COACH CONTROL: Ashley Westwood is JSW's masterstroke in getting BFC up, running & dreaming big
THE CHARGE OF having a "frog in a well" mentality has stuck with Indian football for a few decades now. Not being in touch and up to date with the footballing administrative and coaching methods of the rest of the world has, in no small parts, influenced the constant downward slide of ranking and stature of Indian football.
In order to stand out from that, and even do something anti-thetical to the traditional way of running a club in India, JSW needed to instill within Bengaluru FC a philosophy and work ethic that was aggressive, hard on discipline and compatible with a modern, 21st century idea of a professional football club. Appointing Ashley Westwood as the club's head coach was a masterstroke that helped their cause by a great deal.
The young former assistant manager of Blackburn Rovers had been through all the ropes of English football as a player. A defender out of the Manchester United youth system, he never got to make a first team appearance for the Red Devils. He would, however, play 5 Premier League games for Bradford City later on; but rest of his career he spent plying his trade at second to fourth tier clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Northampton Town and Wrexham. At Conference side Kettering Town he served as a player-manager for a while. He did some coaching at Blackpool and Blackburn before being given his first position as a head coach at Bengaluru FC.
Westwood brought with him a work-culture and long-term vision that so many Indian clubs constantly fall short of incorporating. Tasked with building a new squad from the scratch, he not only thought of immediate reinforcements but also signings for the longer term. And he brought to the table another thing that most managers in India don't have: good contacts at various European clubs. He got players like John Johnson and Curtis Osano to join BFC; something they probably wouldn't have considered had Westwood not been there. Later, his former Blackpool colleague Michael Appleton would join hands with him to allow Bengaluru FC youngster Udanta Singh to train at Oxford United.
Bengaluru FC went on to make history by winning the I-League on their first ever season. The following season they won the Federation Cup and were in the run to win the I-League again until the last few minutes. Their performance in Asia, too, was better than East Bengal, the only other Indian club in AFC Cup. They have started this season as one of the favourites, too. In terms of consistency and fire-power, BFC have easily been the best club in India over the last three seasons. A large share of the credit for their on-field success goes to their beloved Gaffer.
But his biggest contribution to the club is yet to fully take shape: the integration of youth into the club's fabric. Westwood played no small part in setting up the academy and junior teams in close proximity with the first team. And at a time when most I-League clubs have taken to doing 6-month deals with players due to the ISL-induced block period in every season, Bengaluru FC have insisted on offering long contracts to young players. They made their intent to build a team that will serve them for a decade clear when they handed 3-year deals to a bunch of youngsters including C K Vineeth, Rino Alto, Lalchhuanmawia Ralte, Shankar Sampingiraj, Udanta Singh, Lalthuammawia Ralte and Beikhokhei Beingaichho early in June, only days after the season had ended. And Ashley Westwood is very much at the centre of this enterprise.
What has made Ashley Westwood a fan-favourite figure at Bengaluru FC, though, is the passionate aggression he brings into the game from the sidelines. He is known for his flares of temper during the game; once after being red carded for arguing with the fourth official he broke a mirror at the Salt Lake Stadium's dressing room. During matches he always likes his team to play attacking, entertaining football and often makes offensive-minded substitutions to influence games that have slowed down a bit. Off the field he is good with his tongue as well. During the I-League 2014-15 he played mind games with Mohun Bagan by criticizing their away record and before the historic title decider at Kanteerava on 31st May, he managed to rile up the fans by cooking up a 'Bengaluru FC vs rest of India' dynamic to the game that wasn't quite grounded in reality but proved to be quite effective.
There's no doubt that Ashley Westwood has it easier than most other coaches in Indian football. At Bengaluru FC there is no problem with money, no baggage of "tradition" to resist modernity and dirty internal politics; the banes that majority of the clubs in I-League suffer from. But that does not take away from the fact that from a clean slate, Ashley Westwood lead the efforts to build one of the strongest, best-run clubs in the country that contributes the highest number of players to the national team... all in less than 2 years. That's a rare achievement not just in Indian football, but in the world.
