Last December, watching Colchester chew up his Swindon team 4-0 and spit them out bottom of League Two, Ian Holloway held his head in his hands.
‘I’m hurting badly,’ he admitted, on just the 39th day of his tenure. ‘Absolutely, totally unforgivable.’ Had he taken on a poisoned chalice?
Well, apparently not. Ten months on, Swindon are second in the league, playing some of the division’s most attractive football, and Holloway’s minimum target is automatic promotion. The smiles are back at the County Ground.
If anyone has earned forgiveness for that bleak night in Essex, it is striker Aaron Drinan. Only Erling Haaland can beat his tally of eight league goals in England’s top four divisions; only Coventry’s Haji Wright can match it in the EFL.
Quite the transformation for Drinan, who played 34 times last campaign and managed only three goals. This time he’s aiming for 20. In his eyes, Holloway’s personal touch, exuberance and vast experience have reinvigorated the Robins.
‘Some days are crazy! When you go into training, you don’t know what to expect,’ Drinan, 27, tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘He’s an energetic character. He always says the players will never match his enthusiasm and he’s spot on.
Ian Holloway is targeting the League Two title with Swindon – just 10 months after being bottom
Star striker Aaron Drinan – the joint top-scorer in the EFL – has opened up on their success
‘He loves having a chat, singing along to the music on the speaker at the training ground, dancing. It’s funny.
‘He’s been great for me. I’ve performed really well since he’s come in. The main thing he tells me and the forwards is to play with freedom. He’s managed really good players at the top level. He touches on that quite a bit. He has a lot of experience as a player and manager.’
Holloway, 62, is a beloved elder statesman of the football pyramid who looked adrift not long ago. When he joined Swindon last October, it had been almost four years since his previous post at Grimsby Town.
The Mariners hired him in a fish and chip shop in December 2019 but he quit 12 months later. Some thought that, for all his charm, the Gloucestershire guru had lost his magic touch.
Even he admitted that his ‘appetite for the game had waned’. Spending time with his wife metal detecting, antique hunting, and acrylic painting kept him content. He said that if he was going to return, it would take a Championship job to lure him in.
But Holloway has poured his heart and soul into Swindon, his 10th managerial gig, and has won 25 of his 50 games, including the 1,000th match of his managerial career, at Grimsby last December. It’s a brilliant record, one he has achieved despite off-pitch struggles.
Holloway battled skin cancer last season and had surgery in May to remove a growth from his face. He called it a ‘scare’ and a ‘real shock’.
Holloway has the County Ground rocking, and has revived his managerial career, after four years out of the game and a battle with skin cancer
Drinan (left) is aiming for 20 goals and says Holloway’s man-management skills have made a world of difference to his career
You’d therefore forgive him for taking a back-seat role on some tasks outside the job description, then. But that’s not Holloway’s style.
He has been heavily involved in the club’s recruitment, vocalised plans to improve the academy and fostered an enormous sense of togetherness in a group full of new faces.
Among the 15 summer arrivals were Wrexham fan favourite Ollie Palmer, Wycombe centre half Ryan Tafazolli and returning academy product Billy Bodin – players with good reputations at a higher level.
They’re not only effective – Holloway’s team are good on the eye. Their first goal in a 2-1 win over Shrewsbury in August was a triumph in one-touch football, a sprinkle of Spain in Swindon.
After 11 games, only Grimsby (them again) have scored more than their 22 goals and nobody has netted more from open play (19).
‘The gaffer does like doing the patterns in training,’ explains Drinan, the former Republic of Ireland Under 21 international who at 27 is on his seventh club in four countries. ‘We’re doing those drills two or three times a week, and then seeing it working on a Saturday.
‘This year, the gaffer wanted to play more football, breaking the lines, playing to my strengths, runs in behind and slipping me in. Some of the play for the goals, it has been from the goalkeeper to the backline, to the midfield, and through to me.’
As long as the lads work hard, there’s room for fun. In the summer there was a waterpark trip. Holloway has been letting them choose rewards for their good performances. And Drinan confesses that when he’s not downing chicken gnocchi, he’ll indulge in a Chinese or Indian takeaway on a Saturday night.
