When Ruben Amorim was sacked by Manchester United on 5 January, the club approached academy boss Darren Fletcher as a stopgap, giving the opportunity to a young coach at the start of his managerial career.
Former Hull City, Derby County and Preston North End boss Phil Brown was handed his first break in similar circumstances following the sudden departure of Colin Todd as Bolton manager in 1999.
The Bolton hierarchy offered him the caretaker job, but despite achieving an upturn on the pitch, the club had other ideas for a permanent appointment.
“Colin Todd decided to resign and that left the club sort of high and dry, because they weren’t expecting it,” Brown told BBC Sport. “I put my case forward that I wanted the job and I got the caretaker manager’s job for five games. I won four of them.
“Unfortunately I walked into an emergency board meeting on a Sunday after the fifth game and I walked into the manager’s office and there was Sam Allardyce sitting in my chair.
“I wasn’t going to get the job, but I worked with Sam before and they were hoping that we would work together again. It was a difficult situation at the start having really pushed for my name to be the number one to actually drop back down to the number two.”
Brown served as assistant to Allardyce for six years before being made manager at Derby County. After exiting Pride Park he was brought in to help Phil Parkinson as a first-team coach at Hull City.
Parkinson, then in his second full-time position, was later sacked with the Tigers 22nd in the Championship, and club owner Adam Pearson turned to Brown as the caretaker.
However, he initially refused the job after feeling he had failed Parkinson, who is now Wrexham’s manager.
“I went in there to help him stay in the job and when he lost his job, I got the caretaker’s role and I didn’t want it,” Brown said.
“I didn’t want it because I failed in what I came to the football club for, which was to keep Phil Parkinson sitting in work, and I felt as if I’d let him down.”
But after three wins and a draw in his first six matches as caretaker manager, results made it hard for the club’s hierarchy not to offer Brown the full-time position, and in 2008 his team earned promotion to the Premier League.
