When Mick McCarthy took over as Wolves manager in July 2006, he arrived at a club that was struggling financially and had just lost several important players. Glenn Hoddle had resigned a few weeks earlier, and McCarthy had been brought in to rebuild the team and get Wolves challenging for promotion. But one of his first conversations at Wolves wasn’t with a footballer. It was with a man called Dan Morgan, who worked as a cleaner at the training ground. McCarthy was meeting the staff when he came across Dan and asked what he did at the club. “I’m Dan.” “I’m just the cleaner.” McCarthy immediately stopped him. “Never say you’re just the f****** cleaner.” “You’re the cleaner, and you’re doing a job, and that’s important!” He explained that if the players arrived on a Monday morning and found the dressing room hadn’t been cleaned, they would all be complaining. “Don’t ever say that to me again.” “You’re one of us, come on.” McCarthy had always believed that everybody working at a football club should feel part of the same team, regardless of their job. “There’s nobody beneath me.” For Dan, that first conversation was something he never forgot. “From that first moment he always made me feel so comfortable, like a part of the team.” McCarthy made sure Dan was included in everything going on around the training ground. “He always involved me in the dressing room banter.” Over the following six years, McCarthy transformed Wolves and guided them back into the Premier League as Championship winners in 2009. He developed a close relationship with the staff and made a point of getting to know people working in every department of the club. Dan was still there when Wolves eventually sacked McCarthy in February 2012 after a 5-1 defeat to West Brom. McCarthy had spent almost six years at Molineux, and his departure was an emotional moment for many people at the club. But a few weeks later, Dan received an unexpected phone call. He and his partner Sarah had recently welcomed a baby and moved into a new house. McCarthy knew about it and had been clearing out his own house in Seisdon. He asked Dan whether there was anything they needed. Dan went round to see him, and McCarthy had a load of furniture and other belongings ready to give to him. Rather than arranging for someone else to deliver everything, McCarthy hired a van himself. Dan helped him load it up before they drove over to his new house and carried everything inside. “He went and sat in the baby’s bedroom and put all the drawers together for me.” Once everything was sorted, he sat down on the sofa and had a cup of tea with Dan. “He didn’t have to do any of that.” Dan knew McCarthy could easily have paid someone to clear his house and deliver the furniture, especially after spending so many years managing in the Premier League. Instead, he had spent the day helping somebody who had introduced himself six years earlier as “just the cleaner”. “That just sums him up for me.” “And whenever anyone asks what it was like to work for Mick McCarthy, that is the story I tell them.” #football