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Interviews

Graham Barrow First Interview

27 June 2019

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Interviews

Graham Barrow First Interview

27 June 2019

Graham Barrow speaks to the press for the first time after being announced as the club's Assistant Manager.

The club announced earlier in the month that Sam Ricketts had appointed the highly experienced and highly regarded Graham Barrow as his Assistant Manager. 

After spending a couple of weeks at the club Graham spoke to the press and explained how impressed he was with the club's set-up. 

"My experience so far has been all positive really," said Graham. "I go back a long time with Shrewsbury. When I was at Chester we both got promoted but they were tough games and tough battles. 

"Before I went on holiday I went to the stadium with Sam, I also went there with Wigan a few years ago. It's a magnificent stadium to be fair and the training ground. It actually reminds me of a mini Premier League set-up really which is great." 

Graham touched on his history with Sam and how the two formed as a management duo. 

"The move originally came about in the typical football way. My son was at Bolton as a fitness coach. I think Sam had spoke to him about going to Wrexham last year and he'd asked him 'what's your dad doing next year?'" 

"At that time I was helping Dave Challinor out at Fylde. Last summer I had three offers on the table but I met Sam and we just got on straight away really, then when we started to work together it went even better than I thought. 

"He (Sam) has his own way. I saw in the time that we worked together the ruthless streak in him that I like but I also saw the modern-day coach. He's got a lot to look forward to but I just enjoy working with him which is why we're back together. 

"The last 10 years of my career I've worked with managers younger than me, mind you it would be hard to be older than me," Graham joked. "But I've worked with Roberto Martinez who I originally signed as a player. Gary Caldwell who was very successful is very similar to Sam. 

"I enjoy the role of helping young managers. I give them my experience but you never stop learning in this game. 

"I think you've all probably worked Sam out now, he's a really hard working, deep thinker who fits the bill in modern-day football."

Graham summarised how he and Sam work as a management team on a day to day basis. 

"I think some people think I'm the bad cop but it doesn't always work that way because the game is much more than that. 

"I'm not as articulate as him but he gets his point across and I get mine across in a different way. 

"Whatever is said in our office stays in our office and then when we go outside on the training pitch we're 100% behind each other. 

"I think it's just having that trust in each other as much as anything. I'm back at a club that's got quality staff, no disrespect to the national-league but you have to run everything really tight and there's not much staff but there's good staff here so it's been quite a relief here because at Wrexham you had to do everything, pump the balls and all that." 

Full interview available on IFollow


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