over the national team, and any doubts over his commitment were extinguished quickly.

Pleasantries had barely been exchanged before his work phone started ringing. On the opposite end was a staff member keen to know more about the training schedules for the week ahead. Another call, this time from the kit man, quickly followed, and it wasn’t long before John was opening up the gates at his home because of another work-related matter.

He’s all-in on this job; partly because he wants to be, but also because he has to be. Transforming the fortunes of a minnow footballing nation with players who catch fish and repair boats will not happen overnight.

“I know what everyone is saying about our low ranking, but I want to build something here,” says the former Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City striker.

Anguilla have won just one match in the past 20 years, against Saint Martin in 2010, and because of COVID-19 the team hasn’t played a competitive game for over a year. One of their most recent matches was a 15-0 thrashing at the hands of his native Trinidad & Tobago at the back end of 2019.

It’s not easy for John to rotate and introduce new players to his squad, either. With a population of just 15,000, the talent pool is limited, but John insists there is hope ahead of an exciting fixture list in 2021.

“We want to start competing rather than getting battered in every game,” he says. “It’s why we’re looking for players with parents and grandparents who were born in Anguilla. There are players in the lower leagues in England who could help us.

“We need some new players to help improve the level, so we’re reaching out for help. We believe we can start to compete with some of the other teams around us then.”

The Anguillan FA has set up a small administration team to help source players in England first and foremost. Last year under the previous regime, UK-born Luke Paris, an IT worker for a logistics company in Maidenhead and a player for Langley FC in the Hellenic League Division One East — English football’s 10th tier — was called up as his Anguillan grandmother provided a link to the small British Caribbean territory.

“It’s amazing to get the opportunity to fly out there, represent the island and have family come to watch me at the national stadium,” Paris told The Set Pieces.

Others have also received call-ups and will continue to be contacted in the weeks ahead. Then, the search will move onto neighbouring European countries and into the US.

“We have guys in Holland and Belgium who want to join up, but it’s a bit more difficult because of the visa requirements,” John added. “Also, we want the best talent and quality, we are not just going to pick you because you are abroad. You have to be better than the ones we have here.”

At present the Anguilla team is made up of local players, many of whom are unfit and some now in their mid-to-late thirties. Training hasn’t been seriously structured for years and it showed in previous games.

Under John’s leadership, though, things are changing. Work will always come before football but for eight weeks now the players have been training every weekday evening, some finishing jobs in construction or at the airport before heading to the national stadium for a workout.

“The players have never been fully fit so that has to change if we are to cut out the heavy defeats,” John says.

Further assistance is also needed. While the island is full of luxury; five-star resorts, idyllic beaches, and fine-dining restaurants, the football facilities are severely lagging behind. The main field at the national stadium is maintained by a single groundsman. It is the only ground with floodlights and also hosts fixtures in the Antigua Football Association’s Senior Men’s League, so there is obvious wear and tear.

The AFA president Girdon Connor, a former midfielder for Anguilla, is engaged and enthusiastic. He is working on plans to build a 3G pitch to assist training but it will take time.

John is a man in a hurry. He has a strength and conditioning coach to lean on as well as his agent and former Trinidad and Tobago team-mate Brent Sancho.

“There’s much more to him (Sancho) than having his dreadlocks pulled by Peter Crouch!” John says, laughing, in memory of England’s “lucky” win over Trinidad and Tobago in the 2006 World Cup finals, where the striker got the better of the defender to score one of two late goals during the game.

John in action against England at the 2006 World Cup (Photo: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)

John isn’t deluded. He knows he can take a team like this only so far, but when you’re almost at rock bottom — Anguilla are spared the demoralising status as the world’s worst side by San Marino’s lowly position — the feeling is that the only way is up.

That was certainly the case for John as a player. Did he play for or score against your team? If you support a club that featured in the Championship between 2000 and 2010, there’s every chance he did.

John joined Nottingham Forest from Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew at the back end of 1999. After that he went to Birmingham City, to Coventry City, to Derby County, to Sunderland, to Southampton, to Bristol City, to Crystal Palace, to Ipswich Town on loan before wrapping up his time in England at Selhurst Park. There were spells in the Premier League, moments of magic and goals galore during an eventful decade in England.

“I was happy with the decisions I made in my playing career, and I’m proud with what I achieved having left Trinidad for the US and then onto England,” he says. “OK, so I went to a couple of clubs on loan and it wasn’t the best decision. My time at Derby wasn’t the best, but that’s football. I have no regrets. I look back and I’m happy.”

There is, however, a tinge of sadness that the adventure at Nottingham Forest was taken away too soon. A clause in John’s contract stated that, should he hit 15 goals in a season, Forest would have to pay Columbus Crew an additional $250,000, at a time when money was tight. A bill of such a size proved to be too much for a club still feeling the effects of relegation from the Premier League, so rather than damaging themselves further financially, when John struck goal number 14 in the 2001-2002 season he was quickly sold to Birmingham City for a cut-price fee of £100,000.

“It was a very strange situation,” he recalls. “We had a really good team at Forest and some of the players the academy was producing were brilliant; Jermaine Jenas, Michael Dawson, Andy Reid. I think with a bit more time, we could have won promotion. I would have liked that.”

