On Thursday afternoon, the local and national media converged on Pride Park Stadium to meet Frank Lampard after the news had broken, and swept like wildfire, that he had become the new Derby County manager.


Henry Winter, the chief football writer at The Times, was one of those journalists. As well as listening to the new Rams boss during the formal press conference, Henry was given chance to speak to Lampard during the written ‘break-out’.

Afterwards, dcfc.co.uk spoke with the man himself to find out his thoughts on the Chelsea and England midfielder’s appointment, what he expects he will bring to table and how he held himself during his first press conference.

How did you feel Frank conducted himself in his first press conference?

“He was as impressive as ever. I can remember him speaking at a football writers’ dinner about eight or nine years ago and he stood up and spoke for around 45 minutes about charity, about being in the ‘football bubble’, about hard work, about Chelsea and England and he just gets it. He can do it and he is just a natural when it comes to things like this. His education and everything around his family was football-orientated and the fans here will love him. He says all the right things and what particularly impressed me was just how much he knew about the club. Managers move around so much nowadays that you get the impression that they have just had a quick scan through Wikipedia, but Frank knew so much. He was looking at pictures on the walls and was naming the players from the ‘70s. His dad played during that period and it’s obvious that he had long conversations with him about this club. I always think that one-club cities have a unique feel anyway and I certainly feel that this club does. I think this is a great start for him. There will be scrutiny on him, but not too much pressure. My small experience with Derby supporters, whether on social media or from covering matches, is that they are very patient and thoughtful and want good football. That’s going to be an interesting balance for Frank Lampard during the season – balancing the need to get up with Lampard’s instinct, which will be to play attractive football. He’s so bright. He will do his research and I think he has definitely got a chance.”


One of the things that has been spoken about a lot is his incredible work ethic. Is that something you have seen throughout his career and how will he transfer that to the dugout?

“People look at Frank Lampard’s career and they will see a very photogenic guy, eloquent, they see him do his punditry, he has a glamourous wife and there’s always been that bit of glamour, Chelsea and pizzazz to Frank Lampard. Underpinning all of that, which people don’t realise, he has just got this incredible work ethic. He’s needed that from a young age. He was fat Frank, a chubby kid at West Ham, who was seen as the teacher’s pet. People asked whether he was only in the team because Harry Redknapp was his uncle and the number two was his father, Frank Lampard senior. He took a lot of stick from West Ham fans and it was pretty brutal. All of those comments people say about him being one of our own and we’ll give him a chance, Frank didn’t really get that. He had a lot of people supporting him, but, really, they did turn on him at times and Frank just proved them wrong as a young kid. I can remember one day that he turned up at the training ground and had bought athletics spikes, so he could improve his sprinting and you can see that paid dividends with how he became renowned for his runs into the box. After training, late at night, he was always famous for pounding the streets of Romford, running to get himself fitter and he just proved a lot of people wrong. In his autobiography, he made one or two comments about West Ham fans, but in a way, I thought that was good because it showed that their comments got to him. Everyone that has got to the top in this profession always had something to prove and they never stopped. If Frank has a win here, that joy will only last one hour, before he begins plotting the next victory. He is glamourous and looks a bit Hollywood, but he works so hard.”


Did you always expect Frank to become a manager?

“Totally. Whenever you talk to Frank Lampard, whether it was on Chelsea or England duty, he justspoke differently about the game and so intelligently about the game. We always asked him, you’re going to be a manager one day and is it going to be a race between you and John Terry to see who becomes Chelsea manager one day. He would always laugh that off because he can read the media and he can see a headline coming. He was always brilliant at that and saw it coming a mile off! I think the culture that he grew up in, obviously with his father and his uncle, they were always talking football. He’s just been imbued in football and loves it. He’s driven and I can guarantee that he is not doing this for the money. Frank Lampard is a wealthy individual – he’s doing this because he has an obsession. He has a smart suit, a nice smile and the flick of a sun-tan, but underneath all of that is someone that just works and works and works. That’s the key for any manager. Mel was asked whether this was a gamble. Yes, it is a gamble, but there have been some fairly experienced managers here at Derby and it hasn’t worked out. I think the players will be in awe, they will respect him when they see his training sessions and they will want to play for him. He will certainly bring a bit of a buzz back to Derby County.”

Just on that pressure as a first-time manager, how beneficial do you believe the experiences he will have had under the likes of Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti be to him?

“You only had to listen to the questions that Frank Lampard got asked in his press conference and it was a kid’s tea party compared to some of the fairly ferocious fights he got on England duty when everything was carnage, particularly in South Africa 2010. Lampard would often be sent out by the FA and England because he was a safe pair of hands. He was like a fireman and was the go-to man if you needed to put a few fires out and calm things down. Look, he will get criticism on social media – as modern managers do – and he will get criticism in the press, but he can deal with it. The key thing here, though, is that he has got to get Derby County up and I’m sure he is the man that can make that happen.”