Who Are The League Two Managers? No.20: Dino Maamria (Stevenage)

If Noureddine ‘Dino’ Maamria ever calls time on his football career and looks for a job outside the game, he may well make a fortune in the salvage business. Whilst spending most of his playing and managerial career below the radar of most football supporters, he has earned a name for himself as a saviour-manager in the non-league game. He may also be the only manager anywhere in the world who was brought up in a tent, named a goat after Gary Lineker, and has a penchant for rap music.

The tent and the goat hail from his childhood near the city of Gafsa, central Tunisia, where Maamria was born on 26 May 1971. He speaks fondly of his poor upbringing, living in the tent for his first four years and running ten miles to school and back every day with his sister and five brothers. People laughed when he said he wanted to be a footballer, as ‘no one ever went from the desert to the big city’, as he puts it. The young striker joined the youth system at Avenir Sportif de La Marsa at the age of 18. Having been selected to play for the Tunisia U21 side in 1991, he fought his way into the first team that same season. The real highlight came in 1994 with a 1-0 President’s Cup Final win over Étoile Sportive du Sahel. After a season playing for Club Olympique des Transports in Tunis, he moved to England where Burnley scout Brian Miller offered him a two-week trial at Turf Moor in 1996. Maamria earned a short-term contract after scoring in a reserve team match against Bradford.

Unfortunately his short time at Burnley was marred by a broken leg, and he was released at the end of 1996 without making a first-team appearance. It was during his time out with the injury that he started studying for his coaching badges, a prescient act from a 25-year-old. Part of his time was spent coaching at the Burnley Academy, a role he continued for a number of years. He spent the remainder of the 1996-97 season playing for Glentoran before making two appearances for Ayr United in 1997-98. He next appeared in July 1998 at Doncaster Rovers, just relegated from the Football League. Doncaster played him on the wing in his first season, and as a striker in his second when he played without a contract. During his second season he finished top scorer and attracted a bid from Cardiff City. For some reason, the move did not take place and Maamria was released in the summer of 2000 after scoring 13 goals in 56 appearances in a struggling side. In 1999 he obtained the UEFA B Licence and continued to ply his trade as a player while coaching with Burnley.

Maamria had one productive season with Southport in 2000-01 in which the Sandgrounders finished fourth in the Conference, their highest position since relegation from the Football League in 1978. In July 2001 he moved on to Leigh RMI, who had just finished in fifth place, one point behind Southport. He also completed the UEFA A Licence at the same time.

In February 2003, Graham Westley of struggling Conference rivals Stevenage Borough tried to sign Maamria, who was Leigh’s leading scorer with 13 goals. Despite a transfer fee having been agreed, he rejected the move in favour of staying to assist with Leigh’s own fight against the drop. Three days later he changed his mind and headed south for a five-figure fee. It was the start of a relationship with both Westley and Stevenage that would continue to the present day. Maamria scored five goals in ten games to help secure Conference status for Stevenage. He spent the summer of 2003 playing for USL side Charleston, then managed by Chris Ramsey, and helped them to win the A-League championship. Returning to Stevenage in September, he was a regular as the side started to challenge for Football League status. After a near miss in 2004, Borough made the playoffs in 2005 with a fifth-place finish. A 2-1 aggregate win over Hereford took them to the final where they were beaten 1-0 by Carlisle United at the Britannia Stadium. Stevenage missed the playoffs in 2006, finishing sixth, and he was released at the end of the season after scoring 33 goals in 96 games during his second spell with the club.

Despite being 35 by this stage, he chose to continue playing with former club Southport who were struggling near the foot of the Conference. The connection with Graham Westley reappeared in January 2007 when he signed Maamria as player-coach for his new club Rushden & Diamonds, late of the Football League. After Westley was sacked after just two months in the job, Maamria was soon back at Southport on loan for the remainder of the season. Unfortunately he was unable to prevent their relegation to Conference North. Despite having signed an eighteen-month contract with Rushden, he moved on to Conference rivals Northwich Victoria during the summer of 2007.

Northwich started the season very poorly against a backdrop of unpaid tax bills, winding-up orders, players not being paid and regular changes of manager. His first job in management came unexpectedly when Northwich caretaker manager Paul Warhurst resigned in September 2007. Northwich were bottom of the Conference with one point from eleven games and had just entered administration. Northwich lost their first game under their new player-manager, 3-1 at home to Woking. However, they took themselves off the bottom of the table in his second game with a 1-1 draw at home to Kidderminster, and an unlikely revival was underway. Form improved steadily, and after a successful takeover of the club in December 2007, Maamria was appointed manager on a permanent basis. Against all the odds, a 2-1 win at former club Stevenage in the penultimate game ensured another season in the Conference. Ironically, the win also ended Stevenage’s bid for the playoffs. It had been such an extraordinary turnaround that Maamria was named Conference Manager of the Year. Things were looking better for Northwich but there was a sting in the tail. After a poor start to 2008-09, Maamria was suspended on 30 September 2008 and sacked a month later for reasons that have never been explained.

