Read what has been said about Town’s new Head Coach
- Read more about Huddersfield Town Head Coach Mark Fotheringham
- Interviews with some of German football’s biggest names
- Mark praised by Sami Khedira, Markus Babbel and more
Mark Fotheringham is being backed by some of German football’s biggest names as he embarks upon his first coaching role in England as our new Head Coach.
Through years of coaching in his adopted homeland, where he also played as a 19-year-old, Mark has earned a strong reputation both on the training pitch and as a man manager.
Among those praising his work is FC Ingolstadt’s Sporting Director Michael Henke, who himself has enjoyed a magnificent coaching career. As Ottmar Hitzfeld’s number two, he twice coached teams to Champions League wins!
The Scottish Sun reported his quotes to a German publication when Fotheringham chose to leave FC Ingolstadt after helping them gain promotion in 2020.
Henke said: "I would say that there is no better assistant coach than Mark.
"He is a top type. He is a top character and he is what I would call a specialist in football.
"Mark had an excellent relationship with the players, but he is 100 per cent loyal to the head coach.
"I really like him as a person. Maybe there are other good assistant coaches, but for me there is no one better than Mark in Germany. I can't speak any higher of him.
"I was extremely disappointed Mark left Ingolstadt, but I also respect his decision.
"I know what the important qualities are for an assistant coach and he has them all. Mark will also be a good head coach in the future. His work at Ingolstadt over the last 14, 15 months was absolutely perfect. I can't think of anything that was wrong.
"Mark's just totally dedicated. He is a 24-hour coach. I also admire how he worked hard to learn German and that is a quality which will impress plenty of people at every level here.
"Would Mark be good enough to work in the Bundesliga? Absolutely. I have no doubts about that at all.
"He told me he came to Ingolstadt because of me and Tomas Oral. But now he believes his time is finished at the club.
"If anyone in Germany were to ask me about him then I could only be full of praise. Mark is capable of working at a higher level. I'm sure he has a bright future in coaching.”
The impact that Mark made at Hertha Berlin last season was also well documented, both by his manager Felix Magath and former German international Sami Khedira.
Magath contracted COVID-19 before their first game in charge, so Mark led the team in a big 3-0 win over Hoffenheim. After the game, Magath heaped praise on his assistant when speaking with Kicker:
“Most of the work was done by my assistant Mark Fotheringham, on the bench, in training, in conversations with the players.
“It was a really hard situation because we were all new, the players hardly knew us.
“The key was clearly that Mark Fotheringham succeeded in conveying to the players, in training, the importance of remaining compact.”
World Cup winner Khedira, who played for Hertha before turning his hand to broadcasting, was reported by T-Online as saying:
"He (Magath) made an incredibly smart move: his assistant coach (Mark Fotheringham, editor's note). I rarely see people who can inspire and convince other people at first, and that this man can.
“His assistant coach can be this piece of the puzzle, the players love him, are enthusiastic about him. If you heard the players yesterday: Niklas Stark, Marco Richter, they speak highly of him, and that it was a very smart move.”
Former Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Germany player Markus Babbel has a lasting impression of Fotheringham from a trial period in 2012 when he was in charge at Hoffenheim. He told ran.de:
"And in fact he was a decent footballer, but above all a great guy who absorbed everything that was said to him. Just a person and a player who is fun for a coach.
"Of course, it's always a very uncomfortable conversation when you have to tell a player that you can't or don't want to keep him, but when we talked about it, Mark's outstanding personality showed. He wasn't angry at all, but rather thanked him for the time and opportunity he was given with us. It's a testament to how he ticks and what for an outstanding character he has.
“His players also feel this passion and they are all really enthusiastic about him. For me, Mark is definitely a future head coach, no matter what club.”
Mark recently spoke with the BBC at length about his own playing and coaching career. You can read that interview in full here.
