Boss Paul Jewell says owner Marcus Evans remained “totally supportive” during Town’s recent run of seven defeats on the trot. The Liverpudlian revealed that Evans is already looking ahead several seasons, something which he believes is unusual in football.
Jewell was pleased to be able to relay good news when he called Evans after the Barnsley game, the 5-3 victory ending the run of losses, but felt that the owner was behind him even during the poor results: "I spoke to him on the way home [after Barnsley]. It was nice to make a phone call where you start on a positive note.
"He’s been totally supportive. Everyone else has been saying it’s curtains or whatever but Marcus has told me to keep going, keep believing in myself and eventually we’ll get it right.”
He says Evans is amongst the better people to work for in football: "A lot of people come into this game for the ego and the notoriety, he certainly doesn’t do that. He’s put his money where his mouth is.
"He bought the club a while ago and he’s very, very good for the club and in the long-term he’s one of the owners that it’s great to work for.
"At the end of the day if he rings me up and says he’s decided against keeping me on, I’ll live with that, but he’s been supportive of me since I’ve been here.
"In football no one looks long-term but he keeps on talking to me saying where we want to be in five years’ time. Five years’ time? Most managers don’t get five minutes. So that gives me the confidence to go on and make decisions.”
Jewell recalls being given similar breathing space in which to work earlier in his career: "I remember Dave Whelan saying to me in the first year I was at Wigan and we were in what’s League One now.
"Everyone expected us to get promotion, but we were bottom of the table. In November we got beaten 5-2 at Wrexham in the Broken Windscreens Trophy.
"He’d sacked a lot of managers Dave, probably by his own admission too many. He asked to have a word with the players and said ‘why not, you’re the owner’.
"He sat the players down and went ‘the boss is staying, anyone who doesn’t want to play, leave your boots there and you can go’.
"I walked out and said ‘thanks for that chairman,’ and he went, ‘no problem, make sure we stay up this year and next year I want to be in the top six by Christmas, otherwise you won’t be here’. By Christmas the next year we were 10 points clear.
"What that did, it gave me that confidence to make decisions and to take a little bit of flack, take a little bit of punishment, if you like, and make long-term decisions. And I’m hoping that’s what happens here.”