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Honved job will take me out of my comfort zone

Courts reveals plan to breathe new life into Honved and meets with ULTRAS in plea for patience

By Graeme Croser

IN THE car park of Honved Budapest’s impressive training complex sits a garish yellow Mustang, an abandoned toy that symbolises the waste that took one of Hungary’s great clubs to the brink of relegation. Keen to install a correcting influence, the Honved hierarchy took the advice of their new sporting director Chris Docherty and selected Tam Courts to be their new manager.

On certain days, you’ll find the Lochgelly native zipping around Budapest on an electric scooter. Otherwise, he’s content to make do with a modest club pool car — thus far his biggest financial indulgence has been in settlement of the dozen or so parking tickets he has accumulated while finding his bearings in one of Europe’s most elegant cities.

‘I’ve got a new-found respect for the foreign players I signed at Dundee United,’ he says. ‘They’d go through a process of immigration and I’m going through that myself now in Hungary.

‘I’m like the graceful swan above water — but the feet are paddling like hell underneath. That’s what it felt like for the first two weeks.

‘But I’m the type of guy who is comfortable in challenging situations. My family are here and Budapest is a beautiful city.’

The word challenging might be an understatement.

Courts’ team have lost the first

two matches of the

The people of Kispest will accept a defeat but won’t accept a lack of effort

Hungarian league season as he attempts to remedy a crisis of form and confidence that stretches back years.

He’s attacked the task with the honesty and enthusiasm that carried him all the way from part-time management at Kelty Hearts to steering Dundee United to European football for the first time in a decade.

But for all his unaffected Fife charm, there’s also a healthy dose of courage in Courts’ locker.

Few could summon the guts to enter a pub full of angry Ultras, far less stand in front of them and plead for patience.

After surveying the scale of the job facing him, Courts felt he had no choice but to meet the club’s hardcore following and try to earn their respect.

Armed only with his message and the company of sports director Docherty, Courts met 20 of the local Kispest Ultras on their own territory and laid out his plan to clean up the mess he inherited.

‘There was a lot of energy in the room,’ he says, choosing his words carefully. ‘They are very intense but that is part and parcel with an ultras fanbase.

‘The people of Kispest are working class and they expect a certain type of performance.

‘I think they will accept defeat but they won’t accept a lack of effort.

‘We wanted to go there and say that we think we understand what they are looking for. We can’t guarantee it will happen overnight but we think we can get there.

‘At United, we did something similar — Tony Asghar, me and a couple of players went to a pub in Dundee.

‘And the way I was appointed at Dundee United has prepared me for a lot — to be under scrutiny, to have attention and some negativity.’

Given his sudden rise to prominence at Tannadice last year — he was promoted from a role with the club’s academy after the departure of Micky Mellon — it would be easy to mistake Courts for an overnight success.

‘People say to me it’s all happened so quickly over the last four or five years but it’s not happened quickly for me!’ says Courts.

‘Sitting at 2am with a Calor gas fire in a little Portakabin at Kelty. Making myself unemployed, working part-time.

‘I made some crazy decisions back in those Kelty days.

‘I was in a well-paid job working for Insights as a global resourcing manager. I remember sitting on holiday in Morocco and saying to my partner Sammy that when we go back I’m resigning to go full-time at Kelty.

‘Back then, it was a part-time salary, two figures per week. I had three kids at the time but I just had this belief that to do this properly I needed to throw myself into it.

‘That coincided with a crazy journey at Kelty where we were very successful. Taking the academy job at Dundee United was probably a left-field move but it got me into a full-time environment.

‘Sometimes the inner belief takes over and the risky and bold move pays off.

‘I know this job is going to take me to the edge of my capabilities. But nothing has shocked or surprised me.’

Off the pitch, Courts has secured a city-centre apartment on the Pest side of the Danube that serves as home for Sammy and his baby son Zac.

He’s arranged a rare day off and we meet in the café of the opulent Parisi Udva hotel, situated near the banks of the river with views of a cityscape that rivals Edinburgh in the urban beauty stakes.

A family trip to Margaret Island is on the cards in the afternoon and he parts with the promise of an alternative grand tour the following morning.

As arranged, he and Docherty arrive in the club Volkswagen and drive Sportsmail to the Kispest neighbourhood for a walk round of the club’s brand-new stadium and training complexes.

The Hungarian government has encouraged investment into all of the country’s top clubs, one of the more benign initiatives of Victor Orban’s right-wing administration.

