Craig Bellamy ready to manage others having learned to manage himself.
Any time spent in Craig Bellamy’s company is time well-spent. He invariably leaves an impression with his hug, his warmth and his thoughts. It was not always like that; Bellamy could at times be spiky, confrontational, alienating. He’s 44 now, more mature, more measured, and seemingly now ready for the demands and responsibility of management.
A few years back, while Bellamy was assisting Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht, I asked him whether he wanted to be a manager himself one day. With typical frankness, Bellamy replied that he had to manage himself first. So news that he is in the running to be Wales head coach is uplifting on many levels.
There’s the fascination with how a Wales playing legend (78 caps, 19 goals) and Premier League high-achiever (81 goals in 293 games with seven different clubs) fares in the dugout, and whether he transfers all that endless energy and all those bright ideas about how the game should be played into vivid life on the pitch. Wales certainly won’t be boring to watch. There’s also a feeling of quiet relief that a complex character has learned to manage himself.
Once when I rang Bellamy in Brussels, he was alone in a flat, and he had some TV soap on in the background for company. I got the impression that he needed that background noise. Bellamy’s been open about his mental health struggles and his need for morning ice baths and regular therapy with a psychologist. He’s mentioned a history of depression afflicting his mother, and his dark moods exacerbated by financial woes brought on by bad investments.