Paul Ince: 'Maybe drawing Chelsea was the bit of luck we needed'

Managing Macclesfield is a long way from Old Trafford glory. Simon Turnbull meets a man who has to look up to most other clubs

It is lunchtime for the players and the back-room staff at the Moss Rose, home of Macclesfield Town, for most of this season 92nd out of the 92 clubs in English football's four main divisions. Paul Ince is still eating as he emerges from the dining room and pulls up a chair. The Guv'nor, as he was known in his playing days at Old Trafford, is now the Gaffer in these parts. He has much to chew over as he gazes out towards the hills of the western Peak District.

The manager since 23 October, Ince's playing registration is due to be released by Swindon Town on 1 January. So, will the man who made his debut for West Ham as a 19-year-old against Chelsea in November 1986 be attempting to pull any strings as a 39-year-old midfielder when Macclesfield make the trip to Stamford Bridge for their third-round FA Cup tie next Saturday?

"Em," the Gaffer says, rolling his eyes towards the roof as he considers the possibility. "It's probably a slim chance, to be honest. The lads have been fantastic since I came to the club and if they keep performing the way they have been, then even if I wanted to play I wouldn't get in the side anyway.

"I've not really thought about it. I'm not going to make that decision until I see how slim we are with the team, injury-wise. I might even put myself on the bench, come on for the last couple of minutes. We'll see."

So, it's more likely to be Ince v Mourinho on the sidelines, rather than Ince v Lampard in the thick of the midfield action? "Frankie's a very good friend of mine," Ince says. "The banter started straightaway, as soon as the draw was made. It's a nice choice. You're pitting yourself against probably one of the best players in the world or against one of the best managers in the world. It's a decision for me, which path I take."

For the present, the former England captain is concentrating on learning the managerial ropes at the end of an arterial route still signposted as the Silk Road. Not that the playing material at the Moss Rose, on the edge of Cheshire's former silk-manufacturing town, could be described as being of the luxury purse-producing variety. Compared to the top-of-the-range quality they have at Stamford Bridge, it might be described as sow's ear stuff, though Ince has been managing nicely enough with what he has at his disposal.

When he succeeded Brian Horton at the end of October, Macclesfield were marooned at the foot of Coca-Cola League Two, without a win in 12 matches and seven points adrift. On Boxing Day Ince's Silkmen won 3-0 at Chester to move off the foot of the table on goal difference. Yesterday's 1-0 victory at bottom-placed Torquay was their seventh win in nine games unbeaten.

It might not have knocked Mourinho out of the national headlines, but the turnaround has been a marked one. "It had to be," Ince says. "We had to improve quickly. When you are down where we are in the table you need points. You can't afford to wait two or three months, because by then it's gone.

"To be fair, the lads have been fantastic. Everything we've tried to do - by upping the training sessions, doing double sessions - the lads have taken it on board and tried to replicate it on the pitch. So all the praise must go to them.

"I've just tried to bring in some things that I'm accustomed to, the kind of high standards Sir Alex Ferguson always had. Fortunately, Rob Bickerton, the chairman, Bashir Alkhadi, the owner, and Patrick Nelson, the chief executive, have allowed me the funds to do things like eating properly now. Before, the players used to train and go to the corner shop and get a sandwich. When you're asking players to do double sessions, that's not going to work.

"Now, we have got masseurs; we have got a fitness coach. We are trying to do things professionally, and that's one of the things that the chairman and the owner sold to me. That's exactly what they want to do. We can't go out and buy a Wayne Rooney or a Giggsy, but whatever we can do within our budget, we try to do the best we can possibly do for this club. We're trying to improve bit by bit.

"By the same token, you have got to get the results. To go to Walsall [for a replay in the first round of the FA Cup] and win 1-0 was a massive result for us. Apparently we were 7-1 to win that game and we should have won by two or three. That instilled a lot of belief in the players. If they could go to Walsall, top of the table, and not just beat them but beat them comfortably, then they could beat anybody.

