STEVE MORISON is loving life away from the spotlight as he plots his way to the top from non-league football.
The Millwall legend left some football fans surprised when he announced in the summer he was taking over as manager of Hornchurch, a non-league club in the seventh-tier of English football
His only previous job in football management was with Championship side Cardiff City, where he was sacked almost a year ago.
Morison found himself chomping at the bit to get back into coaching and had no reservations about dropping down a few divisions to do what he loved again.
He told NewsAtDen: “The chairman has been backing me massively in just allowing me to get on with the job and trusting what we’ve been doing on the pitch. And yeah, it’s been great. All the lads have been great, everyone around the football club is fantastic and a really good help. It needed a sense of professionalism brought to it, as much as you can in non-league, and that’s all I’ve tried to do. And hopefully we’ll reap the rewards of it going forward.
“You just get a little more leeway to practice stuff. You put as much pressure on yourself as you would anywhere. Obviously, there’s less scrutiny around it so it’s quite nice from that point of view.
“I had a lot of scrutiny [at Cardiff] because I was a young manager and if I said something it got blown up into something a hell of a lot worse than if someone [else] said something. They can say what you want about young players but if I did it, it was the end of the world.
“But ultimately, it’s a good opportunity to learn, practice stuff, find out what training sessions work, what things don’t work, what you could do better, people skills. Obviously, you’re dealing with lots of different people, people that have got jobs, people who are going to work all day. I’m learning all the time and that’s the most important thing.
Hornchurch have enjoyed a very solid start to the season in the Isthmian League Premier Division, which contains clubs as varied as the older, established sides like Dulwich Hamlet to newer, trendy teams like Hashtag United.
Hornchurch have won three and drawn two of their opening five league games.
Last weekend they beat Fakenham Town in the FA Cup first qualifying round and have been handed a trip to Witham Town, who are one step below Morison’s side in England’s vast football pyramid.
Speaking before Monday’s draw, Morison refused to get carried away with “hopes and dreams” that Hornchurch could go on a crazy cup run.
He said: “I think it just depends how the draw ends up, to be honest. The next round you have the Conference North and South teams come in so if you can plough your way through and avoid anyone who’s in a higher level than you before the big guys come in … we’ll see. Let’s just see, we’ve all got hopes and dreams of getting promoted and having a cup run so we’ll see how the land lies.”
On the prospect of a hypothetical, fantasy third-round FA Cup clash with Millwall in January, Morison said: “That would be incredible. It would be a great day out but as I said we can all dream but we have to get there first.”
The 40-year-old, who enjoyed three spells at The Den and is the third-highest goal scorer in the club’s history, still keeps an eye on Millwall and has liked what he’s seen so far.
He said: “It’s been a solid start. But look the Championship is mental. The nicest thing for Millwall fans now is they’re not looking at the bottom of the table. They’re not sitting there at the start of pre-season going ‘let’s just hope we don’t get relegated.’
“Can they make that next step and get to the play-offs? For me, it’s been a real solid start. They’ve made some really good signings. [Allan] Campbell’s a good signing, [Ryan] Longman’s a great player for the squad. And [Kevin] Nisbet has got a couple of goals already, that’s always good as a striker.
“They’ve invested well. Unfortunately, they didn’t get Kieffer Moore, that would have been a great coup for them. They’ll keep building and see where they are and see if they’re anywhere near where they need to be so they can kick on again.”