Instead, moving to St Andrew’s turned out to be a game-changing switch.

His smile, made even more infectious with that recognisable gap between his front teeth, lights up when talk turns to his memories in the West Midlands. With an easy excuse — his 17-year-old son, Stern Irvine, currently plays for nearby Notts County — John returns to Birmingham at least once a year. He’ll go shopping at the Bullring and walk down the former nightlife hotspot, Broad Street, just for old laughs. When supporters see him, they shout or greet him with the same message.

“Stern John in the last minute,” he laughs.

It’s a reference to two of John’s most memorable goals in royal blue; a stoppage-time winner at Millwall in the 2002 First Division play-off semi-final, then a late, late goal against bitter rivals Aston Villa in the Premier League following promotion.

The game at Millwall’s stadium, The New Den, sparked some of the worst hooliganism the country has seen in recent years as crowds of home supporters threw bricks, paving stones, flares and fireworks at police for over an hour following the defeat in 2002.

“In Trinidad, people know me as the guy who started a riot in London,” he says. “On the pitch, though, it was amazing. People often send me the video and when I see it all the feelings come back every time. When you score a goal of that importance, you just go crazy. It’s a feeling that you can never truly explain.”

Remembering John as a player brings back images of him wheeling away in celebration and jumping into the crowd. He was a poacher who often played on the last man and found a way to wriggle past defenders. The oversized shirts he used to wear just added to the novelty.

At Sunderland, he played up front alongside his hero, Dwight Yorke.

“He’s still my idol,” John admits. “I looked up to him in England so when I played with him, it was an amazing feeling.”

(Photo: Christopher Lee/Getty Images)

The pair also turned out for Trinidad and Tobago together but it is John who is the country’s all-time leading scorer with 70 goals in 115 games. His record in England wasn’t bad, either; 89 goals in 344 league games made him a household name for a decade.

It was, therefore, fitting that his final game in the country didn’t end in disappointment.

John was part of a relegation-threatened Crystal Palace side who had been plunged into financial chaos in 2010. On the final day of the Championship season they had to avoid defeat at Sheffield Wednesday to stay up and survive at their opponents’ expense. Lose the game and there was a real possibility the south London club would go into liquidation and cease to exist.

Money was so tight that the squad travelled by train and some players even had to sit on the floor. The 90 minutes that followed were equally as uncomfortable and in the dying moments, with the score evenly poised, John had the chance to seal the game, and survival.

Electing to shoot rather than square it to Darren Ambrose for a simple tap-in turned out to be the wrong decision, as John missed. Fortunately, Sheffield Wednesday’s subsequent stoppage-time counter-attack was defended and Palace held on to a 2-2 draw that proved to be enough to avoid financial ruin.

Asked if he feared his miss would be costly, or more importantly, whether he should have passed, John says, laughing uncontrollably: “Ahh, I’m a striker, look at the position I was in!

“Yeah, of course I should have passed it! But when you’re a striker, and you get into a position like that, you’re going to shoot.”

So were there any regrets from his playing career?

“When I look back, I realise how representing my country really didn’t help me,” he says. “I came back to Trinidad a lot but it affected me at every club I played for in the UK. It used to take me two weeks to feel normal again and I used to lose my spot in the team. The managers weren’t happy and it was a hassle. It was difficult.

“But I love my country so much and I wanted to play every chance I could get. I wouldn’t ever change that.”

For a player so passionate and patriotic, international management always felt like the right fit. Maybe one day he will manage his home nation. It wasn’t so long ago that he was working as an assistant to Dennis Lawrence before he was sacked in December 2019.

All the focus, for now, is on Anguilla, especially with the World Cup qualifying games starting in March. In previous campaigns, Anguilla had one home-and-away playoff tie to advance to the group stages — and, one goalless draw to the Dominican Republic apart — lost every outing.

However, the new format assures the rank outsiders eight qualifying matches rather than just two. Games against Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic and Panama in Group D will show if there’s any improvement, with the group winners progressing to the next round of qualifying.

Anguilla’s initial aim is just to reduce the margin of their defeats. If John can find a way to get his side scoring that would be a huge bonus, but he knows only new recruits will give the team a chance of reversing results.

“There’s some decent guys here but we need support. My team are reaching out to potential players in the lower leagues in England to start with.”

The search will now intensify as the World Cup qualifiers loom. Sancho is working closely with the FA to target individuals but they need help spreading the word. Friendly fixtures against neighbouring islands are under consideration, and will represent an ideal time to bring new players over, but with COVID-19 there are likely to be further difficulties. John expects they will have to create their own “bubble” in times ahead, but travel arrangements for overseas players may cause issues.

Financial incentives are expected to help, as is the chance to work with John who is living on the island and setting up daily sessions in the hope of turning things around.

“I have a lot to offer at this level with my coaching,” he says. “I can get the guys in the Caribbean to learn the game properly. Obviously, I would like to move on and do different stuff and coach in different countries in the future. Yes, it’s a stepping stone in my managerial career, so hopefully I can do a good job here and they can appreciate what we do.

“I want to take Anguilla to the next level.”

John is looking for players across the globe who are eligible to represent Anguilla through their ancestry. If you can help, contact Brent Sancho at [email protected].

(Top photo: Nick Potts – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

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