Ralf Rangnick may be the uber-coach chosen to save Man United but he was 'nothing outstanding' as a player, say his old team-mates! Once a skinny 21-year-old at Sussex University, his humble roots saw him struggle
- Ralf Rangnick was once a skinny student playing football at Sussex University
- His old team-mates remember him as being 'nothing outstanding' as a player
- In a team full of ex-pros, Rangnick never did establish himself in the midfield
- Rangnick, 63, still reflects fondly on his time in Southwick, broken ribs and all
When Paul Ifill sent his dad the Southwick FC team photo from the 1979-80 season this week, there was a name among them that Everton Ifill could remember but couldn't quite place.
One of them was Ralf Rangnick, the godfather of German football management and incoming interim at Manchester United, then only a skinny 21-year-old foreign student at Sussex University.
Was *that* him, the serious-looking young man squatting on the front row, second in from the right, with a thatch of curly hair and arms hanging limply with his elbows in his knees?
![Ralf Rangnick, the soon-to-be Manchester United boss, was 'nothing outstanding' as a player](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/22/51047137-10249915-image-m-16_1638050432365.jpg)
Ralf Rangnick, the soon-to-be Manchester United boss, was 'nothing outstanding' as a player
![Pictured above: the 1979-80 Southwick FC team that uber-coach Rangnick (circled) played for](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/21/51047131-10249915-image-a-11_1638050394316.jpg)
Pictured above: the 1979-80 Southwick FC team that uber-coach Rangnick (circled) played for
There were 13 lads on the photo. Everton, a striker back then, could name 10 of them. He phoned around a few of the ones he still knew, the ones still with us. They came to the consensus, yes, that was Rangnick, in between club captain Phil Quinlan and Stan Brown, the ex-Fulham midfielder.
It comes as no surprise that there's been a buzz between the old Southwick FC boys of that season, the ones who were a missed penalty on the final day away from winning the Sussex County League, over the past couple of days. The team photo passed around, memories of that quiet German lad exchanged.
Only there aren't that many of them. It's 40 years ago for starters so the recollection is not quite as sharp as it once was but, more than anything, there's not much to remember. He blended in. He was 5ft 10in, slight build. Little about Rangnick stood out, other than his politeness and dedication. Not his talent, that's for sure.
![Rangnick, the godfather of German football management, once studied aged 21 in Sussex](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/22/51047135-10249915-image-a-17_1638050440647.jpg)
Rangnick, the godfather of German football management, once studied aged 21 in Sussex
'He worked hard but he was nothing outstanding,' Ifill, now 69, father to former Millwall and Crystal Palace forward Paul, and now living in Spain, tells The Mail on Sunday. 'It was difficult for him. I was the only black player in the side, so I was in a similar sort of position.
'But I had come from a different football background, I was local, people knew what I could do. He came from nowhere and from a different culture. It was harder for him to establish himself. But it didn't put him off, he worked his nuts off.'
In a team full of ex-pros, Rangnick never did establish himself in the midfield, playing just 11 first-team games in the season. His debut was in a 3-3 draw with Steyning Town in front of a crowd of 154.
He was not helped by receiving a tackle in one of his early games that was of such agricultural proportions that Ragnick suffered three broken ribs and a punctured lung.
![In a team full of ex-pros, Rangnick never did establish himself in the midfield at university](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/22/51047133-10249915-image-m-19_1638050450825.jpg)
In a team full of ex-pros, Rangnick never did establish himself in the midfield at university
'One of those robust challenges you were allowed to do in those days,' fellow team-mate Adrian Batchelor, now 63, tells The Mail on Sunday. Rangnick was in hospital for three weeks and out of action for four months.
However painful the experience, it was yet another lesson for Rangnick, another morsel of football knowledge to scoop up on his way to becoming one of the most influential football minds of our time. He began to learn, so he said later, about 'typical England kick and rush' football.
'When he got Schalke to the Champions League semi-final I remember telling my boys and some of my mates that I'd played in the same team as him,' recalls Batchelor. 'They were all like "yeah, yeah, yeah". That's changed all of a sudden.'
All the stories those old team-mates tell now are of a quiet, kind man, a ferocious worker who turned up an hour-and-a-half before matches to prepare. A coach in the making. When they look back now, it almost seems obvious.
![All the stories those old team-mates tell now are of a quiet, kind man and a ferocious worker](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/22/51047161-10249915-image-a-20_1638050497051.jpg)
All the stories those old team-mates tell now are of a quiet, kind man and a ferocious worker
David Plant was Southwick's centre-half and, after every match and every training session, Rangnick would drive him home to Falmer before he headed back to his student digs. They spoke about football.
'He was a bread-and-butter footballer but extremely keen, extremely fit and a big thinker,' Plant tells The Mail on Sunday. 'A great studier of the game. He talked like a coach.'
This is, after all, a coach who when in charge of Stuttgart's reserve team watched and rewound so many tapes of Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan that he broke the video equipment.
Plant can't remember what car he drove. In an old player profile of Rangnick released by the club this week, he said he drove a Fiat. 'That sounds about right,' says Plant. It was small, a student's car, he says. It might even have been left-hand drive. He can't remember, it's a long time ago.
Batchelor, a right-back in those days, remembers that player profile. It's telling, he says. Not that his favourite player was Gary Birtles. Or that he hates science fiction films. But where it asked for his ambition.
![Rangnick, now 63, has always reflected fondly on his time in Southwick, broken ribs and all](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/27/22/51046011-10249915-image-a-21_1638050509951.jpg)
Rangnick, now 63, has always reflected fondly on his time in Southwick, broken ribs and all
Next to it, Rangnick wrote: 'Pro Football'. 'Not pro footballer,' says Batchelor. 'It was like he discovered very quickly, at the age of 21, same age as me, that he was meant to be a coach.'
Rangnick has always reflected fondly on his time in Southwick, broken ribs and all.
When the club folded in March last year, he donated £1000 to one of the phoenix clubs as they strive to return to their currently derelict home on Old Barn Way. There's hope they can with the stadium now leased by the foundation set up by Swansea manager and Brighton lad Russell Martin.
If Southwick do come home, Rangnick will have played his part. And there will be a few old faces who would love to see him again.
'In life, you tend to remember the nice guys and the d********,' reflects Bachelor. 'Ralf was certainly one of the nice guys.'
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