Warren Feeney on target for Welling United, holding signing talks with Charlton Athletic and quality Leeds upbringing

BY RICHARD CAWLEY
richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Warren Feeney reckons that National League South consolidation is the objective for his first full season in charge of Welling United.

The 41-year-old replaced former Crystal Palace boss Peter Taylor at Park View Road in March with the Wings mired in the relegation zone.

Belfast-born Feeney, capped 46 times by Northern Ireland, kept them up and Welling are now 13th after 19 games – nine points clear of the bottom four.

The former Bournemouth, Stockport, Luton and Cardiff striker recently turned down the chance to take on a role for his country.

“It’s not something I want to do now, maybe in the long run,” Feeney told the South London Press. “There are great people at Welling and I want to do it right. Sometimes I’ve left places before and realised the grass isn’t greener on the other side.

“If Welling had gone down I think they’d have found it very, very difficult to get back up. We’re sitting in a healthy position but I don’t ever get too high or too low.

“People get carried away and they talk about the play-offs. We’ve had to spend a bit of money, but it’s not what people think.

We can’t be in the same situation as we were last year. Rome wasn’t built in a day. All we want to do is keep moving the club forwards and be competitive – see where it takes us. People have got to remember where we’ve come from. Billericay kept the same budget in the league below and they are mid-table, it’s so hard. I think we’d have snapped someone’s hand off if they’d offered us mid-table going into the Christmas period.”

Feeney had been in charge of Bulgarian side Pirin Blagoevgrad prior to joining Welling.

He led them to promotion from the Second Professional Football League in the 2020-21 season but left the following December.

Feeney said: “I think the Daily Star did something saying there were only two British managers who had won a league abroad – it was me and Graham Potter! It was quite funny, with what he has gone on to do.

“I had to change the culture. I had to change the mentality – that went down as far as the training times for the players – as well as the nutrition and fitness side of it.

“The fans were very passionate and had a big say at the club. They were probably impatient at times and thought you were going to compete against the top, top teams. I loved it. I had good players – ones who had played for Fulham and PSV Eindhoven.

“I was in Bulgaria and they were in their winter break, a few things went on. I had a few staff taken away from me and I decided to leave. Then I got the phone call: ‘Would I be interested in Welling?’”

Feeney can’t resist a challenge. But it comes with a compromise – his family have stayed back in Ireland, as they did when he bossed Pirin Blagoevgrad.

“My wife and kids know what the life of a footballer is,” he said. “Whereas if you look nowadays, the first question a player asks is how far is it from my house and how much money am I getting?

“I was brought up in the old breed where you have got to make sacrifices. It’s for a better life later on. My wife knows it comes with the territory. She is a school principal, so she is very independent. At times it is difficult with the kids but I try and get across as much as I can to see them.”

Feeney was just 26 and playing in the Championship for Luton when he did his A-licence coaching badge.

“As much as I was lively and loved to be the noise of the changing room, at times, I have a very big will to win,” said Feeney.

“When I got injured I coached the kids in the academy. I wasn’t going to sit around.

“I love the coaching side of it but also the man-management.”

Feeney picks Roberto Martinez as the best manager he has worked for, as well as instilling a key trait.

The pair worked together at Swansea with Feeney signing on loan from their fierce rivals Cardiff City in 2007.

“I’d scored two on the Sunday [a 4-1 win at Bournemouth] and on the Tuesday night I’m thinking ‘yes, I’m in the team’ – and I wasn’t.

“I had steam coming out of my ears, so I went straight in to see him.

“Put it this way, it wasn’t nice words I said. He was cool as a cucumber. He sat me down and went: ‘What is your job?’. I said: ‘To score goals’. And he said: ‘My job is to pick a team to win and manage a squad of 20’. I couldn’t say anything to him, he killed me there and then.

“That was Roberto Martinez. I’ve always learned to be honest with players and not to lie to them.

“I scored five goals in 10 matches but unfortunately I was out for four months with an ankle injury which scuppered the move.

“We still stay in contact now.”

Feeney could have made Charlton one of his stops in his playing days.

“Phil Parkinson was the manager,” he recalled. “I spoke to them, but I just felt it wasn’t for me at the time.

“I was good mates with Andy Todd, who did play at Charlton. He was my number two for five years and then we just went our separate ways.”

Feeney came through the youth system at Leeds United but never made a first-team appearance.

Another pal is former Addicks boss Lee Bowyer, who was a key cog in David O’Leary’s team which reached a Champions League semi-final in 2001.

“Bow was probably one of the fittest boys I played with,” said Feeney. “He was always at the front of the running. He was outstanding to work and train with.

“It was an unbelievable team as well as the camaraderie we had, the energy in and around the place.

“I was a young boy then. What the pros got away with then, you wouldn’t get away with now. That’s been taken out of the game a little bit. Everything is done for the players in these academies now. I call them five-star health clubs.

“It made us what we were and it grounded me.”

Feeney’s father Warren and grandfather Jim both represented Ireland. Unsurprisingly it is his career highlight.

“To make my debut at 20 was funny, because I made it for the senior team before the U21s,” he said. “It was a big thing to get on the pitch with some good players then – David Healy, Jim Magilton, Michael Hughes and Steve Lomas.”

Feeney came on in the 79th minute in a 1-0 win over England in a World Cup qualifier in September 2005.

The Three Lions side contained Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney.

“I probably should’ve scored,” said Feeney. “England had a great team. We knew we had to turn it into a proper British game at Windsor Park.
“We had them rattled. You still hear people talking about it and you still get the odd pint bought for you now and then.”

Feeney’s son George, 14, is on trial with Fulham.

“I always tell him to be well-mannered but he can be a little bit aggressive at times, which I think you need in the right way,” he said.

“There is no pressure on him. People think because I was a footballer myself I’m going to be 24/7 on him – but it’s probably the opposite. He’s got to learn himself and get there himself.

“He’s got a chance but like any other kid he has got a long, long way to go.”

PICTURES: KEITH GILLARD