A thousand games yet I'm still learning

ANDY PREECE remembers clearly the feeling of standing in the away dressing room at Gillingham to give his first team talk as Bury's caretaker manager.

- MATT BADCOCK

"It's an unbelievable pressure because straight away the players are judging you," Preece says. "They're either going to think you know what you're talking about or that you haven't got a clue! "Fortunately it went well. It's all on results. If they'd gone bad there's no way I would have got the job.

"You can do what you want, you can be the best manager in the world with the best preparation and do everything right. But it's all about winning games of football." This Saturday, the Chorley boss will stand in the away dressing room at Chester. It will be his 1,000th game in management -835 as manager, 165 as Jamie Vermiglio's assistant at the National League North Magpies And it all started in 1999 at Bury, then in Leaue One.

"It was just before Christmas when Neil Warnock left for Sheffield United," Preece, 57, says. "Steve Redmond and me were the oldest players. I'd been taking the reserves - only a couple of games and been doing my B Licence. Terry Robinson asked if I could just help out until he could get a manager.

"Literally I had no thoughts it would go further. I was 32, I was still playing. Redders wanted to play, he didn't really want to go into management but he supported me, so I took the lead role from the beginning.

"The first game was Gillingham away. We lost 1-0. But someone interviewed me after the game and one of the newspapers wrote something really nice about me. I just really enjoyed the experience.