Big interview: A month with Wolves changed it all for Brian Little

But for Brian Little, a brief time in charge of Wolves at the end of their darkest hour set in motion a managerial career which would last nearly three decades and more than 900 games.

“It fuelled something in me,” he says. “It was a bizarre situation in many ways. We had no money, no nothing. We were never sure of getting paid.

“But I realised, from that point on, management was what I wanted to do. The time at Wolves planted a seed in me that said: ‘I want to have a go at this’.”

Having left Villa after three years coaching the youth team, Little had accepted the call of then Wolves boss Sammy Chapman to assist with the first-team at Molineux.

Together, they could not prevent the club from sliding into the Fourth Division for the first time in May 1986.

That summer saw Wolves on the brink of going bust as the Bhatti brothers regime neared a disastrous end.

“It was tough, we just had to try and do the best we could,” recalls Little. “We used to train on the main pitch at Molineux, but we only had one ball.

“Anytime it got kicked into the stand we had to stop training because we weren’t allowed to go up there. It was a weird time all round.”

Wolves were saved from possible extinction by a last-ditch deal involving the council, Asda and Gallagher Estates, setting in motion the club’s long-term rise back through divisions.

In the short-term, however, Chapman was sacked and Little asked to take charge of the team in late August.

“The first thing I did was ring Sammy and say: ‘Look, if you don’t like this, I’m going too’,” says Little.

“But he told me to have a crack at it. I had no real designs to go into management and it felt a little strange at first sitting in the office. Gradually, I began to pick it up. I’d always had a soft spot for Wolves because I worked with Bill Shorthouse at Villa and he would talk a lot about their glory days of the 1950s. Bill still lived in Wolverhampton and I used to pop round and see him in the afternoons, have a cup of tea.”

Little signed Ally Robertson from Albion and results, considering the off-field upheaval which had taken place, were not bad. Ultimately, though, they weren’t enough.

“I remember we beat Preston and Scunthorpe in the same week and the next day I was called in,” he says. “There were actually people patting me on the back as I walked down the corridor, thinking I’d got the job. But when I got in there the chairman, Dick Howden, explained how they wanted someone more experienced, so it was goodbye. Graham Turner was appointed the next day.”

Such was his anger at being sacked, Little claims he even turned down the club’s offer of compensation.

Once the disappointment had subsided, he began plotting a course toward his next managerial post.

Soon he accepted an offer from former Villa team-mate Bruce Rioch to take the position of youth and reserve team coach at Middlesbrough.

“After Wolves I knew what I wanted to do, so when I went to meet Bruce at Boro, I asked if I could work more closely with him,” explains Little. “I didn’t want to be just a youth coach. Bruce was brilliant with me. We would go out scouting together. He would take me to games and watch players. I was learning all the time.

“I had three years of youth coaching at Boro and then I felt ready. I wanted to be a football manager.”

Little would get his chance in February 1989 when he accepted his first permanent managerial position in charge of Darlington, then bottom of the Fourth Division.

Though he was unable to prevent relegation, the following two seasons brought successive promotions and a move to Leicester.

There he won another promotion – this time to the First Division in 1994 – before returning, like the prodigal son in his words, to take charge of Villa.

That period, which included the 1996 League Cup win, was undoubtedly the pinnacle for a man who few would have tipped to even go into management, let alone make a success of it, during his playing days.

“I think I certainly surprised a few people,” he says. “What people didn’t realise was that despite having long hair and socks down by my ankles, I went home and thought about football.

“How do I play better? How do I this? How do I do that? I looked far deeper and far more into the game than people realised. As a player I had an edge to me at times. I wouldn’t do things I didn’t like.

“I can still see team meetings with Ron Saunders. I would ask: ‘Why are we doing that?’

“Everyone else’s heads would go down. Ron would threaten me all the time, in a jokey way. All the lads would shake their heads and think ‘Crikey, here we go again’.

“I think people saw the way I dressed and thought I would have been going out to a nightclub or something. But I didn’t really like the drinking scene. I had always done my own thing.”

Though player-manager relationship between Little and Saunders could often be fractious, there remained a mutual respect and it is no surprise his former boss was a huge influence.

“I have tried to mirror Ron’s type of a team at several clubs,” said Little. “Where I have not managed to get that type of team, is where I have generally not done so well.

“When you look at my teams I liked centre-backs who like to defend, full-backs who like to get forward, box-to-box players in the middle of the park.

“Wherever I have been my best teams have mirrored a Ron Saunders team, at whatever level.”

Little’s best team, without question, was the one he assembled at Villa for the 1995/96 season. The leadership of Andy Townsend, resilience of Gareth Southgate and brilliance of Dwight Yorke, to name just three, took Villa to a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League, FA Cup semi-final and – most memorably – glory at Wembley in the League Cup.

“That was the pinnacle of it all. The fact I came back and did well,” he says. “When I was at Leicester, doing well, there was not another club I would have left for.

“Had I come back and not done well it would have been a bit of a nightmare.

“When I left, in February 1998, it was time to leave. I had a 10-year spell when I never stopped working and I got tired. But I am still really proud of the League Cup final.”

Little would never again manage in the Premier League, his career after Villa taking in stops at Stoke, Albion, Hull, Tranmere, Wrexham and Gainsborough Trinity. He takes pride in both its longevity and variety.

“It’s 902 games in total, including non-league at Darlington and Gainsborough,” he says, before adding: “I’m unbeaten in 72.2 per cent of those games as well.

“Every club I went to was struggling in some form or another. People go on about winning percentage but I would always say when you are going to teams that are struggling, the key is to stop them struggling first.”

His last job, in 2016, was a brief spell in charge of Jersey, whom he led to victory over rivals Guernsey in the 100th edition of the Muratti Vase.

“It was a prestigious occasion,” he recalls. “I thought, if I fail here I am going to go down in history!”

Little stepped down after the game and admits that, probably, is that.

“I’m not like Neil Warnock, or anyone like that. I couldn’t imagine managing into my 70s,” he says. “I can’t think of anything more I would want to do and I think I have done as much as I probably will do.”

There is a pause, before he adds: “Saying that, if someone picked up the phone, rang me and asked me to do something, I do wonder what I would say.

“I don’t go looking for it. I don’t really have any desire to do it. But I suppose you never know.”