The Man from Uruguay: Danny Bergara - A Footballing Journey

In recent years English football supporters have seen the impact that Ars ne Wenger, Jos Mourinho, Rafael Ben tez, Carlo Ancelotti, Roberto di Matteo and Roberto Mancini have made at the top level in club football. Even the English national team has been managed by foreigners Sven-G ran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.Long before foreign managers were commonplace in the English game, Uruguayan Danny Bergara had already blazed the trail for the rest to follow.Bergara is linked with several English football clubs, most famously Stockport County, although it is a little known fact that he was used as a scout and coach by Dave Mackay when his Derby County side played Real Madrid in the European Cup 2nd round way back in 1975. He also spent a two year period working for the England youth team as assistant to John Cartwright, the first foreign national to do so, almost twenty years before Eriksson took charge of the first team.It is probably fair to say that without Bergara's success, both as a coach and manager, the influx of foreign managers into the English game may never have happened. Danny himself, although always believing that his methods and ideas would work, mentioned on many an occasion that he thought he had probably arrived in the country too early. The Man from Uruguay tells Bergara's story from his days as a player in Uruguay and Spain to his superb coaching career in the country that became his second home, England.From his early days as youth coach at Luton Town to becoming the first South American to be named as a manager of an English Football League Club at Rochdale before taking perennial strugglers Stockport County to promotion and four Wembley appearances.His highly successful reign at Edgeley Park ended in very unsavory circumstances, and though he was to win his unfair dismissal case, Bergara was never again able to repeat his earlier success. A spell at Premier League Sheffield Wednesday alongside his oldest friend in the English game, David Pleat, was followed by unsuccessful stints at several lower league clubs. Bergara ending his career as a scout for Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who he worked for until his death in 2007. NB: Please note that this is a revision of the original book with all photos now B/W.