Moss Rose was once described as the kind of place from where only a misanthropist would want to send a “Wish you were here” postcard. Which isn’t the kindest description when there will be supporters of Macclesfield Town who are very fond of this unpretentious little ground. But understandable, all the same, when you take into account the strangely lopsided stands, the matchstick floodlights, the confusing lack of symmetry and the fact the roof at one end is so low down the third‑floor residents of Mulberry Court, the block of flats next door, can see on to the pitch.

A more generous description, perhaps, is that there is a lot more charm to be found at these kinds of lower-league grounds than some of the identikit bowls in out-of-town industrial estates higher up the football ladder. There is something rather endearing about the fact the pitch at Macclesfield has perimeter advertising boards for Mandarin House, a local Chinese takeaway, and the walls are lined with pictures of the team that beat Northwich Victoria to win the 1996 FA Trophy. The toast at the Silkmen Cafe is, as the menu promises, hot and buttery. The ale is served in Butch’s Bar and though the club shop – no megastore here – had a sign saying it was open, the lights were off and the door was locked when I arrived for Sol Campbell’s introductory press conference.

Sol Campbell: ‘Macclesfield fans will probably think: what’s going on here?’ Read more

Campbell pulled up a seat on the faded carpets of the McIlroy Suite. The hills on the horizon were a reminder of the beauty and wealth that exists in parts of Cheshire (never forget that Muttley McLad, lead singer of the Macc Lads, was actually called Tristan) and it was an unexpected bonus, behind one stand, to come across a workman in fluorescent orange scratching off the last remnants of a faded, barely distinguishable Manchester City sticker – the last reminder, possibly, from when the two sides played here in September 1998, amazing as it sounds now, on an equal footing in what is now League One. “City will have left the engine running on the team coach,” as one match report snootily put it.

Twenty years on, the two clubs are poles apart in every sense and, if Macclesfield are to pull off a feat of escapology from the bottom rung of League Two, their new manager will have backed up all his talk. Campbell, after all, has been telling us for quite some time that he will make a brilliant manager and that it is madness the rest of the football world cannot necessarily see it.

It's perfectly legitimate to wonder why the best Campbell could find was the Football League's bottom club

If he can save the Football League’s wooden-spoon club, his rhetoric won’t open himself to quite so much ridicule (Exhibit A: referring to himself as “one of the greatest minds in football”). At least he will be able to supply the hard evidence that he was right – and that the industry should have given him his opportunity long before now.

He is certainly an interesting character, Sol. Not everyone is entirely convinced, it is fair to say, and if we are being totally candid his braggadocio and occasional lack of humility makes it no surprise, football being the industry of schadenfreude, that the people wishing him well (this correspondent included) must be aware there are quite a few others who are rubbernecking in Macclesfield’s direction to see if he falls flat on his face.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sol Campbell poses for a photo at Exeter City, where he saw Macclesfield win 1-0 in midweek. Photograph: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK

Nor does he help himself sometimes, bearing in mind that jarring moment at Thursday’s press conference when it became apparent that, no, we hadn’t misheard him and, two minutes in, he was indeed congratulating Macclesfield for hiring a manager he described as previously being one of the greatest footballers in the world, as if it were perfectly normal to refer to himself that way. Or he wasn’t aware, perhaps, that putting your international caps on the table didn’t stop, say, Bobby Moore or Bobby Charlton – players from another level of greatness – from making lousy managers.

That lack of self-awareness doesn’t tend to go down well in the dressing rooms of League Two and is certainly an issue if my impression of Campbell is correct: that he doesn’t necessarily realise how he comes across sometimes, that he is not the easiest man to read, or embrace, and that he might not have the skills set, judging from some of the stuff he comes out with, to leave any real sense that he is a natural team builder.

When Campbell has argued in the past that he has been held back from management because of the colour of his skin he might have a very credible point when there is so much evidence of how much harder it is for someone with BAME background to be offered work. Yet there are others who will argue it is too simplistic in his case to believe the only reason he has been kept waiting is because he is black. And maybe there is something in that, too, when the industry is so gossipy and there are so many stories about his less attractive traits – arrogance, pomposity, self-entitlement, call it what you will – that might not sit well with potential employers.

