At the moment I am studying. I am not studying the form of the horses at Cheltenham I have to say, but I am studying. It is literally years since I had to read books, take notes and prepare presentations, so it is an interesting and quite demanding exercise in many ways.

I am doing The UEFA Pro License under the jurisdiction of the Coaching Department of The FAI. It is the highest Management and Coaching Award in the world of football and offers testimony to the fact that the FAI are profoundly serious about safeguarding the future of the game in Ireland.

I first started doing Coaching Courses when I was 29. At that time in England there was simply The Preliminary Coaching Award and The Full Coaching Badge.

I did the Preliminary at Charlton FC in London alongside players from most of the clubs around the Capitol. The next year I went to The Football Association’s Coaching Headquarters at Lilleshall deep in the country for the two week residential course of the Full Badge. I failed to gain the Badge. I failed because I did not prepare well enough. Consequently I had to return the following year to re-take the course.

Now this was not a hardship in any way because the two weeks were extremely enjoyable. The weather was good, the surroudings idyllic and the company of professional footballers is always interesting. There were some of the great players of the day in my group. Nobby Stiles and Paddy Crerand, and myself of course, helped provide a period of enjoyment and repartee and the obligatory mickey-taking and childish pranks that are part and parcel of sport at all levels.

But this time around I prepared and performed well and resisted, for a couple of nights anyway, the social scene that was such an integral aspect of professional football in those days.

The coaching itself I found relatively easy and straightforward but on the Course I gained an understanding of the true merits of good preparation.

But the truth was the FA Courses at that time did not prepare one for management. Coaching is merely an aspect of management in football.

Many managers never do any coaching at all. Some managers rarely even go to the training ground. I have always said that to me coaching is the next best thing to playing. Even at my age I miss playing terribly.

I do really enjoy coaching but as Cork City FC becomes more professional I, like most managers in good clubs, start to spend less time on the training ground and more on the organisational aspect of the club. This presents a dilemma to most managers. Even in American Football when Coaches are promoted to Head Coach it is fully understood that his coaching days are over.