"I'd look, and think, what a club" — Andrew Hughes interview
Promotions, pressure, and taking fat rascals to Bielsa — an interview with Andy Hughes
The last memory most Leeds fans have of Andrew Hughes in a Leeds United shirt, and the longest lasting, is of Andrew Hughes out of a Leeds United shirt. Stripped to the waist after Leeds won promotion by beating Bristol Rovers in 2010, he was lifted to the shoulders of fans celebrating on the pitch and carried like a trophy towards more fans celebrating on the Kop. His face was an ecstatic grimace, one of his fists was in the air. The other was pounding against his chest and his proud, bursting heart.
Nearly ten years have gone by but Andrew hardly looks any different, although when we meet in Harrogate, he is fully dressed. But in other ways, he's not quite the same old Hughesy.
"I have changed," he says. "I'm a coach now. I love reactive pressure, I love full-backs bombing forward, I love everything about it.
"But I think one thing I have kept from being a player is that there are a lot more downs than ups in football. It's hard to deal with, but if you keep getting up from the knocks and keep going, you'll find a way.
"I've been through it as a player and I'm going through it as a coach at the minute. I've not got a job, and I'm scratching my head and thinking, why did Huddersfield sack me after I was so successful? But that's football, you've got to have rhino skin. I'm a husband and a father as well, so I've got to be strong and I've got to find a way."
Andrew Hughes the coach has found the way, so far, to heights he didn't achieve as a player; for most of the last five years he's been a first team coach in the Premier League, first with Crystal Palace — where he reached an FA Cup final — then after winning promotion with Huddersfield Town. The Premier League is his world, and Andrew can casually drop names like "Milly" — James Milner to you and me — and "Kloppo."
"I know Kloppo quite well now because of David," says Andrew, meaning Wagner, his boss at Huddersfield. "I get on quite well with Jurgen." That's Andrew Hughes' world now, but when I ask about the Premier League managers who are now his working peers, he still speaks about them, and their work, with a note of reverence.
"Managers in the Premier League have this aura around them, this thing. You feel it around them. When you walk around with Jurgen Klopp and you see people coming past and reacting to him, it's frightening. All the managers have it, all the British managers too, Chris Houghton, Sean Dyche, Eddie Howe. They've all got this aura about them because they deserve to be there.
"It's the best league in the world. You make one mistake and you're punished. Winning one point is like winning four points, never mind three. The pressure is phenomenal. And there is a way of trying to handle that pressure to make the place relaxed, and you do, but you have to learn to go on a run of eight or nine games without winning and still come in every day smiling and being nice and positive. And it's hard.
"The players are like racehorses. Physically incredible human beings, technically some of the best players I've ever seen. Everyone goes on about Hazard and Silva, players like that, and you just can't get near them. But Kante. My god. He is four players in one. He is a phenomenon. Next to him I'm tiny. He's muscular, quick, good with the ball.
"At Huddersfield we set up to have a go at every game, we'd press, we'd get after teams. But if we gave the ball away, there were literally times I would put my head in my hands, thinking we're in trouble, and when I put my head up we'd conceded a goal. There are leagues within the league, and one thing I would say is there aren't many surprises. You're hoping for results but you very rarely beat a top six team.
"You look at Watford in the FA Cup final after the amazing season they've had, a really well run club and the players they've got are frightening — but against Manchester City you're dealing with the best physical specimens of athletes, tactically the best, mentally the best. No disrespect, but it's not like going to Ipswich on a Tuesday night, or Rotherham away. There's this thing about going to all the games that gets the hairs on the back of your neck going.
"I was asked to leave Huddersfield a week after David Wagner left, so my record is I got them promoted, stayed up in the Premier League, and they were still there when I left. So I'm quite proud, as a young coach where I'm from, that I did that."
He did it with Huddersfield Town which obviously, for Leeds fans, is a problem. But like watching Fabian Delph winning the Premier League with Manchester City or James Milner winning the Champions League with Liverpool, knowing Andrew Hughes was a big part of what Huddersfield achieved almost made the whole situation bearable.
"I had some humbling texts off Leeds fans when we went up," says Andrew, "And I'm one of those who if it takes me all night I'll try to reply to every single one, even if it's just 'thanks' or a thumbs up.
"The bit that got me was, we were favourites to get relegated. But we had this way of playing that David Wagner wanted, and I put my little bit into it, with Christoph Bühler, and we got to the play-offs, and again everyone thought we would lose to Sheffield Wednesday. But we won the penalties, and then it was Wembley.
"Going into the stadium before the game was the bit that got me. I was looking at grandads and grandmas, wives and husbands with their kids, seeing what it meant to Huddersfield and their fans. It went to penalties, then when the winning goal goes in — you just realise, what have we done here?
"We got promoted on a budget of £10m. Aston Villa's budget was £80m. David Wagner is a genius, and that's why he's just been given a Champions League team to coach at Schalke. Hopefully he thinks I'm good after what I've done for him over the last three years, and hopefully I'll work with him again, because what he did was probably a miracle — and the fact we stayed up.
"The first thing I did when the last penalty went in was go straight to Steven Reid, who was Reading's coach and is one of my very best friends. I said, 'Reidy, alright?' and he just slapped me round the face and said, 'Eff off over there and enjoy it, because this moment will never happen again.' I Facetimed my wife from the pitch, because I'm superstitious so she couldn't come to the game.
"Then things start really hitting you. Like, we all go to work for money because we have to pay bills. I was never a player that earned thousands of pounds. I've got a 25 year mortgage and my wife works with special needs kids, so we've got to pay bills. But things like the bonus for going up, that helps, and you see the staff around you, the masseurs that work 24 hours a day, the physios, and you know they're going to be getting a bonus that is probably life-changing for them. People can pay their university fees off, things like that. It was like the feeling when I got promoted with Leeds and ran to the Kop, just an overwhelming sense of pride and relief."