ANY ambitious managers in the Metaltec SIL and Ridgeons League should be at Portman Road on Saturday.Leading the Derby County side will be 45-year-old Terry Westley, who cut his managerial teeth in the SIL.

By Elvin King

ANY ambitious managers in the Metaltec SIL and Ridgeons League should be at Portman Road on Saturday.

Leading the Derby County side will be 45-year-old Terry Westley, who cut his managerial teeth in the SIL.

The first club he managed was Willis Faber - now Willis - before moving up to Diss Town in the Ridgeons League.

This week Westley recalled those days. Speaking from the managerial office at Pride Park, Derby, where he has lifted the Rams out of relegation danger in the Championship, he said: “Even as a young man I had a driving ambition to be a coach.

“And my first role was with Achilles when they won the SIL Senior Division under the management of Keith Norton in the late eighties.

“I was playing left-back and was also coaching the side.

“As a youngster I had trained with Ipswich Town when Bobby Ferguson, Cyril Lea and Charlie Woods were at the club.

“At the age of 16 I was not taken on - and from then on I have looked at a career in coaching.”

Westley has shown what can be done with the right skills and determination, and he is an example to those who have dreams of moving from non-league football into the Premiership.

Westley has already led a team to success at Portman Road when he was caretaker boss of Luton Town when they tasted success at Ipswich in the top flight.

“That was an emotional day,” added Westley, whose brothers Glen and Richard have also been heavily involved in non-league football.

“I learned a great deal at Wills Faber, but it was at Diss Town where I really grew up.

“I can remember selling Clive Stafford from Diss to Colchester and with respect to Achilles and Willis Faber it was my first experience of a 'proper' club.”

Westley helped with youth football at Portman Road and was taken on as a full time coach and head of the Football in the Community scheme, before David Pleat took him to Luton to run the youth development scheme - a job he was doing at Derby before being asked to take over as caretaker first-team boss in the winter.