Kitman Steve Hooper (bottom, with sidekick Jonah Isaacs) says ‘weird stuff has happened for as long as I remember’ at Swindon’s training ground
Last year, Holloway caused a stir when he claimed that the club’s Beversbrook training facility is ‘haunted’. An ancient burial site sits nearby, so the story goes, and he even vowed to call in his wife, Kim, to cleanse the grounds with sage.
So we had to ask Drinan: have you experienced the hauntings?
He laughs. ‘Definitely not! I think that was something the gaffer came up with! He changed his ringtone to a ghost so that sometimes in a meeting his phone goes off and you hear a ghost.
‘We were thinking, “Where did he even think of that? What’s going on?”’
But wait, before you dismiss all this as ghoulish baloney. Because one of the club’s kitmen, Steve Hooper, insists to Daily Mail Sport that there is something strange going on in this corner of Wiltshire.
‘Even before the gaffer came to the club, there were videos of glasses flying out,’ he says. ‘Another CCTV video shows a black apparition going through a wall. There was a window that was smashed from the inside but nobody was there, it had all been locked up.
‘Weird stuff has happened for as long as I can remember, whether there is a haunting or not. His wife is very much into the spiritual world so instantly that’s where his brain goes.’
Hooper forms a popular kitman duo with Jonah Isaacs. The pair joined the club in the same week in 2019 – Hooper working for the academy, Isaacs in the club shop – but within days they had inadvertently become responsible for the team’s clobber.
Swindon have scored the most goals from open play in League Two, with 19
As a rare constant at a club with a high turnover of players, Hooper and Isaacs have assumed an influential role. Isaacs has proudly taken the reins as the team’s de facto DJ.
His penchant for soppy romance songs can drive Holloway up the wall, with battles breaking out over control of the training centre sound system. In 2022, Isaacs went viral for serenading the players with a cover of Tom Odell’s Another Love. On matchday, he compromises with a house music playlist.
‘Usually one of the older lads used to take control of the music,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘But nobody has really done that for the last couple of years. We’ve already got the music on before they get to the changing room while we’re setting up.
‘Usually they say, “this is a good song Jonah”. And I say, “yeah, I made it myself!” I just press play on a random playlist normally. But I have now made a matchday one that is the same every week. People know it’s game day when I put that one on. It’s literally just house music and a little bit of pop.’
Their role is wide-ranging and involves a close relationship with the players. If they’re not washing and drying, they might be collecting balls from the bushes next to the training pitch – Isaacs speaks to us with a scarred hand after a particularly brutal encounter with the foliage. At other times, they’ve been known to pull pranks on the players, such as moving their motors around the car park.
And the playful pair have even been nominated at the upcoming Football Content Awards for their Life of a Kitman podcast, which includes regular features with Holloway and the team’s stars.
‘Ian Holloway is incredible,’ says Hooper. ‘What you see is what he is. There’s no show there. That is him all day, every day. When he comes, he’ll be like, “right, get a tune on,” he’ll be dancing in the middle, walking around with the boot box. He’s mental and crazy and genius. He always comes in and has breakfast with us.’
Isaacs concurs: ‘He’s brilliant with us. The way he treats us and has banter with us, it’s just hilarious.
Holloway has taken a big role in the club’s recruitment and wants to improve the academy
‘He put his stamp on the club right when he came in. Every week, whether you win or lose, Monday morning, it’s, “Next week, if you win, good, but these are the things that need to be improved”.’
Traditionally, Swindon are a third-tier club. They’ve spent 64 seasons at that level, far more than at any other.
There was a Premier League jaunt in 1993-94, though they finished bottom and conceded 100 goals in the then 42-game season – a record until Sheffield United had other ideas 30 years later.
But the point stands: this club should not be this far down the pyramid. Their regular attendance of almost 8,000 would not look out of place in League One. They are even planning to redevelop their stadium, though fans shot down initial proposals in June.
Moving forward, they’ll want to do better against the league’s best teams – they’ve lost to two of the three top-six sides they’ve faced this campaign, Salford and Walsall.
