Promotion would make Moors boss Ainsley top of the class

AFTER taking a tour of St Peter’s Catholic Voluntary Academy in South Bank, Middlesbrough, Jason Ainsley walked back to his office. Outside was a lone teenage boy sat reading a Spennymoor Town matchday programme.

“This is what can happen,” said Ainsley, the secondary school’s behaviour manager. “If there are students being disruptive they can often come to me to be dealt with – I think it’s one of the FA Vase ones he’s reading!”

Once inside, with the door closed, Ainsley took his seat at his desk and described how he successfully juggles everyday challenges of his full-time job with managing a Spennymoor side in with a strong chance of Evo-Stik First Division North title success.

On the pin board behind him there are dozens of cards saying thanks from students. ‘You are the best’ states one of them, while on a different pin board on the back wall there is a photograph of him playing for Hartlepool United in his younger days.

“My time at Hartlepool was one of my most frustrating things,” said Ainsley, who only made 15 league appearances during the 1994-95 season, scoring one goal. “I should have played more and that was the only professional club I played for in England. I have been to Australia, played in front of 20,000 at the Singapore National Stadium, because I was determined to keep playing. I’ve been around a bit!”

The short, professional football career, though, helped him more than he would ever have known at the time. Playing non-league for a variety of clubs, including Blyth, Gateshead, Barrow, Bishop Auckland, Durham City and Spennymoor, laid the foundations for what he is doing now.

As well as successfully guiding Spennymoor to a long list of honours and lifting them to within sight of promotion to the Evo-Stik Premier, Ainsley has also earned the respect of students – and staff - at St Peter’s. Switching regularly from the classroom to the dressing room does not seem to have caused too many issues.

“When I got the head of house job here I had to do an assembly every week,” said Stockton-born Ainsley, who clearly had a rapport with the children as he supervised them playing football during break on the school’s Multi Use Games Area.

“I couldn’t sleep the night before my assembly. I used to panic. I used to go to the toilet beforehand. I had a script ready. But a 15-minute assembly would take me three days because I had to write things down. Over time it becomes easier, but I had to get used to that. It was totally new for me.

“It can be difficult in a dressing room as well, standing over experienced players. The main thing, whether in school or in a dressing room, is to be honest with people. That’s what I have found. If I have to send a student home it is not personal, just like if I leave a player out ... it’s not personal.”

In that sense it is easy to see how life in the classroom and then a dressing room shares similarities. As former rugby and basketball player Gary Hanrahan – who is the behaviour line manager working alongside AInsley – suggested, “it’s like coaching really, we are there to support the kids and Jason is great at that”.

Ainsley said: “I am totally different in a dressing room to when I am at school. But there are similar traits. You are trying to manage people in different age groups.

“Some players need an arm around them, some need a rollicking. It’s the same in school. Some students need a cajoling, but there are others where the message will go in one ear and out the other, so they might need a harsher word. Very rarely do I shout, but now and again I might.”

Ainsley is also on the leadership team at St Peter’s and under the guidance of headteacher Pam Hanrahan has been a key factor in helping turn things around at a school, which was due to close in 2012, that has soaring applications for places.

The head is very supportive of Ainsley’s work with Spennymoor, even though it would appear at first glance that the two positions would be hard to combine together; highlighted on Tuesday when Moors went to Clitheroe and won 2-0 to stay in a play-off spot.

“That day I left school at 4.15, I got to the ground at Clitheroe for 6.45,” said Ainsley. “I knew I had to speak with someone else at school when I got there, so I dealt with that then picked the team.

“After that I got home after a win about midnight. I couldn’t sleep. I never can after a game. I then got up and went to work the following day and went to watch our reserves on the night. It sounds madness.

“But I am lucky because I love coming to work. The beauty is you are always on the go. I don’t even think I have lunch ... it’s a cup a soup or sandwich. Wednesday is probably my most tiring day as we often have games on a Tuesday.”

However he does it, it is working. At 44, Ainsley still tries his hand at playing in the Over-35/40s leagues as well, but ensuring Spennymoor continue to rise is his primary football responsibility. Having guided them to four Northern League titles, the Durham Challenge Cup, Cleator Cup and FA Vase success in 2013, he does not want it to stop now.

“Like the excellent leadership we have at the school, I am led by a very successful chairman at Spennymoor in Brad Groves,” said Ainsley, who took over on his own eight years ago after initially working with Jamie Pollock.

“I remember before Brad came in, I was borrowing from everywhere the first season I had in charge. We had a Vase game down in Devon and Spennymoor couldn’t even afford to go to the game. We couldn’t afford to play certain players. Then Brad Groves got involved, he put a hotel on down there for us, got the Newcastle coach to take us. That was seven years ago.

“We’d had pay cut after pay cut at that time but the players stayed with me and the club. I threw the carrot in about the chairman. There were clubs offering fortunes for Anthony Peacock, Craig Ruddy, players like that, all these players who were with me for a long time ... they stayed with us.

“We have won 12 trophies in seven years. We have won every cup we can. I have managed a representative England side. I have had success at Spennymoor. But if it was not for Brad Groves the club would not be here.

“He is a friend of mine but I know we are in a results driven business and I could lose my job if we were not going well. I have to keep people happy who are not playing. As long as you are honest with players, they will eventually respect the decisions if they understand why.”

A victory over Padiham at Brewery Field this afternoon would keep the heat on top two Salford City and Darlington, with Spennymoor – two matches in hand on the leaders and nine points to make up - still to go to the former before the end of the season.

Ainsley just wants his team to keep going. He said: “Part of my teamtalk on Tuesday was if we didn’t win we could write off that league title. I think we have an opportunity. We need teams to slip up but we have Salford away and Bamber Bridge away.

“I am, though, pleased that we are in the play-offs. We have had games in hand and been slightly below it. It’s nice to be in there now. Our objective at the start of the season was a good run in the FA Trophy and to get in the play-offs would be a successful season.

“It’s been a massive learning curve for me. This league is harder. It’s a lot harder this year than it was last year. A Northern League team on any given day could beat a team in our league but to do that over 44 games and be where we are is tough.”

And yet, just as he does with the children of St Peter’s, he has dealt with any problems calmly and successfully. Automatic promotion would make him top of the class.