Dave Edwards: Mick McCarthy's far too good to be out of football for long

Football can change so quickly. Mick had such a good start to his Cardiff career but it unravelled over the last few months.

As it’s been the international break, with not as much to write about as usual, I thought it’d be nice to look at Mick and what he did at Wolves, because he was such a huge part of my career here.

He’s one of the best – if not the best club manager – I played under.

He was the manager who signed me. It was a daunting thing. I had to wait for him up at the boardroom at the training ground. I was star-struck when he walked through the door – everybody knows who Mick McCarthy is, you’d see and hear his broad Yorkshire accent all over the TV. But he made me feel right at home immediately. Every story you hear of Mick comes down to how honest he is, as a person and manager. He came in wearing his training kit, crossed his legs and said to me “I actually came to watch you at Shrewsbury last season and didn’t think you were ready – but you’ve had a good six months, so here we are!”

Straight away he put me on the back foot.

From then on he was brilliant for me. He instilled the belief I was worthy of being at that level and at international level. Before that I felt like I was still a League Two player, I felt like an impostor having come from Shrewsbury and Luton to this massive football club with a new training ground. He made me realise what I was good at, with the help of Terry Connor.

With Terry it was the perfect combination. Mick is fiercely competitive, wants to win at all costs, then with TC will look after a player’s emotional state, working on improving you on the day-to-day.

Mick had the bigger picture, it was a really good relationship.

Mick’s management style is exactly how you’d expect it to be. He wouldn’t take any prisoners, his standards were very high. He’d call it his housekeeping. He was a stickler for the rules.

If housekeeping wasn’t right, those little habits, laziness, it would creep on to the pitch and as I’ve learned in my career he was absolutely spot on. He was big on the little things. It was new to me because we washed our own kits at Shrewsbury, but there were washing baskets to put your kit in, but if there was a sock on the floor, or a kit inside out, he would come down on the player like a ton of bricks and straight on with the fines.

Timekeeping was huge for him. He said if you weren’t five minutes early then you were late. The panic if you were late was very real.

Mick would call a meeting at an awkward time, it was 9am at Compton, that was horrendous because of the school traffic.

I told Wayne Hennessey I had to pick him up at 7.30, time was ticking on and on, we eventually ran in a minute or two late.

He lost the plot with those of us late and made us feel terrible. I remember he said to me “Edo, why were you late?” I had no excuse. He said “Do you know what Edo? You’re a ****ing ****! You’re in the team, going well, and you do this.”

We did well in the Premier League, had a tough second season but still stayed up, then we had that awful day in February in the last season in the top flight, that Black Country derby where if it could go wrong, it did go wrong.

Losing 5-1 to West Brom was unacceptable. But I think Steve Morgan would admit the trigger was pulled too quickly, it was an emotional decision. I’d be surprised if Jez Moxey felt otherwise at the time. There was no plan B and TC was put in.

Mick gets stick for his playing style, but he plays attacking, effective football, use wingers, play it forward, get crosses in. He had perfect players to do that in my first full season when we got promoted, we were unstoppable at times.

He’s a good manager who does the simple things well. He might not be as expansive as modern-day coaches, but he’s a good manager whose teams know how to score goals.

I was chatting to Mick before he took the Cardiff job. He was doing some media commentating on the Republic of Ireland. I expected him to be enjoying that but he said he was desperate to get back into football.

I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get back in soon, I don’t think his time’s done as a manager, but he would also add so much value if he took a director of football route, helping a young manager.

n I was really saddened to hear of the passing of Ron Flowers. It wasn't too long after I joined the club I learned all about what he did, alongside the likes of Billy Wright and Stan Cullis.

I was always keen to seek the history, I picked Graham Hughes’s brain going around the old museum by reception.

He would talk about what an amazing footballer Ron was, as well as a lovely person, and his achievements for the club, as well as England. Wolves were very lucky to have him spend his career here.