The latest example comes from Peter Crouch’s new book and is about their time together at Portsmouth and Campbell’s apparent habit of having two-hour massages until two minutes before every game. Portsmouth had two masseurs and Campbell would commandeer them both, one for each leg. Sometimes, the other players would complain. “He’d raise his head briefly,” Crouch writes, “and look expressionless. ‘When you’ve got 70 caps for England, come back and talk to me again.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sol Campbell in England training in 2006, with Gary Neville (left), Steven Gerrard (second left) and Frank Lampard (right), who had more elevated starts to their managerial careers. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

Troy Townsend, of Kick It Out, wrote a supportive article for the Times on Friday to commend Campbell for his perseverance and strength of character. Even then, however, Townsend could not brush over the fact that one of the challenges for Campbell included “people in football thinking you’re just a bit odd”.

The time for example – and no apologies for repeating this one – when the then sports minister, Helen Grant, arranged a summit at Whitehall to discuss the lack of black managers and Campbell demanded an explanation from Dan Ashworth, the FA’s technical director, about why Gary Neville had been fast-tracked through the system. Fair enough, but when Ashworth spoke favourably about Neville’s work in the England setup the reply was a comedic: “But I am Sol Campbell.” Ashworth tried to continue and, again, a hand went up. “But I am Sol Campbell,” louder this time, more indignant. There are even anti-racism campaigners who can hear those five words and laugh at the tumbleweed floating across the room that day. And word gets around. Being perceived as odd might not stop someone from being a good football manager. It might, however, count against you in the selection process, especially when football clubs can attract 200-plus applicants for managerial vacancies.

Sol Campbell: ‘I’m prepared to go to a non-league club and just get a win bonus’ Read more

Ultimately, though, I hope Campbell makes a decent fist of it, bearing in mind we are coming up for 2019 and, rather pathetically, I find myself encouraged by the fact there are now eight BAME managers in the game. Eighteen months ago the figure was two – so small steps, and all that. But how absurd is it that eight out of 92 can feel like a minor breakthrough?

The sport can hardly congratulate itself when there is still so much incontrovertible evidence – ignore the data and just use your eyes – that black managers do not get the same chances as white managers. Campbell has been kept waiting until the age of 44 (though, interestingly, he says he has applied for only 10-to-15 jobs over a seven‑year period) and, for a man widely accused of having a superiority complex, at least he has not turned up his nose about the idea of starting at the bottom.

Since 1990 he is only the sixth black man to play for England and then go into management and if it doesn’t work out for him at Macclesfield the harsh reality is that he should not expect another chance. According to the League Managers Association, almost two thirds of all the black managers who have passed through the Football League never get a second job.

It is tough out there. Just not as tough, perhaps, for some of his former England colleagues. Neville went from England’s ordeal at Euro 2016, as Roy Hodgson’s assistant, to the top job at Valencia. Steven Gerrard has begun his managerial career at Rangers and Frank Lampard at Derby. Gareth Southgate started at Middlesbrough, Stuart Pearce at Manchester City and David Platt at Sampdoria. True, Tony Adams, Teddy Sheringham and Dennis Wise all set out in the lower divisions with Wycombe, Stevenage and Swindon but it is perfectly legitimate to wonder why the best Campbell could find, like Paul Ince before him, was Macclesfield, the 92nd-placed club in the country, and how long it might be before the diversity on the pitch, with 25‑to‑30% of the players from BAME backgrounds, is even close to being matched in the dugouts. No time soon, can be the only conclusion.

Sign up for the Recap, our weekly roundup of editors’ picks.

Wolves are ignoring the old golden rule: don’t believe the hype

There was always something faintly ludicrous about the way, half a dozen games into the new season, Phil Neville declared on Match of the Day 2 that Wolverhampton Wanderers were the best team to be promoted since the Premier League era began over a quarter of a century ago.

A little research – a quick search of Wikipedia, nothing too onerous – might have informed Neville that Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United finished third in 1993-94 and the Nottingham Forest side managed by Frank Clark did likewise the following year, both of them finishing above, among others, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Two months on, it looks even sillier now Wolves have fallen into the bottom half of the table, with five defeats from their last six games, three successive losses at Molineux and not a single away fixture this season when they have managed more than one goal.

The best promoted team of the Premier League era? It is not their fault a trigger-happy television pundit wanted to fluff them up so out of proportion, but there might be a case that some of the players have been seduced by the publicity. In one interview on Friday, before the 2-1 defeat at Cardiff, Matt Doherty said that Wolves had ambitions to win the Premier League within five to six years. Maybe so, but there is a PR rule that the top clubs tend to go by and it is very sensible: achieve first, then do your talking.