Allardyce: I proved England wrong over my FA snub

He talks about the difficulty he experienced in motivating himself after losing out on the England job last year. About the trauma that came with being the target of a Panorama programme.

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The stress of the Stevens Inquiry that then followed, and the impact it all had on his family. On his wife. On his son.

But Allardyce doesn't need excuses and he doesn't need our pity, because his Bolton side are fifth in the Premiership and chasing Arsenal for a place in the Champions League.

The Football Association officials who appointed Steve McClaren 11 months ago must wince when they look at the Premiership table. Most of those they rejected after interview have struggled to embarrass them. Martin O'Neill has had a difficult first season at Aston Villa. Alan Curbishley is fighting desperately to guide West Ham away from relegation. But Allardyce? What an exceptional manager he has proved himself to be.

Missing out on the England job did leave him hugely deflated. "I was actually in a hotel bar in Barcelona with Martin O'Neill when I heard," he said. "We were there to watch their Champions League semi-final with AC Milan when a couple of you boys walked in and told us about Luiz Felipe Scolari.

"At that stage we hadn't even had a call from the FA and Martin and I just looked at each other. I think Martin said something like 'f***ing 'ell' and then we sort of laughed. That was it. Hard luck."

Returning to the task of masterminding a fresh assault on the Premiership did suddenly seem more difficult when he went back to Bolton for pre-season training, however. "That was the hardest thing to deal with," he said. "Remotivating yourself and starting again when you've come so close.

"The detail of the job was extremely interesting to me. Not just the chance to coach the England team, but to occupy a much broader role than the one Sven Goran Eriksson performed.

"There was more responsibility in terms of helping Trevor Brooking with football development, which is one of the massive objectives in my life.

"I've got this thing about a fat lazy nation, about the fact that we're not producing champions anymore, and I was keen to tackle that. Not just within sport but at government level."

Sources at the FA said of all the candidates Allardyce gave the best interview at the not-so-secret location of an Oxfordshire mansion.

"Well, I should have got the job then if that was the case," he said. "We all know there are other factors that influence the FA when it comes to getting the job. It's not always the best candidate or the best manager who gets chosen.

"That has happened many a time in the past. They say you have to be a particular type, and clearly I had something that wasn't quite right.

"I didn't go in there thinking I was beaten before I started because I thought, if they had any fears, I could help them overcome those fears by talking to them. In my presentation I wanted to show how I did the job I do. The impression they might have had of me was only skin deep. I wanted to show them more than that."

So what did he do? "Preparation is everything and I built a presentation that I knew would impress them," he said. "And I endeavoured to come up with something that nobody else had thought of."

Which was what? "I'm not telling you," he said with a chuckle. "Because I've still got it to do. But I have to say this: When they explained the criteria in terms of what they were looking for, I found it strange that they then went for Scolari. I could never see Scolari fulfilling the player development role. He never could have done that.

"Don't get me wrong. It's the first team that matters. It's like doing great things with the academy at Bolton. If I don't get the first team right nothing else matters and it's the same for Steve McClaren now. But, still, I was surprised they went for Scolari."

The Panorama programme that tried to expose a bung culture in football - relatively unsuccessfully it has to be said - targeted Allardyce and his son Craig and, while the findings of the Stevens Inquiry ultimately vindicated them, he is still deeply wounded by the episode.

"It was the worst ever," he said. "It's a destructive force. Someone is trying to destroy what you are and what you've built over the course of your career.

"Two things helped me. The support of my family and the support of the club. My players asked me what they could do and I said 'Win football matches'. And they did that and that made it easier.

"But then you deal with guilty until proven innocent. I've had to put it behind me and get on with it, but it was a hugely difficult time for people who are close to me. My wife, Lynne, and Craig of course."

Craig, a football agent at the time, was caught on camera boasting about the influence he enjoyed with his father. He has now left the world of football and works as a property developer in Spain.

"That was the hardest part," said Allardyce. "For some reason the son-father relationship can't work in football. It works in every other industry in the world. The editor's son works for the same newspaper. The partner at the law firm recruits his son. Your dad works in the pit so you follow him.

"But in this industry it just can't happen. It happened to Jason and Alex (Ferguson) before me. In hindsight, I was daft enough to think it could happen. But nobody was ever going to let it go and we suffered the consequences. I will write a book on it all one day. About my life. About everything."

As he sips on a coffee in the hotel that forms part of the Reebok Stadium, he considers the question of whether the programme has ruined his hopes of ever becoming England coach.

"Only time will tell but **** is going to stick," he said. "It doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty, because in the eyes of some people you will always be guilty.

"If ever the England job comes up again in the future, and I hope it's the distant future because I've known Steve a long time, and I'm as successful as I am now, or even more successful than I am now, and they said 'No' then you would be right. Because there would be no reason not to come for me again, because I'd be more experienced, more qualified if you like."

Some would say he is already more than qualified. Some would say that, pound for pound, he is punching his weight more than any other manager in the Premiership. And doing so with remarkable consistency.

"There are other managers doing a great job in this Ieague," he said. "I think Chris Coleman's amazing. Learning the job in this league and then succeeding at it. He's a good manager who has a chance of becoming a great manager.

"But I measure our success by consistency and in the last three years we have finished 8th, 6th and 8th. And the only teams, on average, who have done better than us are the big four. Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Bolton are fifth over that three-year period and I'm very proud of that."

And so he should be.