No time for sulking as Clark shrugs off play-off heartache

It can be used to describe a star striker sulking when substituted, a goalkeeper waving his arms at a defender over a soft goal, or a manager turning ugly in light of a tough question from a reporter.

Huddersfield Town manager Lee Clark, of course, would never behave like that. Just ask anyone who knows him at the Galpharm Stadium.

Clark doesn’t expect his players to behave like that, either, which is why there is nothing but positivity in the Town camp ahead of today’s League One play-off semi-final first leg at Bournemouth.

Town may have been pushed out of the top two by Southampton in the final weeks of the normal season but they are unbeaten in 25 games.

And who cares if they suffered heartbreak in last season’s play-offs against Millwall? They are back again for more and this time they are planning to get it right.

As for sulking? There is only one person in Clark’s world who is allowed to do to that – and that’s his six-year-old son Bobby on shopping trips!

“I don’t understand people when they say ‘it’s hard to pick them up again the following season if you have play-off disappointment,” says Clark. “Are we all babies? My six-year-old son might be like that if I don’t buy him a football when we go to the shops. He has a little bit of a strop for the rest of the day. But we are all men here!”

When Clark was a Sunderland player back in 1998, he endured one of the biggest play-off heartbreaks in the history of the competition.

The Wearsiders, under the guidance of manager Peter Reid, had bagged a massive 90 points yet still missed out on automatic promotion to Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest. They were firmly expected to beat Charlton Athletic in the play-off final at Wembley and secure an immediate return to the Premier League but ended up losing 7-6 on penalties after throwing the lead away three times during the game.

Memories of that season have been flooding back to Clark in the wake of his current club’s situation.

“I think we would have gone up automatically nine times out of the last 10 years,” he reflects. “But I don’t feel unlucky now because I have been on an even better run as a player. At Sunderland, we lost one game from October until the end of the season, finished on 90 points, but still didn’t get promoted. We lost in the famous play-off final to Charlton.

“No, I don’t feel unlucky now. You have just got to get on with it,” he shrugs. “You have to be a big boy, take it on the chin and go again.”

The Sunderland story will be an important one for Town to remember because, just 12 months after losing to Charlton, they achieved their objective of winning promotion.

Clark insists that his confidence in his players could not be any higher going into the play-offs such has been their response on-and-off the field over the last 12 months.

“We have had a magnificent season and I wouldn’t swap my players for any others in this division,” says Clark bullishly. “These players deserve promotion – but sometimes you don’t always get what you deserve. They couldn’t have done anymore over 46 games, it’s just unfortunate that three teams (Town, Southampton, and Brighton) went on Championship winning runs in the second half of the season and we just got pipped.

“Our secret is work ethic, organisation, good players, desire, never giving up – all those ingredients – skill, scoring goals, keeping balls out of the goal - all those things added together have made us a good side.

“If we are nervous, anxious, or disappointed in any way now, we should be taken off to the mad house,” he added. “And I just wish I’d had this group of players going to Millwall last season. That’s all I can say.”

Town chairman Dean Hoyle this week revealed that Clark is to be offered an extension to his current deal in the summer – regardless of his team’s success or failure in the play-offs.

Hoyle is confident that Clark wants to stay but, for now, the Town manager prefers not to discuss his own future. However, he does admit that he takes nothing for granted in terms of job security.

“I will talk about my situation after the play-offs,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “I am just focused on winning football games right now. I have said, on numerous occasions, that the relationship I have got with the owner has gone beyond ‘chairman and manager’. We have become very good friends but that doesn’t mean I am being complacent about my position. I know he loves Huddersfield Town and if I am not producing the goods for him you don’t know that the exit door won’t be open.”

It is now two-and-half years since Town handed Clark his big break in management and the wait for his first success since retirement as a player may soon be over.

“There is a long way to go but this is what I want to be and what I want to do for the owner and the club,” he said. “I want to get us to the next level and see if we can kick on. But there are three other fantastic sides in the play-offs who want the same. I couldn’t be more confident but I have also got to stress the respect I have for all our opponents.”

Town, who finished third, have not beaten Bournemouth, who finished sixth, as both fixtures this season ended in a draw. They took just a point from two games against fourth-placed Peterborough United but did a double over fifth-placed Milton Keynes Dons. The winners of the two semi-finals meet at Manchester United’s Old Trafford on May 20 for a place in the Championship.

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