Holloway’s strategy is to take risks first and ask questions later. A haul of 13 goals conceded is far from leaky, but it’s average at best. His priority is for his defenders to play out from the back, even if they make mistakes, though he does plan to shore up the backline.
‘Did I inherit a team that was good at defending? Not at all,’ he said recently. ‘I value my back line keeping a clean sheet, but not as much as my front lads scoring and creating goals. Everything we do is geared towards hurting the opposition’s back line.
‘If we’re 3-0 up, I want four. If we’re 4-0 up, I want five. If we’re 5-0 up, I want six and so on. I want to fight, and I want to kill teams off.’
Holloway and his wife have moved house a grand total of 48 times. A comical number, the type that would only make sense in the world of good old Ollie. But after some time in the wilderness, it looks like he has found a home.
Holloway and his wife Kim have moved house 48 times. Have they now found a home?
The managerial merry-go-round
Jack Wilshere has emerged as an early contender for the Luton Town job as he looks to land his first permanent gig.
The 33-year-old impressed coaching Arsenal’s Under 18s and was unbeaten as Norwich’s interim boss to end last season.
Luton sacked Matt Bloomfield earlier this week after a disappointing start to the season, with the Hatters sat 11th in League One after two consecutive relegations.
The final straw was a 2-0 loss at high-flyers Stevenage on Saturday and Luton have collected just four points from their last five league games.
This column can also report that Richie Wellens and Ian Evatt have been sounded out for the Blackpool job.
Wellens has impressed at Leyton Orient, who he led to the League One play-offs last campaign after winning the League Two title in 2023. That said, they have had a poor start to this season.
Evatt has been out of work since January after being sacked by Bolton. He spent four-and-a-half years there, leading them out of League Two and restoring them as challengers for promotion to the Championship.
Blackpool’s situation is much more desperate than Luton’s. The Tangerines are 23rd in League One and recently parted ways with Steve Bruce after picking up eight points in 11 games.
Jack Wilshere has emerged as an early contender for the managerial job at Luton Town
Richie Wellens (left) and Ian Evatt (right) have been sounded out for the Blackpool gig
Youngsters hoping to shine for England
The EFL continues to be a breeding ground for England’s future talent.
Lee Carsley has named nine EFL stars in his latest Under 21s squad, five of them on loan from the Premier League, for their upcoming Euro qualifiers against Moldova and Andorra.
One of the most exciting is Manchester City youngster Divin Mubama, who has hit the ground running at Stoke.
The forward scored in the 95th-minute on debut against Derby, and added another header on his second outing against Sheffield Wednesday.
Mubama, 20, has Premier League pedigree, having played in the top flight for both West Ham and City, and will hope to follow in the footsteps of Jermain Defoe, who attended the same secondary school in East London.
Another man aiming for his first Under 21s cap is Preston wing-back Thierry Small. He has impressed hugely since joining from Charlton on a free, bringing a touch of flair to the left flank and scoring in his last two games to endear himself to the Deepdale faithful.
Max Alleyne is in the same boat. Last season he was Manchester City’s Under 21s player of the year and broke onto Pep Guardiola’s bench; this year he is a regular at Watford.
Some will be hoping an England camp can help them kick on back home. In net, James Beadle is expected to retain his England No1 spot despite struggling to break into Birmingham’s team over veteran Ryan Allsop.
Divin Mubama has stepped up to England’s Under 21s after an instant impression at Stoke City
Thierry Small has been given a shot by Lee Carsley after showing good form at Preston
And in midfield, Sydie Peck will try and bring a winning formula back from camp to Sheffield United. The 21-year-old academy graduate captained the Blades against Ipswich earlier this season, a rare glimmer of light in a dire campaign which sees the club prop up the Championship.
Congratulations are also in order to Lakyle Samuel, a Bromley loanee who got the chance to train with England’s senior team on Wednesday.
The 19-year-old is on assignment in League Two from Manchester City and is part of England’s Under 20s. He introduced himself to Bromley’s fans at the weekend with an assist on his home debut.