He was out of the game for a matter of weeks, rejoining Stevenage and Graham Westley as first team coach. Stevenage reached the playoffs in his first season with a fifth-place finish, but were beaten 4-3 on aggregate by Cambridge in the semi-finals. Consolation came by way of a 2-0 FA Trophy Final win over York at Wembley. Maamria was an unused substitute, and had actually made what proved to be his final professional appearance the month before against Ebbsfleet. After a series of near misses, 2009-10 was to be the season that Stevenage Borough finally took their place in the Football League as Conference champions by a massive eleven-point margin. The success kept on coming with the newly-renamed Stevenage going straight through League Two at the first attempt in 2010-11. A 3-0 aggregate win over Accrington in the play-off semi-finals and a 1-0 win over Torquay at Old Trafford took Stevenage to the third tier for the first time in their history. Interestingly, Maamria appeared on the substitute’s bench for the game at Lincoln on 25 September 2010 at the age of 39; although an unused substitute, the game represents his final involvement in professional football as a player. It also meant that he had completed fifteen years in English football without ever kicking a ball in the Football League.

Stevenage made a great start to life in League One and sat in the playoffs at the midway stage. However, in January 2012 Maamria and Westley moved to League One rivals Preston who were six points behind Stevenage in the table. However, Preston picked up just twenty-two points from as many games to finish fifteenth, not at all what was expected. Stevenage, meanwhile, finished sixth to qualify for the League One play-offs, where they lost 1-0 on aggregate to Sheffield United in the semi-finals. Preston made a better start to the 2012-13 season and sat on the edge of the playoffs in October. Then a run of one win in fourteen games left Preston just five points above the relegation zone, and Westley and his team were sacked on 13 February 2013.

Incredibly, six weeks later Maamria and Westley were back at Stevenage, who had lost fifteen of their last twenty league games. Stevenage won their first game back to dispel any lingering relegation fears and set about reviving the club’s fortunes. Unfortunately they got off to a poor start in 2013-14, losing seven of the first ten league games, and were relegated in bottom place. Form was patchy over the first half of the 2014-15 season but picked up dramatically from December onwards. A run of four wins and a draw in April saw Stevenage finish sixth, but the promotion challenge came to an end with a 4-2 aggregate defeat to Southend in the semi-finals. Shortly after the play-off defeat, Maamria and Westley were replaced by Teddy Sheringham. Consolation for Dino came in the shape of the UEFA Pro-Licence that year.

Maamria then turned up at another of his former clubs Southport, appointed manager on 19 November 2015. Another rescue job was required, with the side sitting third from bottom of the National League. Southport won their first game 1-0 at Welling but lost the next one to remain in the drop zone. Southport then embarked on a run of six successive wins that carried them up to sixteenth and won Maamria the Manager of the Month award for December. Form levelled off after that, but the club was out of danger. However, it was always going to be a challenge managing a Lancashire club from Hertfordshire, and it was not long before travel and family reasons led to his resignation on 14 March 2016. It was another salvage operation completed: five points adrift when he joined them, Southport were eight points clear of relegation when he left.

On 10 October 2016, Maamria was reunited with Westley at League Two bottom club Newport, although their tenure was destined not to be a success. Three successive wins in November lifted Newport out of the bottom two, but they were to win just one more game after that. They were sacked in March 2017 with Newport seemingly doomed to relegation.

Another salvage operation was required at his next stop Nuneaton Town. Appointed manager on 28 October 2017, Nuneaton were one place above the relegation zone in National League North. Form was slow to improve until a 4-1 win over Tamworth on Boxing Day sparked a run of seven wins from ten games. With Nuneaton now only seven points behind the play-offs, Stevenage came calling for the fifth time on 20 March 2018. But this time was different: he was a Football League manager for the first time. With Stevenage in mid-table security, it was simply a case of reaching the end of the season and his first transfer window.

Dino Maamria’s continued presence in the English game is a triumph of determination over improbability. The boy from the desert was an African pioneer, and despite spending much of his career in non-league football, no one can claim he has not earned the right to test his skills in the Football League. He has a lot of experience of League Two as a coach, and has two promotions and three unsuccessful play-off campaigns to his name from his previous involvements with Stevenage. The question is: can he complete the hazardous journey from coach to manager successfully?

Key:

P = Promoted; R = Relegated; SF = Lost in play-off semi-final; F = Lost in play-off final; PO = Won play-off final; D = Demoted.

Figures are league games only; cup matches and playoffs are not included.

League position shown is either the position at the end of the season or the position at the time of departure.

Writer: Scotimp