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Martin Tyler on life in the Woking dugout: 'I haven't got any badges, but neither did Alex Ferguson'
When Watford’s players trot out on to the pitch at the Kingfield Stadium for their third round tie with Woking, they are likely to do an immediate double take. Because there, taking up a position standing alongside the home dug out, will be the unmistakable figure of Martin Tyler, the renowned football commentator. He won’t have a microphone in hand, ready to elicit their views the moment the final whistle goes. In fact, he will not be covering the game. He will be there in his capacity as Woking FC’s first-team coach.
“I am a commentator, so that always takes priority,” he says, as he stands on the very spot he will take up for the game. “But I mostly work Sundays for Sky so I’m almost always available to be here. To be honest, I don’t do much more than put out the cones. I don’t get paid, I just do it for the love of being involved.” And when it comes to labours of love, Tyler’s Saturday afternoon ventures into the Woking dug out are the ultimate. Because The Cards are the team he has supported since he was a small boy, when he used to stand on the terrace known locally as “Moaners Corner”, just by the refreshment outlet called “The Moaners Café”.
“I’m not sure I’d ever call myself a moaner. But I used to go to matches with my friend Andy Smith and his dad. And his dad was definitely a bit of a moaner.”
He recalls his first ever match on that terrace, a 4-1 win over Kingstonian back in December 1953. But it was the 1957-58 season that indelibly inscribed Woking on his heart. That was the year they reached the FA Amateur Cup final. He went to every round, home and away, catching a special train from the station to the semi-final at Craven Cottage. And it was at Wembley that year he believes he first discovered his facility for commentary.
“We were playing Ilford, we were favourites and scored after 35 minutes. But for the first 20 minutes or so of the second half we were getting battered. And Andy couldn’t watch. So I commentated on what was happening for him and we won.”
But despite his affection for the club and the delight he took when, as an already established television figure, the then manager Glenn Cockerill played him in a reserve game in 2003 (“he said he’d give me a run out as sub for the first team, but I said as a Woking fan the last person I’d want to see come off the bench is me. But he gave me a game in the reserves, we won and it was great fun”) he never imagined that he would one day be in the dug out, coaching the side.
“It’s been a bit of an out of body experience since the moment I came here,” he admits.
The appointment happened because of his relationship with the manager Alan Dowson. They have been a partnership since 2005, when Dowson first began coaching a junior side in Cobham, in which Tyler’s son played. He asked the Sky man if he would mind helping out, and since his working timetable was more flexible than most, he agreed.
“Dows was playing at Walton and Hersham, augmenting his income by coaching. My son loved him because he was so brilliant at man management. But when he stopped playing at 18, I assumed that would be it for me too. We went for a meal to celebrate what I thought was the end of the partnership, during which Dows said he’d been made player-manager at Walton, did I want to go and help him there. I seriously thought he meant as a press officer. But apparently he didn’t.” They make an unlikely couple as they sit in the manager’s portacabin office at Woking: Dowson squat, bullish, his Geordie accent barely softened by 30 years living in Surrey and Tyler, tall, patrician, his pronunciation decidedly received. But clearly they have something.
“I wanted to work with him because he’s the best at what he does and I wanted to learn off the best,” explains Dowson, a compliment which makes Tyler visibly cringe with embarrassment.
“I suppose he can trust me, I watch his back,” says Tyler. “I’m not sure how useful I am as a coach. I haven’t got any badges. My only excuse is Alex Ferguson didn’t have any either.”
Inevitably he is underplaying his role. His job at Sky gives him privileged access to top flight training grounds, where he is forever on the look out for tips and sessions he might use.
“This season I pinched a running drill I saw Gareth Southgate use with England in Russia, that the pros do in 18 seconds. I said to the lads, OK, I’ll give you 20 seconds. They weren’t having that: they were no, no, we want to do it in 18. They love to be challenged. Everywhere I go I’m on the lookout. I’m fascinated about how it happens. How it works, what makes people tick. I’ve always wanted to be close to football. I feel I’m an associate member of the family.”
He and Dowson have been together more than a decade now, moving up the south eastern non-league ladder from Walton, through Kingstonian and Hampton before arriving at Woking at the beginning of this season. There was little time for sentiment for the long-term fan: the club had just been relegated from the National League and the pair had something of a shock when they turned up for the first pre-season training session.
“We had absolutely no players,” recalls Tyler. “The entire squad had been let go after we moved from full-time to part-time.”
But, using Dowson’s local contacts, they put together a team. And Tyler has a few influential contacts of his own.
“Gary Neville and I talk a lot off camera about non-league football. We’ve organised friendlies with Salford four times, and we got a game against them pre-season.”
The preparations clearly worked. Not only are Woking lying second in the National League South, but they have already won through five rounds of the FA Cup, sparking memories of giant-killing glory days, when they beat West Brom in the 1990 third round. Tyler has been in the dug out for every victory, except perhaps the best result yet: the away win over Swindon. In an irony that will not be lost on fans whose team have been obliged to change kick-off times because of television coverage, he was unable to get to Wiltshire because the game was moved to Sunday for live broadcast. And he was working at Liverpool.
“I think I surprised a few people, dancing across the Anfield gantry when the result came through.”
Not that Tyler thinks another upset is likely this weekend. Though he has been able to cast an eye over Javi Gracia’s team: on Boxing Day he was in the dug-out at Woking against Hampton for a 1pm KO, then dashed to Vicarage Road to commentate on the 7.30pm KO between Watford and Chelsea.
“I’m not sure how useful a scouting mission it was,” he says. “The truth is we have no idea what Watford team will play.”
Whatever the result, however, Dowson and Tyler are hoping their team’s performance might at least challenge local assumptions.
“Dows’s priority when he came here was to stop the moaning,” Tyler says. “I told him, you’ll never do that, it’s a Surrey thing. But he’s determined. And you never know, a great effort against Watford and anything could happen.”