In the absence of experience, a great player new to management will have his aura to compensate.
The players now under his charge will have seen him perform his wonders on the field. They may even have seen it close up, as opponents or team-mates. The memory of those performances, the towering reputation built in delivering them, will buy him instant credibility in any dressing room.
Eventually of course, the aura leaves the building and he is left only with his ability to protect himself, just like any other manager. The history of sport is littered with cases of awesome players finally left exposed as managers without their invincible shield.
No man is a hero to his butler and no manager is a hero to his players after they get to know him. The mystique just ebbs away through daily exposure to the man behind the myth. Having connected to him initially because of his greatness as a player, they will only stay connected if he can convince them as a manager. The character behind the charisma eventually comes through and often they find a disappointing disparity between the two.
It always comes back to that elusive quality between manager and players known generally as chemistry. It is a mysterious relationship, hard to pin down, because of the sheer range of personality types who end up succeeding and failing.
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It helps, obviously, to know the nuts and bolts of the trade: to be a good judge of players, to find the right position on the field for the right player, to blend a combination, stabilise a squad and ultimately build a credible team. There is tactical awareness, in-game management, sound decision-making. After that, there are all the human qualities of trust, warmth, empathy; emotional intelligence and the ability to inspire people with well chosen words and tone.
History teaches us that this entire spectrum of qualities is hard to find in one person. It also shows us it can be found in poor players who surprise us by being much better at managing; and that it can be found wanting in great players who surprise everyone by being mediocre at the job.
Kieran McGeeney arrived in management with a pristine aura. His epic quest to be the best he could be was the stuff of legend in GAA circles by the time he retired from playing in the summer of 2007. That autumn he took up his first managerial position, a high-profile assignment in charge of Kildare. One imagines that he could not have had a more rapt audience at his first squad meeting; the players would have been eating out of the palm of his hand. Here was a serious man.
The stereotype had him down as a very serious man, who would go to the ends of the earth for an extra inch, a marginal gain, a minute improvement.
And then the more quotidian reality is slowly, inexorably revealed. He cannot work miracles, he cannot transform l base metal into gold. Kildare are relegated from Division 1 of the league in 2008. Then they are ambushed by Wicklow in the preliminary round of the Leinster championship. Wicklow. It is one of the shocks of the decade. But Wicklow are managed by someone who had long ago made the transition from brilliant player to all-time great manager — one Mick O’Dwyer. The old dog prevails, the hard road awaits McGeeney. For Kildare fans it is a humbling lesson in hubris and expectation and the Messiah trap.
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The story of the Armagh team in the McGeeney era is the story of pathological perseverance. They eventually won their All-Ireland in 2002 because no punishment was too much for them over the previous six years or so. No matter how deep the hurt, how harrowing the defeat, they came again. They kept learning and kept turning up.
As a manager, McGeeney has done the same. Kildare would reach the All-Ireland quarter-final in 2008. They did so again for the next four seasons. Five All-Ireland quarter-finals in succession meant the Lilywhites were always knocking on the big door. In 2010 they reached the All-Ireland semi-final, beaten by Down by two points.
From playing success to battling as a manager
But there was always a lingering scepticism about the manager, perhaps a sentiment that his profile and reputation continued to conceal flaws in his ability. While their 2010 championship, for example, ended impressively, it had begun with embarrassing defeat in Leinster, this time to Louth.
In addition, a team and manager with such lofty aspirations were also spending too much time in Division 2; they wouldn’t get back to the top division until 2012.
In 2011, Dublin beat them by a single point in the Leinster semi-final. In that year’s All-Ireland quarter-final they succumbed to Donegal in a classic match, beaten again by a single point, this time after extra time. A year later they were beaten by Meath in Leinster, only to reach the All-Ireland quarter-final again.
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The jury was permanently out: two steps forward, two steps back, always knocking on the door, often getting no answer. Was McGeeney getting the best out of them or was he holding them back?
Two years after losing to the Dubs by a point, they lost to them by sixteen. The two provincial rivals were clearly going in different directions. Later in 2013 Kildare county board delegates decided they’d given him enough chances — he was voted out.
McGeeney jumped straight into the Armagh set-up, as No 2 to Paul Grimley. He took over as No 1 in the autumn of 2014. It has been a downward spiral since. Relegated to Division 3 in 2016, they could not muster their way out of it this year, beaten by Tipperary in a shattering one-point defeat in the final round of regulation games.
The Ulster championship has been equally depressing, beaten in their first game for three successive years — Donegal in 2015, Cavan in 2016 and last Sunday by Down in Newry. McGeeney, serving a 12-week suspension, was forced to watch from afar. TV pictures showed him watching in his civvies from behind a window somewhere in the ground. But the truth is, he wouldn’t have made any difference if he was there patrolling the sideline. The aura as a player remains. As a manager however, he is sadly now pretty much naked and forlorn.