David McGurk
David McGurk was the special guest of York City South when he attended an online meeting on October 16. 2024. When doing the introductions, he remembered Joel Stern’s name from his testimonial dinner when Joel organised the YCS table.
City Career - Early Days
As a boy growing up behind Middlesbrough’s ground, he aspired to follow in the footsteps of his early heroes Stuart Ripley and John Hendrie on Boro’s right wing. By the age of 14, he had moved to right back and soon afterwards moved to centre back.
Starting his professional career at Darlington, come the start of the 2004/5 season, he realised in pre-season that his chances would be limited in Division 2 and he put out feelers. Conference sides Scarborough and City showed interest. Scarborough would have been his first choice, 2 former teammates were at the club, but the chance of a deal fell through when they signed Simon Weaver. Instead, he joined City on a month’s loan. Darlo continued to pay all his wages and when the month ended, Darlo refused to extend it on the same basis. His first impressions at City were that we had a hostile crowd (we were struggling to acclimatise to non league football), but were a proper club.
He re-joined City on loan for whole of the 2005/6 season and in June 2006 signed a permanent deal with City.
In total, he spent 10 seasons with City, playing 332 games and scoring 6 goals.
It was with City that he first felt that he was mainstay of a side. Whereas Chris Brass’ side had a lot of players at the end of their career, often injured, and young players, it lacked those players in their mid 20s, something that Billy McEwan addressed. Although McEwan might have been set in his ways, he had the experience and knew exactly what he wanted.
He spoke highly of this time under Martin Foyle when maybe City didn’t always enjoy as much possession, but the players knew their roles and he found many games easy to get through.
As that side started to break up (Richard Brodie and Alex Lawless were key departures), he felt that effectively City were going backwards, needing a 2 or 3 year rebuild, playing some of the best football of his career, he started to question his own future with strong interest from Luton.
It was the arrival of Gary Mills, the players had no idea who was coming in, which re-energised the club and he impressed McGurk from his first day at the club.
City Career - Latter Days
After promotion in 2012, the biggest differences he saw were in the athleticism, technique, physique and pace of the Football League. Of the City side, only Ashley Chambers and Matty Blair had pace. The quality at the top end of the pitch was also very noticeable.
He didn’t expect such big differences.
City’s confidence quickly went downhill when conceding early goals and defeats. On the opening day of the 2012/3 season at Wycombe, when the home side turned the screws, City suffered.
Under Worthington, the signings of Nick Pope, Keith Lowe and John McCombe transformed City into a side that didn’t concede too many shots and even fewer goals. What impressed McGurk about Nick Pope was his positioning, rather than spectacular saves, the ability to be in the right place at the right time. Whilst he felt that City weren’t ready for promotion at the end of that 2013/4 season, he felt it should have put City in a good place. The rest is history.
For his City testimonial in 2012, he was suffering with a calf injury before limping off after 10 minutes.
Memorable Games And Best Players
When asked to recall his most memorable City games, the first that came to mind was City’s 2009 FA Cup win over Crewe with 2 late goals and the win over Cambridge in the next round that earned a trip to Stoke. He felt City were outplayed at Stoke but that day recalled Ricardo Fuller, with his pace and power, was his toughest ever opponent.
A year later, with Gary Mills’ have a go mentality, he felt that City could have got something out of the Bolton game.
That said, he felt both the draws away to Stoke and Bolton were an anti climax.
Talk turned to that tackle at Luton. McGurk recalled it being just instinct and when he saw the attacker take a touch, causing him to momentarily slow down, he felt in control, knowing he’d get the ball, knowing he wouldn’t mistime the tackle, something that would have meant an almost certain red card.
There were no real surprises when he named the best City players he played with, including Clayton Donaldson (the first player he named, “he stood out”), Nick Pope, James Meredith, Neal Bishop and Martyn Woolford. He also mentioned Senegalese international Iliman Ndiaye (now Everton), who he signed on loan from Sheffield United for Hyde in early 2020.
