England: Sam Allardyce will foster the spirit that established his authority at Bolton to bind England back together

Allardyce’s objective is to build real relationships with his players, the kind he built over the years with the likes of Kevin Nolan, Gary Speed, Jay Jay Okocha and Kevin Davies

Sam Allardyce's career highlight arguably arrived at Bolton Wanderers (Getty)

It was August 2000 and Sam Allardyce had had enough of John Aldridge and his abrasive Tranmere Rovers team.

The long throw-ins, the overlong grass at Prenton Park, Aldridge’s belligerence and sniping on the touchline had all become such an irritation to Allardyce that he decided to turn the tables on his nemesis.

It was a gamble. Footballers tend not to like stunts devised by their managers, preferring instead to keep it simple and focused purely on the game, but Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers players were forged in his own image, so when he told them to show Tranmere the ultimate in disrespect, they followed, to a man.

Nobody was to shave or shower before travelling to Prenton Park. No deodorants or after shaves were to be applied and, as soon as the game was over, they would board the team bus in their kit and head straight back to Bolton to shower and change.

Bolton won 1-0 and ended the season by winning promotion to the Premier League, where Allardyce would go on to showcase the managerial qualities that have now taken him to the brink of starting his reign as England manager against Slovakia in Trnava on Sunday.

But the Tranmere episode is key to explaining the ‘how and why’ of Allardyce’s plans with England.

Don’t expect Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane and John Stones to ditch the expensive shower gels for the trip to Hampden Park to face Scotland next June, but you can safely assume that Allardyce will foster the same kind of spirit with the England camp that saw his Bolton players not only embrace his methods at the Reebok Stadium, but also relish them.

Sammy Lee has followed Allardyce into the England set-up (Getty)

The likes of Mike Whitlow and Gareth Farrelly left Prenton Park with a smirk on their face sixteen years ago. They knew they had landed a psychological blow on their rivals, but Allardyce had also persuaded a team of experienced professionals to buy into his plan.

One of the central factors in England’s Euro 2016 failure that has been identified by Allardyce was the apparent absence of a sense of the collective, of the players and staff working together ad buying into Roy Hodgson’s blueprint.

Rooney admitted earlier this week that he took an executive decision on the pitch to ignore Hodgson’s call for Kane to take corners – a small act of defiance, but a rejection of the manager’s demands, nonetheless.

When there is doubt and disagreement, there is little hope of everyone pulling in the same direction.

Allardyce’s objective is to build real relationships with his players, the kind he built over the years with the likes of Kevin Nolan, Gary Speed, Jay Jay Okocha and Kevin Davies, and those which Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson’s failed to build with their England players.

Capello and Hodgson were both aloof and detached, but Allardyce will identify the leaders within the dressing-room, work to get to know them personally and delegate responsibility.

Allardyce wishes to prevent international duty from becoming boring for his players (Getty)

When he revealed earlier this week that Okocha was the best captain he had worked with, the line about the Nigerian ‘sorting a few scuffles in the dressing-room’ was precisely what Allardyce will expect from the likes of Rooney, Kane, Stones and Joe Hart.

He will hope for not too many scuffles, but Allardyce wants his men to be men, rather than the schoolboys they have often been treated as by England managers, and they will be allowed to self-police themselves.

Ultimately, Allardyce will aim to create the same kind of ‘band of brother’s mentality fostered by Terry Venables which saw England go so close to achieving success at Euro 96.

Under Venables, the players believed in a manager who put them first and was prepared to mount a protective shield when the criticism rained down – as it will under Allardyce.


 The Dudley-born manager's methods are unique 
 (Getty)

Allardyce will want his players to lead themselves on the pitch and not look to him for guidance the moment something goes wrong.

And the drip-drip approach to infusing the players with self-standing responsibility has already been evident, with Allardyce giving his squad a day off on Thursday.

They could spend it as they wished, but the onus was on them to use their team responsibly and make their decisions.

Allardyce wants to lighten the mood and take away the oppressive ‘Team England’ atmosphere that has been cited as a problem by senior players, but the reality is that the only way to lift that pressure is by winning and winning in major tournaments, rather than cruising through qualification groups.

But the new manager aims to make that happen his way, with the players following his lead and enjoying it while they do so.

There will be a Tranmere moment somewhere down the line, when Allardyce catches his players off guard and tells them to fall in line, but his way has chimed with big players and difficult personalities in the past, so there is no reason why it cannot work again with England.