Courts’ sole preoccupation is internal politics and he has set about detoxifying the mood that has plagued Honved for years.

Once the club of Ferenc Puskas and regular European Cup participants, Honved’s 2017 championship win stands as their their solitary title victory in the last 30 seasons.

It happens to be his 41st birthday and he doesn’t want for congratulation as he does the rounds of technical and support staff, a sign that at least some of the negativity that has dogged the club is lifting.

An extensive clearout of the playing squad was already underway when he made the controversial decision to sell club captain Bence Batik to rivals Puskas Academia last week.

Selling Batik was designed to draw a line under a troubled era but there has been a physical hangover from last term, with top scorer Nenad Lukic playing catch-up on his fitness and Courts’ new signings, many who were free agents, still searching for full sharpness.

‘Eleven players moved on just before I arrived and five or six more have gone since I came in,’ he reveals.

‘One of the biggest decisions was to sell the captain. That caused a bit of a furore.

‘When you come into the job and see that the team has lost 100-plus goals in the last two seasons, you have to make big decisions.

‘Honved has endured a traumatic two years and it would be catastrophic for the club to go down. So we’ve got a strategy now to work with academy players and build a sustainable future.

‘We’ve signed five or six and have a budget for one more.

‘We’ve had two or three academy players in each game so far. It’s similar to the path we went down at United.

‘We’ve signed players from clubs who did well last season but they came to us not fully fit. We need to play them to get them up to speed.’

For the dressing room there has also been the process of, quite literally, adapting to a new voice. Courts’ Fife accent was distinctive enough in a Scottish context and he is sufficiently self-aware to fear falling into Steve McClaren territory when he communicates with his players or the local media.

‘I don’t want any memes of me online — that’s the last thing I need, to be talking like a local Hungarian in a Scottish accent!’ he laughs.

‘You become very aware of your communication. If you use a translator, how many sentences before they talk?

‘The dressing room needs regular interaction here and it’s about how I use my presence. How often do I talk, do they feel an energy from me?

‘I think 80 per cent of what we’ve delivered so far has been picked up well.

‘My assistant head coach (Ramon Tribulietx) speaks three languages, so he’s been very useful.

‘Hungarian is one of the most difficult to learn, so other than pleasantries and coaching vocabulary, it’s been hard to pick that up.

‘But I’ve got a few stock phrases. You want to prove you can communicate in their language, even if it’s just a few words.’

As much as he seems in his element, the thought persists that Courts’ stock was high enough this year that he could have chosen an easier path for his next career move. He flips that logic on its head.

‘At 41 years old, after the season I had at Dundee United, I can afford to take a risk,’ he says. ‘I got down to the last two for a job in the English Championship and everyone around me said I had to go there if I was offered the job.

‘But I actually wanted to come to Honved. The drive to come abroad was just so strong.

‘For whatever reason, there aren’t many British coaches who do it.

‘I’ve just got this inner drive to try something different, something that takes you so far out of your comfort zone that it lets you see what you’re all about.

‘It’s been very fast paced and allconsuming but in a positive way.

‘As a manager, you’re the guy everyone looks to for stability and direction. But when you move to a different country, stability is the thing you don’t have in your life.

‘So it took me a couple of weeks to get to that point.

‘Once we got to Slovenia for a training camp, I really got to know the staff and players.

‘It’s similar to Dundee

It feels like you’re building the plane while you’re actually flying it too!

United. I hadn’t worked with the people there either, so it feels like you’re building the plane while you’re flying it.’

Compact yet furnished to a high specification, Honved’s Bozsik Stadium has a capacity of just over 8,000 and will draw crowds of around 7,000 for the bigger matches.

‘Football is very saturated in the city,’ adds Courts. ‘You have Ferencvaros, Ujpest and multiple other clubs in Budapest.

‘The style is different here. There’s less contact, which might be down to VAR.’

A narrow home defeat to Zalaegerszegi on the opening night was followed by last Sunday’s 4-0 away loss at Fehervar, the club formerly known as Videoton.

Back on home turf for tonight’s visit of Paksi, Courts is quietly confident his team is ready to start picking up points.

‘We’ve lost two games but there have been a lot of positives in there,’ he adds. ‘We need a win to build confidence and momentum but I still feel we’re heading in the right direction.

‘It’s a huge challenge but one that, in the fullness of time, I believe we’ll get right.

‘There comes a point when you have a breakthrough. At United, it was when we beat Rangers in the second game of last season.

‘We’re still looking for that here but I feel confident it will come.’

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