Belgium-born coach on being tagged a ‘laptop manager’, the pressure to get Saints promoted and why village cricket is his secret to relaxing
“Y
ou don’t call it Opel, you call it Vauxhall,” says Will Still. “A Corsa, little black thing that eventually died. Actually, no, Nico, my younger brother crashed it … it was crap, though, it didn’t even have a radio.” Still, who grew up in Grez-Doiceau, near Brussels, laughs as he recounts his days driving to work as an unpaid video analyst at Sint-Truiden while living at home with his mother, Jane. “Best time of my life, to be honest. It was like the dream was coming true.”
Twelve years on, the 32-year-old, one of the most intriguing managers in the game, has been tasked with returning Southampton to the Premier League after impressing with Lens. The only other time he lived in England was as a teenager when he spent two years studying at Myerscough College in Lancashire, where his degree included coaching Preston’s under-14s. At the time Still felt like “the little posh Belgian kid” but that period provided a handy lesson in English football-speak.
“I remember getting to college and people were like: ‘Bounce it!’ I haven’t got a clue what that means, mate, sorry. Or ‘man on’. By the end, I was like: ‘God, English football is the place to be.’ We were playing Stockport reserves and people turned up to watch that game – a lot of people. It was like: ‘Why are you coming to watch a bunch of college players playing Stockport reserves?’”
