....handful of local non-League clubs, most notably Halesowen Town, but also Oldbury United, Tividale, Stourbridge and Hednesford Town, as well as assisting the Wolves academy and WBA reserves.

He has written a fascinating piece for Non-League Today entitled `Shown the Door`.

A change of manager can mean a wholesale clear-out of backroom staff with far reaching consequences for both them and the players.

It has been a very difficult week for everyone involved none more so than the management, players and staff to say it’s been tough is an understatement.

It’s always an anxious time when you work on the backroom staff at a football club when you get a phone call to say a manager has been sacked or left by mutual consent.

Immediately it is a mixture of emotions. First and foremost, you are disappointed that a fellow professional has lost their job - someone that you have been working closely with day-in-day out.

I’ve experienced it a few times now in my career, so I know what to expect following the Gaffer’s departure recently.

It all starts with a phone call from the club. They let you know before the news breaks publicly. They tell you they have made a decision and they are going to make a change. They then let you know who is going who is staying.

But dealing with the news is very tough. You form relationships with people and then all of a sudden you know they won’t be at training.

It’s very strange. It hits you again when you go into the ground, the manager isn’t there and someone else is taking training.

That is the situation I have found myself in on a number of occasions. And quite simply, you have to get on with the job. You have put emotions to aside.

I enjoyed working with John Hill and Matt Clarke at Halesowen. It was great to work alongside two experienced football men and good people. But the decision was made to move them on. That is football, you have to deal with it. There are lots of ups and downs, and as a Physio and along with the other staff you have to concentrate on the players because they will be affected to.

You are employed by the club and have a job to do. It really is crazy the world of football and you get different scenarios at every club. Some managers will be appointed, and they want to bring in a full backroom team - that can include the physio and those who work in the scouting department.

It’s sweeping changes a major reshuffle and overnight a lot of people can find themselves out of work.

At other clubs it’s different. Some clubs will appoint a manager and tell them they have to work with the staff that are already there for others it’s a mixture of both.

Former West Brom, England and now Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has this view regarding backroom staff.

Going into a job today you’ll be thinking: “Who am I going to take with me? What people do I need? You need balance in the people around you. People travel in groups -you don’t just appoint a manager; you appoint a team and they become very, very close. I’ve never done that, and I’m not certain it’s such a good thing. You might lose people in the club who could help you, because they’ve got a good knowledge of the club. Over the years, the people I have inherited at football clubs have turned out to be not only good coaches but very good people. I’ve benefited from them. It would of been a mistake to go in and say “Right all of you out.”

When David Moyes took over at Manchester United, he chose to sack Mike Phelan, despite the advice of his predecessor Alex Ferguson, and he probably regretted it when he found himself out of a job less than 12 months later.

That may have prompted Ferguson to query: “Is it merely about flexing your masculinity by using your status to wield power and ring sweeping changes.”

There’s an argument that the is no point in suddenly changing routines that players are comfortable with.

“It can be counterproductive, saps morale and immediately provokes players to question the new man’s motives,” Ferguson added.

The treatment room is probably as close as football gets to the confessional with the best physio’s offering someone to laugh or cry with and offering a vital role in recovery physical and psychological.

Managers though will often see the signs long before the axe finally falls but spare a thought for the backroom staff whose roles may be equally precarious. They may not become the immediate casualties of a board who have lost faith in the top man but can soon find themselves surplus to requirements when a new manager is appointed.

Gavin Blackwell