Peter Evans interviews Steve Perryman

In the second half of our chat he gave us a unique insight into his previous spell at the club assisting Noel Blake in the 2000/01 season, his time in Japan with Shimizu S-Pulse then Kashiwa Reysol and the three managers he's worked with during this spell at Exeter.

We kicked things off with what he sees his role at St James Park as…

“When I'm asked what I do, I say ‘I help the manager' but it's on the basis that the success or failure are both the manager's. This is because any manager must have the final word on team selection and
tactics. So I helped the failure if it was in the 1st play off final defeat by Morecambe as much as I helped the next years final success at Wembley (versus Cambridge United).

Having been a manager I know it's very stressful and a manager needs as much help as he can get. It is easy to waste a lot of time on things you aren't actually being judged on. So you have to be selective with what you do.

Managers need to be kept fresh as much as possible. I am in the ideal position to see when a manager needs to be guided towards a day off that they may have not necessarily taken themselves or to try and spread the load.

A manager might need to rush out to take training but also be waiting by the phone for a call about a loan. You can just take that burden at crunch times which is much needed. Yet not a lot of people want that help, they want to control it themselves.”

Steve On Japan:
“The Japanese experience gave me a lot more patience, I had to explain things a lot better and be part of educating a crowd who thought Brazil was the number one footballing nation. It probably is but it is also the number one nation for various forms of cheating.

And my club had been run by  Brazilians who were as good as manipulating and bending the rules as they were the ball. There was this culture of time-wasting and feigning injury and it was a terrible way to attract fans in a country that had a new professional sport competing with baseball.

I couldn't have come to Exeter and worked with a manager who said his team should cheat for their lives and that every game is a win or bust situation. I'd have had to have said: ‘great but not for me.'”

Steve On A Return To Management:
“I can't say I want to pack it up because if I got an offer from Japan tomorrow I'd take it. If they answered as many questions I put to them as they put to me as I am particularly choosy who I work with these days.

I took the second job in Japan after asking them what they wanted from me. They pointed out all these things they liked from my first club; that we played fairly and were an attacking side playing at a good tempo who didn't always favour the foreign players ahead of the Japanese. I was there for about a week and what they'd told me was the biggest load of nonsense. They didn't want any of that. They wanted someone to give the green light to their own ways.

You need to fit in with the club and the way its being run. I fitted in with Bill Nicholson at Spurs and his ethics and I think you have to fit where you are and match with your surroundings.

I happen to match with Exeter, it's been a decent marriage of ideas.”

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