LES PARRY can call on an intimate understanding of the challenges facing rival manager Chris Beech when Rochdale visit Prenton Park today.
The Tranmere boss is keen to wish Beech well – but only after the youth coach’s first game in charge of Dale’s senior team is done and dusted.
The points are much too important to Rovers for any kind of generous sentiment to intrude into the first of the festive fixtures.
Tranmere urgently need a victory after suffering four successive League One defeats. Rochdale have been doing so badly that they sacked manager Steve Eyre and assistant Frank Bunn last week and turned to Beech to fill the role on a caretaker basis with backup from former Barnsley coach Ryan Kidd.
The circumstances have several parallels to those in place when long serving physiotherapist Parry was asked to take charge of team affairs at Prenton Park in October 2009 after Tranmere lost seven out of 11 League One games under John Barnes.
Parry said: “I can see the similarities between Chris’s situation and mine just over two years ago. I think we were probably in a slightly worse position here in the league, because Rochdale have won four games this season.
“When I took over here I had no intention at first of wanting to do the job permanently. Nor do I think I had a chance of getting the job.
“Chris, I think, has made it quite clear he wants the job and that can have a positive effect. The players are playing for someone they know could end up as manager. They focus that little bit more than if it is someone who is just standing in. In that situation they don’t really care that much because they know another manager is going to come in and he is the one they want to impress.”
Parry’s view about taking the manager’s post permanently changed as he grew into the job – and did it well enough to guide Tranmere clear of the threat of relegation at the end of the 2009/10 campaign.
He reckons the first of Beech’s big challenges will come when he selects a team for today’s game. “Chris, like myself, is used to dealing with players, in his case the youth team at Rochdale,” Parry said.
“I think the biggest thing he has to do is handle the changes he wants to make to the side. If he does not make changes people will scratch their heads and think things are going to stay the same.
“So he will make changes. It will be difficult to handle because he will be dropping players he has known for a long time. As he knows quite well, probably better than I did at the time, you just have to get on with the job, make the decisions and stand by them.”
