Weirdos and the wonderful ... how events unfolded for Rotherham United manager Paul Warne on the day the Millers were promoted

“HEY, everyone. Good to see you all. Wow, you look like a right set of weirdos.”
A champagne moment for Paul WarneA champagne moment for Paul Warne
A champagne moment for Paul Warne

Paul Warne was announcing himself to a 7pm online Zoom get-together with a bunch of journalists from the written media.

Rotherham United’s long-awaited promotion to the Championship had been confirmed just a few hours earlier on Tuesday June 9 and the manager was about to share his thoughts.

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Warne’s tank had been almost emptied by the stress of the previous few days as Peterborough United and Tranmere Rovers had tried their worst to hold the Millers down.

He was tired, really tired. The strain was creased around his soft, brown eyes but, happily, the twinkle in them was still there.

The press lads all laughed. There was a rogues’ gallery of six of us gurning away on Warne’s screen as he spoke from the media suite at AESSEAL New York Stadium: most of the usual South Yorkshire suspects plus a guy from the Guardian who we’d never seen before but seemed like a very decent chap.

It had been a long day for the boss.

“I got up at 5am,” he revealed. “I wasn’t sleeping. I haven’t slept for quite a few nights now, to be fair. It’s been sort of mounting on me a little bit.

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“I watched the Tiger Woods documentary on Sky Sports — I definitely recommend you watch that — and I was in my gym at seven o’clock running.

“Then I went into work and did some recruitment stuff, just looking at certain things, certain players. Icky (centre-half Michael Ihiekwe) was in with the physio so I had a chat with Icky.

“I then got notification from Paul Douglas (chief operating officer), I think at about a quarter to 11, saying the three leagues had rejected the other options and that it was going down to the EFL option.”

Warne was referring to the vote by Championship, League One and League Two clubs to adopt the EFL proposal that promotions and relegations in seasons forced to end early should be decided on an unweighted points-per-game basis.

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A second poll among League One teams confirmed there was no appetite to continue a 2019/20 campaign that had been halted by coronavirus since early March.

It left him light-heartedly musing on the sixth promotion of his lasting association with the Millers — two as a player, a double as fitness coach and twice as manager — and the possibility of a statue in the grounds of New York

“I have been mentioning it for a long time,” he grinned. “I thought when I was driving in today that it would be there but unfortunately not.”

Much has faded into dust since Warne first pitched up, aged 25, in Rotherham in 1999, not least his hairline, and the boss added: “I can’t decide whether to have it with my collar up or down or with my curtains or no hair.

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“There are a lot of decisions to be made. Has anyone had more than six? Breck (Warne confidant and past player and assistant manager John Breckin) will be counting mine on his total so he will have about 15 now. Six, I am well pleased with that.”

The manager had earlier sipped champagne with his chairman, Tony Stewart, in front of the TV cameras on the New York touchline. He was planning later to have a couple of beers with his staff and players during another Zoom meeting and, later still, there would be something red with his missus, Rachel.

Dangerous territory for a man notorious for not being able to handle his alcohol. No wonder he said: “I’ll have a glass of wine with my wife, go to bed probably at ten o’clock, watch something on Netflix and be asleep by five past.”

As the weirdos asked their questions the conversation turned to the weird: a season without precedent, the lack of fanfare, no crowds, no craziness, joy held back at a social distance, celebrations muted by respect for Covid-19 suffering.

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“I can’t really explain it,” Warne said. “This is not a good analogy but it’s like getting your degree results and you open them but your mum and dad are on holiday. You can’t call them. There were no mobile phones back in the day when I got my degree.

“You’ve got great news but ... it’s not pointless, I don’t mean it like  that ... it’s just strange because you can’t share it properly.

“I drove to the stadium today and there was one Rotherham fan in the car-park. I tooted and waved at him and thought: ‘Wow, I could be the manager of Tickhill, where I live, and get more people wave at me.

“It is really weird but, in the context of the world as it is at the moment, as long as everyone is safe and healthy that’s the main thing.”

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With knots rather than food in his stomach, Warne left the training ground and didn’t need to hear the outcome of the League One vote officially to know that his side had been promoted.

“I went home at about half two starving hungry with a banging headache,” he said. “I took an antihistamine and two pain-killers and went to sleep for about 45 minutes.

“I woke up, put Sky Sports News on and it said Swindon Town had gone up from League Two as champions. Then my phone just exploded with texts and phone calls. The chairman couldn’t get hold of me because there were so many calls.”

Peterborough and Tranmere had argued loudest against the pandemic-hit campaign concluded prematurely but to no avail and second place in the standings after 35 matches was enough to see the Millers return to the second tier at their first attempt.

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The boss thought of his dad. It was a year since Russell Warne had died and the impending date had played on Warne Junior’s mind in the build-up to the voting as he feared the scars of a wrong outcome on an already-emotional day.

He also thought about the people whose jobs could have been at risk without the £6.5-million injection that a place in the Championship brings.

“Apart from me and Richie (assistant manager Barker), it has secured everyone’s future in the club,” he said. “I’d like to think so anyway. Mine and Richie’s jobs are never secure — I understand that.

“You are talking about people’s livelihoods. If we go up this way and it makes our club more financially stable, then why wouldn’t I be proud of that? I am proud. Now I have got far fewer awkward conversations to have than might have been the case.

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“It’s good for the club at this bad time and hopefully it will give people in Rotherham a lot to smile about.”

“It’s poignant for me because it is the anniversary of my father’s death and it sums up the season we have had. We’ve had a lot of heartache in the club, some really sad stories within my coaching and playing staff.

“We have also had some sad stories on the terraces, more than I have ever known. It just feels like we are a really unified club, which makes me really proud.”

By 9pm, the man of the moment had still eaten nothing all day.

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“I came into the ground for five o’clock and had an absolute ‘press off’ with TV and radio,” he told 7pm’s motley crew. “I’ve been here for nearly two and a half hours and then I’m going to have an online call with my players.

“I’m going to have a drink with them and enjoy it all with them as best we can. It will feel strange. It’s just a really surreal day for everyone, innit?

“When I pulled up, there weren’t loads of fans at the stadium. I’m expecting at least 5,000 people on my drive when I get home. Equally spaced, of course, although I’m fairly sure my drive isn’t big enough!”

His mix of humour and concern set the right tone for a momentous finish to a momentous year. Despite his three-way drinking, despite the quiet sense of achievement, this was still, essentially, a sober day.

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“See yer, weirdos,” he chirped as he bade farewell and disappeared into the evening, relaxed yet restless, fighting his exhaustion.

Too much had been at stake. He would savour everything more the following morning as he drove round the homes of his staff hand-delivering presents, when the tension had seeped from his body and mind.

“Not Richie, though,” he smiled. “He’s with his family down in Brighton.

“I know I will wake up tomorrow thinking I can enjoy it over the course of the day. The coffee shops have all reopened so my day will be excellent. That will be my celebration — having three Americanos. Full risk!”

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Having been up at 5am on Tuesday, he lay in bed at 4am on Wednesday replying one by one to the 184 texts that had contributed to the explosion on his phone.

Satisfied but not unduly stirred.

It’s an odd, endearing trait of a character who embraces life so much that moments of high acclaim often find him at his lowest ebb.

“I just don’t do the promotion emotion,” he said.

Weirdo.