Darrell Clarke says he is not 'Houdini' after swapping Walsall for Port Vale
Departed Walsall boss Darrell Clarke said the move to Port Vale offers a better chance of success, adding he was ‘not Houdini’ after losing his best players and being expecting to secure a top seven finish at the Banks’s.
Clarke said it was a tough call to leave Saddlers but felt he had to make the trip up the M6 to the Potteries to give him the best chance of winning promotion.
“It is always a difficult situation when you are leaving good people, who were running Walsall,” Clarke told his first press conference at Vale Park.
“I had a great relationship with the chairman there. Dan Mole (club secretary), it is a tight-knit group.
“But when you are a football manager you are always looking, not elsewhere for other jobs, but you are looking at what clubs are doing and why they are doing it.
“I get out of bed to be successful. That’s what I’m about, I want success and sometimes you have to take a move that I think gives me a better chance of success.
“Walsall was a fantastic club but the financial predicament, losing best players, having to restart but still expecting to finish in the top seven.
“Well, I apologise but I am not Houdini.”
He continued: “The move for me is the right one because I think it gives me the best opportunity for success. That is why I get up in the morning, I want to win games, I want to win promotions.
“I have that thirst and hunger.”
Clarke also said Vale’s joint owner and chairwoman Carol Shanahan proved a draw but denied a friendship with Valiants’ director of football David Flitcroft was the deciding factor in his controversial move to the Potteries.
He added: “Carol is a remarkable woman. I think the Port Vale supporters are very fortunate to have an owner that cares so much about the football club.
“I have known David Flitcroft from my courses. But let’s get things straight, me and Flickers haven’t been mates. It is not like we are on the phone every week.
“I speak to Flickers probably four or five times a season like I would speak to a Paul Cook, a Nigel Clough, other managers that I communicate and network with.
“We share the same values of what creating a winning environment is all about, a successful environment.”