Contacts
He often speaks with Paddy McLaughlin, Matty Blair and Michael Potts and is in contact with many of his other teammates via social media. Paddy told him that Hinsh got his methods across to the players last season and really nailed it in the summer. He said that Paddy is very impressed with Hinsh.
Non League 2014 - 2022
McGurk dropped down to part time National League North football with Harrogate in 2014, his body couldn’t take the strain of full time football. Over the years, he has noted how much the standards of non league football have risen, both fitness and standards noting that part time football coupled with a day job was often more remunerative.
After Harrogate came a spell at Hyde where he moved from playing into management.
Post Playing
Covid had an impact. First, the amount of mental health issues affecting his players increased, looking back, he’d encourage everyone to speak to others about their problems. Then, his logistics / supply role with The Modern Milkman increased exponentially as the country went into lockdown and post covid, he noted the increased council regulations with his Pro Player Football Academy based in Wakefield with sites in Rotherham and Gateshead.
With an increasing workload and fearing burn out, he took stock of his situation. He resigned as Hyde manager and from his Milkman role. Meanwhile he sold his coaching academy to Kingsley James.
As a player, he would enjoy his successes, as a manager, he had no time for enjoyment, his thoughts turning immediately to what’s next.
Today - Body
Today, his body is holding up well. Since giving up coaching 3 years ago (2021) and with no more time spent on the coaching pitch, no more bending down putting out cones, he can manage his body, he has no back pain. Indeed, he put off a back operation, which doctors advised would probably lead to further operations higher up his spine.
In February 2023, he spent a brief time with City working under
Mikey Morton but on further consideration (including commitment required, health, family circumstances, including City’s schedule, including the amount of travel (City were in the middle of 6 away trips to London and beyond in under 6 weeks)).
Even so, it was a difficult decision to say no to his good friend and to say no to what he had seen as one of the goals of his coaching journey, to get back to York.
Today - Work
Today, McGurk is working with Mikey Morton where they building up a library of game analysis and coaching work practices (masterclasses). Currently they have over 28,000 followers and 350 paid subscribers. They have built up a library over 500 practices and are working to increase that number to 3,000. Recently they have started providing set piece plays for a few clubs at home and abroad whilst Jamie Carragher is a follower and has used their analysis of Newcastle’s Joelinton and Arne Slot’s use of Liverpool’s overlapping full backs as the basis for some of his Sky Sports analysis.
He noted, no matter what defensive set up a team employs, there is always a weakness.
His spoke very highly of Mikey Morton’s tactical intelligence and acumen and believes that he understands Marcelo Bielsa’s methods better than anyone.
At the moment, they are steering clear of VR technology believing it doesn’t give the range of peripheral vision required.
When asked about the appointment of Thomas Tuchel as England Manager, he was supportive noting that he was the best person for the job. He noted how all the top managers (Guardiola, Kopp, Conte and Simeon included) know how to manage the whole club and have fantastic coaching staffs around them. They all have a certain aura around them (“even when Fergie wasn’t there, you knew he was there”), they know exactly what they want. He cited Pep Ljinders, Klopp’s trusted coach at Liverpool now struggling in his manager role at Red Star Salzburg.
McGurk thought England has many top coaches, citing the young talent coming out of the academies, but questioned where the managers are. The FAs various coaching licenses cover coaching very well, but only the top licence, the pro licence including management modules.
He outlined how Roberto Mancini had bossed Gareth Southgate on the touchline during the European Championships Final, with Southgate never giving England any momentum during the game.
David gave YCS members one month’s free access to the paid area of his web site, see Tactxcoach and Twitter / X at @Tactx.
Modern Day Issues
As a City player, he never felt overworked but noted how Premier League players are in a constant travel, play, recover, repeat cycle and “players don’t have a life” but that playing too many games is the sacrifice of being a good footballer.
He had sympathy for clubs withdrawing from the National League Cup and felt that scrapping FA Cup repays was ”protecting top clubs”.
He likes the tribalism of the English and questioned whether that would ever be repeated in games between English and continental clubs.
Along The Way