Wayne Carlisle has been Matt Taylor's assistant manager at Exeter City and Rotherham United and is looking for more success at Bristol Rovers over two decades after leaving the Gas as a player.
Carlisle only joined Rovers’ coaching staff earlier this year, but his association with the Gas stretches back to 22 years ago when he moved to the club in 2002.
The 44-year-old has experienced most of what football offers. He has suffered a serious injury, progressed through the ranks in his coaching career, experienced the highs and lows in the dugout and made a great friend in Matt Taylor along the way.
THE START OF HIS BRISTOL ROVERS CONNECTION
Carlisle started his football career at Division One side Crystal Palace, making his league debut in 1999 and played 46 times before being loaned to Swindon Town for the 2001/02 campaign. His minutes were limited on his return to the Eagles, and he moved permanently to Rovers in March 2002, with Carlisle excited about the opportunity.
“It was a big club with a big opportunity,” he said. “Having spoken with the manager, the indications were that it would be good opportunities to get minutes and play.
“Then you look at the club and think this is a good club, this is a big club! So, the opportunity to go and do it was appetising.”
However, it wasn’t the best start to life at the Gas for Carlisle.
“It was really interesting, I got sent off on my debut,” said the 44-year-old. “We played Plymouth away; it was two bookable offences. That wasn’t a great start.
“The manager left; I’m not really selling it am I? The manager moved on, it was Andy Thompson at the time, and they brought in Ray Graydon.”
Despite a whirlwind start to life in Bristol, Carlisle was optimistic ahead of the 2002/03 campaign, with the Pirates strengthening across the squad. Although, it was a frustrating season, with Rovers only finishing three points above the relegation zone.
Carlisle reflected positively on his time at Rovers but was disappointed they couldn’t reach their potential with a talented squad.
“It was quite an exciting season at the start because we signed players that I knew and had played against,” he said. “I thought ‘we’ve got a really good squad here; we can make an impact on the league.’
“For various reasons across that season, it just didn’t happen, and we ended up down near the bottom of the league towards the end of that season.
“It started with a lot of hope and optimism and what looked like a lot of good signings on paper, didn’t end up like a great season, but actually I enjoyed my time playing.”
REFLECTING ON HIS PLAYING CAREER
Carlisle made 71 league appearances and scored fourteen goals between 2002 and 2004 for Rovers, then spending time at Leyton Orient, Exeter City, Torquay United and Truro City before retiring with over 300 appearances to his name.
The former winger stated that he was delighted with his career, but did have some regret.
“I feel very fortunate that I’ve spent the good guts of my life playing professional football,” he said. “I think that’s every kids dream, and I am very fortunate to have done it.
“I would have liked to play more games at a higher level. So, when I reflect back, I think I could have played at a higher level for longer.
“I am very proud of what I achieved, representing my country across different age groups, playing across a host of different clubs at different levels in the football leagues, but I do reflect sometimes, and think could I have done better or a bit more.”
Carlisle retired from professional football at 30-years-old. He sustained a knee injury at Torquay United and struggled to get back, which had a massive impact on him.
“It started to really ware me down and it was starting to impact on my home life,” he said. “I got to the point where I thought do you know what, an opportunity came up doing something different, I could do that, and it would lead me into the next part of my career.
“Now you’ve got a family, you’ve got other things outside of it, there is life outside of football. I suppose I kind of fell out of love with it as well during that period because I just couldn’t get fit.
“There was frustration from the club because I couldn’t get fit, and they were paying my wages. There was my frustration as I wanted to get fit and couldn’t get fit.”
GETTING INTO COACHING
Footballers have various options when they decide to retire, with Carlisle deciding to stay in the sport through coaching after working with academies across his playing career.
Carlisle started at a college where he could sit in classrooms. He discovered how teachers taught and how students digested the information and always looked to relate it to football to develop his own skills.
“I think probably the language and some things are slightly different,” he said. “But the reality is what we’re doing with the players is we’re just trying to develop them and help them improve.
“It’s about creating a culture. A lot of schools do that really well. It’s just creating that culture where you’re on time, it’s respect, it’s appreciation, it’s being ready to learn and take on information and remember it.
“I was really lucky that I got into that environment, and I try to apply it to my coaching day to day.”
EXETER CITY SUCCESS
Carlisle spent four to five years at the college before moving to Exeter City, connecting with Paul Tisdale, who he had previously played with at the Grecians.
Two jobs were available to him, and he took the head of coaching role. The other role was leading the under-23s, which Matt Taylor moved into.
Taylor then replaced manager Tisdale at Exeter in June 2018, reeling in Carlisle as his assistant in 2019 after the departure of Eric Kinder.
It was the start of a partnership that has lasted over five years, with Carlisle jovial looking back at how it began.
“He’s a big, ugly centre-half I was like a silky winger, we weren't friends,” he laughed. “He’s the reason I’m bald you know.
“I won’t tell you the story, but you can ask him about it. It was something to do with his diagonal balls and my little skinny flicks on the wing, and that’s why I’ve got a nice bald patch!
“We always got on really well, me and Matt. We never really talked about futures, being managers and coaches and those types of things. But we had a good relationship when we played together.”
Taylor and Carlisle led Exeter during their promotion from Sky Bet League One during the 2021/22 season, finishing second place, only behind Forest Green Rovers on goal difference.
MOVING TO ROTHERHAM UNITED
They kept most of their important players from the promotion winning season and were in eleventh position in the third tier when the pair decided to move to Championship team Rotherham United in October 2022.
“That happened really quickly,” said Carlisle. “I had a phone call on the Wednesday or Thursday from Matt saying, ‘this is something in the pipeline, what do you think?’
