Many managers come and go, but Spartans manager Douglas Samuel has served his club for 14 years. So what is the secret to that success?
As the 25/26 season wraps up, beautiful stories have been made throughout the leagues. One such story is that of Douglas Samuel, who celebrated his 5000th day in charge of The Spartans and 600 games in his now 14 years with the Pilton-based side. I got the opportunity to interview him and talk about his playing and managerial career.
Douglas’s younger years
Douglas started by talking about his younger years, where he spoke about where his love for the sport was founded. Samuel talked with a lot of fondness, looking back on playing with his dad in his local park when his father would come back from his shifts.
He further spoke about the first team he joined Jim’s Boys Club, then moving to Leith Persevere, and at age 11 he joined Hutchson Vale, where he stayed for 6 years. Douglas also talked about back when he was younger, it was common to play over the weekend all three days, which would be madness into days age, but it shows how times have changed.
The changing era of football
Continuing on, we talked about the changes in football as a sport. Samuel believes it is more about encouraging players to play 1 vs 1, resulting in fewer players driving forward and passing back more. Another topic was his generation of players not focusing on tactics, and how the style of play was more stretched and wider. Expanding on that, I spoke about my own talks with my dad and how he told me about the rougher, more Brexit-style of play and Douglas emulated that by talking about the experience of playing in that generation.
“Certainly, when I played the game was a lot more physical, I mean some of the challenges that took place back in those days were really quite aggressive and quite violent, actually at times and those types of challenges have been eliminated from the game”.
“I actually think that’s a good thing, you know, I don’t think we want our most creative and talented players being chopped down and fearfully getting bad injuries”.
The Change from a Player to a Manager
Talking about his transition from player to manager, he mentioned his previous day job in HR and how he was teaching and helping people, which works well in becoming a football manager. He talks about the privilege of helping people to grow and develop and crossing that with the love of being in a dressing room.
“A dressing room is quite a special place, so I always seen sort of leadership as a privilege to be enjoyed”.
People told Douglas they saw him becoming a manager one day, so destiny works in beautiful ways. He always wanted to inspire people to do their best, find their purpose and push people to be their best, reach their potential and build friendships on and off the pitch.
What inspired Douglas?
Talking about the inspirations for his style of managing a team, he spoke about his coach at Whitehall Welfare by the name of Robbie Ford, who had played for Dundee. Ford’s approach involved encouraging people and having conversations with players, which inspired some of Samuel’s managing philosophy. He also spoke about getting his coaching degree and his research into the infamous former Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson. Douglas saw what he wanted to do with coaching in Phil Jackson; Tony Mowbury was also an influence on him, as he worked with him for two years.
His journey started at Scottish Universities alongside a former teammate and became his number two. On the back of that, he was offered a job at the University of Edinburgh, since he knew a few of the players from UoE. So, after meeting with multiple high-level officials, he took the job and had an amazing nine years with them before he would take a job at The Spartans.
How did the UoE shape Douglas?
Regarding the lessons he took from the University of Edinburgh to The Spartans, he talked about being confident in decision making, setting expectations, daring to dream and never putting a cap on levels of expectation. He spoke about wanting to make UoE a top six club in their league, and they all thought he was mad. Ultimately, it would end up becoming true and they even qualified for the Scottish Cup.
For the University of Edinburgh, his favourite season was when they qualified for the Scottish Cup and the SFA brought the draw against Keith to the university, where they ultimately won.
What are his career highlights?
Talking about his accomplishments, he spoke about his longevity as both a player and a manager. He got to play for a long time and winning a lot of Scottish Qualifying Cups with ‘Whitehall Welfare’ and how much that meant to him and the club as a whole, as that’s what kept money coming into this club and as a manager, it was the longevity of learning and developing himself as a manager. Becoming someone who leads with love and compassion, always seeing people as individuals and creating an environment that helps players and staff learn and grow as individuals and players.
Douglas speaking about his players
Douglas spoke with high praise on his players, talking about balance in the dressing room with senior players who have had successful careers, such as Callum Booth, Mark McNulty, James Craigen, Sean Walsh and Paul Watson. Samuel believes they bring football intelligence and wisdom into this dressing room, and bring a humbleness and a will to learn which can rub off on some of the other players.
He appreciates his mix of younger players, seeing how they want to make their way in the game with big aspirations. Douglas also mentioned the staff who bring different things to the table, which brings a nice dynamic to the club and the culture surrounding the club.
Celebrating his time as The Spartans boss
Talking on the post from the SPFL social media pages about his 5000th day and how his family must feel about this incredible achievement, he mentioned about how proud they were of him for making it to this milestone. Douglas also spoke on how his family thinks he isn’t ready to step down, which he agrees with as he wants to do so much more with The Spartans, but he also mentions he is lucky he was given time. Many managers today do not get that opportunity.
Topping his list of accolades, in 2022 he was awarded an MBE for contributions to associated football and the North Edinburgh area. When asked about the validation of this established award, he commented:
“Very humbling, I think I said it at the time and I repeat myself, I accepted that award on behalf of lots of people, it wasn’t just down to me but it is lovely to be recognised”.
He also spoke about how it made his parents proud and how much this award meant to them. Douglas also mentioned how he doesn’t think about it much, as he does not like to have an ego and likes to be behind the scenes and prefers to see the players get the publicity.
Advice for breaking into the industry
Talking about what advice he would give to someone coming into the football industry, Douglas gave a beautiful but honest piece of advice:
“Be true to themselves and not be something they are not, don’t be frightened to be vulnerable and to reach out and ask for help, to lean into other people and to tap into their knowledge, wisdom and experience, but first and foremost, you’ve got to be authentic, you have got to be yourself”.
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The Spartans have lost out on their opportunity for promotion, but the true story of this is one of an amazing season due to one amazing manager. From being the only Edinburgh club left standing in the Scottish Cup (thanks to a 20-year-old Kenzi Nair against newly promoted League One winners Inverness Caledonian Thistle), to Mark Stowe winning many awards this season and being nominated for PFA League Two player-of-the-year, it is incredible to see.
