Martyn Waghorn lifts lid on Mark Fotheringham's 134-day Huddersfield Town reign and arrival of Neil Warnock
Martyn Waghorn has admitted he “didn’t really see the method behind the madness” during Mark Fotheringham’s reign as Huddersfield Town boss.
Fotheringham was a left-field hire for the Terriers when he succeeded Danny Schofield at the helm in September 2022.
He had never previously held a head coach role, having worked as an assistant in Germany and Scotland.
His tenure was brought to an end after just 134 days, with Huddersfield embroiled in a battle for Championship survival.
Martyn Waghorn on Mark Fotheringham
Waghorn was among the players recruited during Fotheringham’s spell as boss, having joined on loan from Coventry City, and has lifted the lid on what it was like to play under him.
During an appearance on football podcast Undr The Cosh, the retired forward said: “My agent rings and says ‘Huddersfield are in for you’. I’d fallen out with Coventry at this time so I’ve waived a lot of bonuses. I don’t care, I want to go and leave.
“I went to Huddersfield. I knew Kenny Miller, he was the assistant. He was like ‘are you ready for this?’. He said ‘it’s f*****g hard’. I was like ‘you could have told us this two weeks ago!’. I said I was ready for it, I’m desperate to get out and play again.
“He was so intense. With Uwe (Rosler, his former Wigan Athletic boss), there was kind of a method behind the madness. With Mark, I didn’t really see the method behind the madness. He was full on.
“But when you spoke to him on an individual level, it was really good. The information was good. But the translation from off the field to on the pitch, everyone was all over the shop. In an environment, you lost the lads straight away. Once you do that, with the running, information, everything going on, it’s hard to pull it back. It’s really difficult.”
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Martyn Waghorn on Neil Warnock
Following Fotheringham’s dismissal, Huddersfield turned to an accomplished firefighter in Neil Warnock.
The managerial veteran added another ‘great escape’ to his CV, steering the Terriers to safety.
Waghorn said: “They’ve (Fotheringham and Miller) gone into a club, we’re down the bottom, it’s probably not what you need. You just need someone to steady the ship really, which is what we got with Neil Warnock coming in. [He was] top, top tier.
“That’s what the club needed. They didn’t need madness, they didn’t need everything all over the shop. They were quite a basic team in terms of what they were like - very drilled, 4-4-2. That’s what they were, they just didn’t need bodies flying everywhere.”
Fotheringham is now a first-team coach at Celtic, while Warnock has retired from management and advises non-league outfit Torquay United.