“It was crazy because we had talked about it on the phone, but in the office in the training ground, we didn’t talk about it. We just did our work, we had Bristol Rovers on the Saturday, and there was always a little bit of bite in that game.”
“I remember sitting in the dressing room afterwards, looking at each other and going ‘are we doing this, yeah we are let's go.’
“Matt just had a baby at the time. I remember he had come round to the house on the Sunday. Him, his wife and the baby, he got into the car, I got into the car, and his wife, my wife and the children were just looking at us out the window as we drove off to Rotherham.”
The pair had success in their first season, helping the Millers remain in the second tier in the 2022/23 campaign. However, after a difficult start to the following campaign, Taylor departed after thirteen months at the club, with Carlisle also moving on soon after.
TAKING A BREAK FROM FOOTBALL
The 44-year-old spent some time out of the game and had time to reflect on everything important to him before deciding on his next move.
“I had left Rotherham in December,” he reflected. “My wife and my children were living in Devon at the time, and I was living in Rotherham for fifteen months, so we had spent a lot of time apart.
“It gives you a different sense of perspective because the football games and the clubs come and go but your family is there all the time. So, me being away from them for the length of time that I was, sometimes it would be two of three weeks, and I wouldn’t see them, I would only see them on Skype, Zoom or FaceTime.
“You tune into working and we’re in the middle of a tough batch, so I just need to work a little bit harder and get through it, and they sort of go on the back burner.
“But then when you move back into it you think what was I thinking? It allowed me to rebuild those relationships and reacquaint with everyone in the house. Settle back into that family life.
“The biggest thing for me is that it really allowed me to think about football. The games keep coming, the sessions keep coming, and very rarely do you get a chance to spend three or four weeks to relax and think this is what we’re doing, is it working?”
BACK TO BRISTOL ROVERS
Carlisle returned to football in February 2024, joining Bristol Rovers as an individual player development coach after conversations with Taylor, who moved to the Gas as manager earlier that season.
“The opportunity to come back to Bristol Rovers, the club that I had played at as well, it was a great opportunity,” he stated. “I was keen to do it. I had other options. I had spoken to a Championship club about potentially going in and doing some coaching there and another League One club.
“I spoke to my wife, I’m very lucky as she’s very supportive, she said you ‘do what you think is right’ and that’s what I did.”
The Pirates have a massive restructure in the summer, with Taylor naming a new-look first-team coaching staff. Scott Brown, David Horseman, Andrew Proctor, and Liam McCartan joined, with Carlisle moving to the assistant manager role.
“We talked about the plans, what it looked like for the club,” he said. “I thought I would like to be part of that project; it sounds very exciting and something that I want to be part of and hopefully I can add value to it.
Massive changes also came in the transfer window, with the Gas making sixteen new signings to strengthen their squad. As stated earlier by Carlisle, culture is vital to the way he works, with Taylor and director of football George Friend also ensuring the fresh faces suit the club.
“Culturally a lot of the players we’ve brought in are dynamic, athletic players, but I think there was a lot of research from Matt and George looking at what they are like as people,” he insisted.
“I think that’s been a big thing and from what I can gather, most of them are and that’s exciting because that takes away some things that can become a distraction in football, where certain characters don’t want to work a certain way.
“So, they rubbish things off and makes things difficult and awkward. If everyone wants to work a certain way, that’s one less thing to worry about. It’s now down to the quality of the work on the pitch.”
Rovers is the third different club that the duo have worked closely at, with Carlisle sharing a secret reason for what makes them successful.
“We don’t talk to each other, it’s like me and my wife, we don’t say anything, and it works,” he laughed again. “That’s not true! I think we both have similar ideas on standards, expectations, what the culture needs to look like and how people need to work within that environment.
“Probably in a funny way, we have a difference in opinion in football, I think works as well. Matt probably sees it more from a centre-half, defensive aspect where I tend to see it from a more attacking aspect.
“Matt tends to have strong views on this area, and I'll have strong views on another area, and that tends to work for us. We don’t always agree on stuff, but we understand each other and respect each other enough to put your opinion across in a way that’s understood and appreciated.
“We’ve been doing it now for over five years. I’m fairly confident we could finish each other's sentences.
“But again, that doesn’t mean we agree with the stuff. So, I’ll know what Matt’s going to say, so I think we’ve got to the point now where he knows what I’m going to say, so he has his answer, and I know what his answer is, so I’ve got my answer, and it becomes a game of dominos!
Rovers finished in fifteenth position in League One last campaign, with Carlisle looking to push higher up the table this season whilst developing the young squad.
“If we’re talking league success, we have to try and improve on where we were last season,” he said. “We should certainly be looking to be top half and towards playoffs. That would be my hope.
“For us as a coaching group, it’s about gelling these players together. Getting an understanding of what the club’s about, how it works and then hopefully generating some exciting young talent.”
Carlisle's affiliation with Rovers started over two decades ago as a player, moving away from the club and experiencing plenty of things on and off the pitch before rejoining earlier this year.
WHAT HAS CHANGED IN TWENTY YEARS?
He looked back on when he first joined, what’s changed and what’s just like it was before.
“The training ground is probably the biggest change I’ve noticed at the club.” The training facilities we have now are good, the pitches are fantastic. Obviously, the buildings and the plans to develop around the buildings and the whole site is exciting.
“It’s probably a huge upgrade to what we had, it used to be the Beaches Hotel, so that was that.
“There are still some people around the club, either still involved or in the Supporters Club that were wonderful people twenty odd years ago, I see them now and they still make me smile.
“The fans are still as passionate as they’ve always been, they still want that success, they still want to take the club forward.”