"And since then they have grown as men. When I first came here there was no belief. They were boys. Now they've grown into men. And they have to keep performing. I mean, we haven't turned the corner yet. Some people are getting carried away, but not me.

"Come back and speak to me in March. I'll let you know then whether I feel we're going to be safe. I've said to the lads, 'Just keep performing. If you perform the way you have been you'll get your results. You'll lose - you'll lose a couple of games, like most teams. But you'll win more games than you lose, I assure you, if you keep performing and listening and working hard in training'."

And what if Ince were to achieve survival - if the man who won two Premiership titles and two FA Cups with Manchester United, who played 53 times for England, were to succeed in keeping Macclesfield on the Football League map?

"Phew!" he exclaims, puffing out his cheeks. "It would probably be the greatest achievement of my life. Especially having come here with people saying, 'Why did Incey take that job? He must be bloody mad. They're bottom of the table, lowest team in the League'.

"It was a challenge for me. I just thought if I can pull it off, it'll stand me in good stead for the next challenge. I started from the bottom as a player and got myself to the top. I intend to take the same avenue as a manager."

Certainly nobody could accuse Paul Ince, the manager, of being "a big-time Charlie", as Ferguson once labelled Paul Ince, the player. In his two months as a manager at the rock bottom of the pile, the former Red Devil has not just been attempting to transform a team of serial losers; he has been battling to overcome some fiendishly bad fortune too.

Up the Silk Road at Stockport on 25 November, he saw winger Simon Wiles carried off on a stretcher off with cruciate knee damage, then the goalkeeper Jonny Brain and the defender Andy Teague taken to hospital with broken legs suffered in a collision that left Stockport's Adam Proudlock with a gift of an equaliser. Three days later, full-back James McNulty broke a leg in training.

"I'm glad you brought that up," Ince says. "I can't even say it was 'welcome to the real world' because that kind of thing doesn't happen in the real world. It annoyed me, actually, because nobody rang the club or rang me to ask how the lads were. Then all of a sudden we get Chelsea in the FA Cup third-round draw and the phone doesn't stop ringing.

"That does disappoint me, because I'm more concerned... not about getting Chelsea, but about my lads who are going to miss the game. I suppose that happens when you're bottom of the League. Nobody gives a monkey's."

Still, at least providence smiled on poor, put-upon Macclesfield in the Cup draw. The money they make from their big day out might go some way towards filling the gaps left in the squad after those freakish three days in November.

"You're right," Ince says. "The way the team have been playing, there's not too much wrong with the squad I have inherited here. It's only with the injuries we've had. I got a lad in from Portsmouth to cover for Brainy, our goalkeeper, but he's injured now. I had the youth team goalkeeper playing with us today but he's got injured too - he's tweaked his cartilage - so now I'm having to get my goalkeeping coach registered.

"There are just so many things that have happened to us at this club that you could never have envisaged. We've been very, very unfortunate as far as injuries are concerned. Maybe getting Chelsea in the draw has been the little bit of luck we needed, so we can get some funds in and bring some more players in."

And what of the big day itself? Could Ince's Silkmen possibly turn over Mourinho's Silk Purses? "I'm a realist," Macclesfield's novice manager says. "We don't expect to win the game. Macclesfield are never going to win the FA Cup, so that's not on my list of priorities. My priority is to stay in this League.

"For us, it's a great chance for the lads to go and play against world-class players and enjoy the sights of London... I don't think some of them have even been to London before."

Life & Times

Name Paul Emerson Carlyle Ince.

Born 21 October, 1967, Ilford, Essex.

Clubs Played for West Ham United, Manchester United, Internazionale, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Swindon Town.

Trophies With Manchester United, won the Premiership (1993 and 1995), the FA Cup (1990 and 1994), the League Cup (1992) and the European Cup Winners' Cup (1991).

International Won 53 caps. The first black player to captain England.

Manager Appointed by Macclesfield Town, 23 October 2006.

Punchline Was ranked 95th in a list of 100 Great Black Britons in 2003, just above his cousin, the former boxer Nigel Benn.