As he embarks on his second stint as a football coach, Barnsley player-coach Conor Hourihane has disclosed that he finds inspiration in Premier League boss Steve Cooper.
After departing Derby after their return to the Championship, the Oakwell icon and former captain who won a promotion made a surprise visit back to the team last month.
The multi-year contract Irish midfielder has inked is set to see him perform a hybrid role combining teaching and playing for the next two years, until he hangs up his boots at the end of the 2025–2026 season at the age of 35.
The managerial and coaching names that Hourihane has previously played under reads like a Who’s Who of EFL football, with Cooper – who recently returned to top-flight management at Leicester City following a highly-successful spell at Nottingham Forest – convincing him that coaching was for him.
“I think the main relationship was probably Steve Cooper at Swansea,” Hourihane stated to The Yorkshire Post. Throughout my time with Covid and when I first started earning badges, I have always had a strong need to record things in a notebook because I might need them later. Then, when I first met Steve, I was really impressed with how he handled me and how willing he was to let me inside his office. I was quite captivated by his method of operation. He’s a great man, and we still stay in touch.
“I had a significant epiphany after meeting him: ‘Now is my chance to truly learn from someone I truly admire.'” He taught me a lot of things that I still use today.
“You pilfer things from every manager.” Martin O’Neill, Mick McCarthy, Steve Bruce, Steve Cooper, Hecky (Paul Heckingbottom), and coaches like Keith Andrews—a masterful coach—and Anthony Barry—who played with Thomas Tuchel at Bayern Munich—were among the elder crop.
“It’s about taking little bits and pieces from everyone and learning and being open to learn. You must have that passion, fascination and obsession about the game to realise that everyone can give you something different.”
Due to his dual role, Hourihane is unlikely to get too much time to himself as he combines his playing commitments with coaching work.
He is the first to admit that it will be ‘full on’ and while he is relishing the task in hand, he has reiterated that his assimilation from playing to coaching will mean that he is unlikely to be the talismanic on-pitch presence that he consistently was during his golden first spell at Barnsley, whom he led to Wembley glory twice at the end of 2015-16.
He continued: “It’s going to be a challenging role, but great. I have fond memories (of before), but it’s just going to be a different dynamic.
“People need to realise that and hopefully I can have an influence similar to previous times, but in a different way now. That’s how people need to see it. It’s going to be full on. I’ve been leaving here at 4 or 5 o’clock, that’s the coaching hours. You are training and into the coaching office and then debriefing things and looking and talking about things. I suppose you need to love the game to really enjoy that, I have and I’m sure that will continue.”
Alongside promotions at Barnsley and Derby, Hourihane was part of the Aston Villa side that triumphed in the Championship play-off final in 2019 and says he is desperate for his playing career to end with a bang at Oakwell.
Hourihane, who also had a loan spell at Sheffield United in 2021-22, added: “Some people fizzle out at certain clubs and drop and drop and go out of the game.
“To go out at a club where you are highly thought of is really a nice script to have.
“Whether it’s at the end of this year, next year or whatever it might be, who knows. But it’s really nice to be back somewhere where you are really appreciated.”
