It seems ludicrous to compare arguably the greatest manager the game has ever seen and a coach plying his trade on the bottom rung of the Football League. But events so far this season have prompted me to do just that. If you're already tempted to hit the 'close' button, hold fire and hear me out.
Needless to say, Sir Alex Ferguson is the crème de la crème of management. He has built a footballing empire at Old Trafford with Manchester United and won everything the game has to offer during his 23 years in charge, including 11 Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies and five FA Cups.
No mean feat, I'm sure you'll agree.
And the man that I will dare to mention in the same breath has only a Conference league winners' medal to his name.
So, how can Dagenham & Redbridge manager John Still possibly command column inches alongside Sir Alex? They are two men at opposite ends of the football spectrum. One is raking in millions of pounds a year in wages, stepping out in front of 70,000 people week in, week out, and has helped nurture some of the best talents ever to play on these shores. The other is in charge of a team that is lucky to pull in over 2000 supporters at their Victoria Road home and will face trips to Accrington and Torquay this season.
But the success that Still is bringing to this small corner of Essex is quite remarkable. Since picking up the reins for a second time in 2004, with the club languishing in mid-table of the Conference, he guided them into the Football League for the first time in their brief 16-year history.
Survival was the name of the game, and they managed that by the skin of their teeth on the last day of the 2007 season.
Another campaign of strife was predicted next time around, but the Daggers surprised everyone again by coming within a whisker of making the play-offs.
Seven of the team's premier men departed in the summer and, with little more than a shoestring budget to work with, Dagenham were penned in as relegation certainties this year.
What happened next is testimony to Still's unerring ability to find the right players, at the right price and to get them to perform. They have done just that, currently sitting three points off top spot in second place in League Two.
Just two weeks ago Still masterminded a 2-1 home victory against former Premier League side Bradford City. When the Bantams were playing against the likes of United, Arsenal and Liverpool back in 1999, Dagenham were a world away in the Conference.
So, how does he do it?
Unlike the bulging coffers at Manchester United, where Sir Alex can afford to blow £28million on a flop like Juan Sebastien Veron, the funds – or lack thereof - at Dagenham restrict Still to a heavy reliance on a trusted network of scouts, and an eye for talent.
And this is where the contrasts stop and the similarities between this unlikely pair begin.
While they are operating on entirely different scales, the rules remain the same when it comes to building an effective team and finding the players to do the job.
For, as both Still and Ferguson know, it is not the talent that makes the player, but the attitude... the character.
Granted, Wayne Rooney could play a bit. But what would have really tempted Ferguson to splash £30m on Everton's wonderkid would have been his appetite to succeed, his determination to win and his unquenchable thirst to be the best. The same goes for the shock move for Michael Owen this summer. Here, Ferguson recognised a player desperate to prove to the world he still had the predatory instincts that first catapulted him into the limelight 11 years ago against Argentina. Similar traits can be found in seasoned pros like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville.
All have been nurtured with an ingrained win-at-all-costs mentality that goes beyond the number of noughts on their next paycheck.
Which brings us to Still.
With little more to offer than a KitKat and the bus fare home, he is charged with finding the players that will wear their hearts on their sleeves and dig in when the going gets tough.
“When we are signing players I make it quite clear to them that we can help their careers if they decide to come and join us,” Still exclusively told the Guardian last month. “It's not always about talent. I look for a certain attitude or drive that players have that can stand out.”
The likes of Ben Strevens, Sam Saunders, Danny Foster, Magnus Okuonghae, Solomon Taiwo and Scott Griffiths were all brought in, many from the depths of non-league. The class of 2008/09 took the club to the brink of the play-offs but, upon ultimate failure to finish inside the top seven, they were all snapped up by bigger clubs. What did Still do? Why, he went out and found Danny Green and Josh Scott from non-league, helped revive the careers of Stuart Thurgood, Will Antwi and Peter Gain and started afresh with a new batch of players hungry to either re-ignite their flagging careers or take the first step towards something bigger and better.
No doubt the cycle will start all over again next summer. But, by then Still's wheeling and dealing may have earned the club a few more pounds in the kitty, and they may even have won a place in League One.
Perhaps, before long, the miracle man of Dagenham won't have to pull so many rabbits out of his hat.
But, the higher you climb up the Football League ladder, the louder the money begins to talk. The reason Ferguson stands the test of time is that he is able to find players that can balance their need for flash cars and accessories with a unique desire to win, so that when 5.45pm rolls around on a Saturday afternoon there is nothing his players have left out on the pitch.
The challenge for Still, as is surely inevitable, is to keep finding the sort of character he has within his squad now when asked to deliver on a grander stage.
Watch this space...
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