John Barnes won 19 of his 29 games as a manager but was termed a “disaster” in the role. Celtic, where margins for error are minimal because of rivalry with Rangers, is no place to begin a dugout career and Barnes was only 35, and 23 days retired from playing, when he took the Glasgow club’s lava-hot seat. Fortune was against him: Henrik Larsson broke his leg. History was against him: Rangers had won 10 of the previous 11 Scottish titles and Celtic had been through six managers in eight years. He faced a snake-pit of a dressing room, with types like Mark Viduka and Eyal Berkovic and senior players who derided colleagues with caustic nicknames: Olivier Tebily, a panic-prone defender, was referred to openly as “Bombscare”. One player told Barnes, “Shut up, you dud” during a team-talk. Barnes did well to last 29 games.

Barnes’s Scottish misadventure was the only previous occasion a black Englishman held a top managerial job. Now Paul Ince is the Premier League’s first black English manager. It is a trail he always wanted to blaze but there is a second way Ince can beat a new path. Barnes is just one example of a former England player chewed up by management after being asked to do too much too soon. Ince arrived at Blackburn having served an apprenticeship at a lower level – and you don’t get much lower than seven points adrift at the bottom of the Football League, the position of Macclesfield when he arrived to save them in 2006-07. He grew further last season at Milton Keynes Dons. “You’ve got to learn your trade,” Ince said. “If somebody had offered me a Premier League job after leaving Swindon [as a player] I’d have taken it, but I’m glad I didn’t. There were jobs – Derby, Leicester – I could have had, but I stayed at Milton Keynes.

“To win League Two and take them to Wembley was a massive achievement and I had a lot of great experiences there and at Macclesfield. I learnt you have to be patient with people, care about your players and treat them like men. That’s what I intend doing at Blackburn. My philosophy about players and how to play football won’t change.”

A challenge for Ince, whether at Ewood Park or a future destination, is to become the first ex-England player to win major silverware in management since Brian Little landed the League Cup with Aston Villa in 1996. Of the past 100 major domestic trophies contested in England only seven were won by managers with England caps. It is 30 years since a former England player (Brian Clough) was English champion as a manager and in the same period 16 Serie A titles were won by bosses with Italy caps. England sits unfavourably compared with Germany, France and even Spain, despite the habit of Barcelona and Real Madrid of appointing foreign coaches.

Blackburn, seventh in last season’s Premier League and a club that nurtures managers, offers Ince a less febrile environment than Barnes and many other former England stars were pitched into as bosses. He has in his favour strength of character and undiluted self-belief. “There is no way you could force Paul Ince to do anything against his will,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said. “I’m looking forward to battling Sir Alex and every manager in the Premier League. You’ve got to enjoy it,” Ince said. “You can’t worry about going to Arsenal, Chelsea, wherever . . . if you did you’d end up with grey hair. It’s the Premier League, the big league, and you’ve got to embrace it. To pit my wits against the top managers will be exciting.”

Ince is similarly sanguine about living up to a predecessor, Mark Hughes, who achieved top-10 finishes in each of his three full seasons at Ewood Park. “I don’t worry about that. It doesn’t scare me coming to Blackburn, it doesn’t scare me going anywhere. There’s no fear factor about what I do,” said Ince. “I haven’t spoken to Sparky [Hughes] yet, we’ve both been busy, but once it all settles down we’ll have a chat and I’ll pick his brains about this club.”

Perhaps Hughes can explain how he kept so many of Blackburn’s best players happy in the face of larger clubs trying to sign them. Preventing Roque Santa Cruz and David Bentley from leaving is Ince’s first big challenge. Yet, overall, it is the Blackburn squad who need to get their new boss onside, not the other way round. “From playing under Sir Alex you learn high standards and ruthlessness is required at any level of management, more so at the top. I’m sure I’ll find that out,” said Ince, “with the squad I inherit now.”

Ferguson can be a sustaining presence. Recent times have seen Ince and him heal wounds that festered for more than a decade and were opened when Ferguson jettisoned Ince as a player in 1995. “People had this misconception that we didn’t get on but in the six years I was at Manchester United we had a great relationship,” said Ince. “It turned a bit . . . I’m not sure if sour is the right word . . . but, anyway, he wanted me to go and I didn’t want to leave. When I look back it’s the best thing I did because I went to Inter Milan and had a great time. It’s water under the bridge and we’ve grown up since then. We speak. He always invites me to his golf day and was in my office about six months ago drinking red wine. If I can do half as well as him I’ll be a happy man.”

It was Ferguson who advised Ince to take the Macclesfield job “though all you [the press] thought I was mad”, and Ferguson has let Ince know he is available any time advice is needed. “I’m not sure if help will be on offer when we’re playing them,” Ince chuckled, “but at other times I hope I can lean on his experience. At Macclesfield and Milton Keynes it went so swimmingly I didn’t really have to call him up but I’m sure there will be good times at Blackburn and bad times and in the bad times you have to lean on people. I’ll have no problem picking up the phone to him. Why should I?”

When Ferguson retires eventually Ince believes United will replace him with someone who has a connection to the club, mentioning Hughes and Steve Bruce as leading candidates. If he dazzles at Blackburn he could be in the frame. There is also a chance to get into the reckoning to be the Englishman the Football Association would ideally appoint once Fabio Capello steps down. The League Managers Association is launching initiatives to provide more support and training to its members, especially those starting their careers. “We’re very focused on developing domestic managers and identifying talent,” said Richard Bevan, its chief executive. “Our aim is that the next time an England manager is appointed there are 20 to 30 good applicants.”

Might Ince be among them? It is time someone who played, with distinction, for England managed, with distinction, in England. Blackburn’s new boss is certainly unrelenting. Now he and Ferguson are pals does he understand why his old gaffer sold him all those years ago? “Er, no.”

Silver spur: can Paul Ince turn the tide of failure?

His appointment by Blackburn Rovers made Paul Ince the first black English manager in the Premier League but can he make history in another way? Compared to counterparts from other countries, the record of former England players in management is pitiful and if Ince, who won 53 caps between 1992-2002, can bring silverware to Ewood Park, he would break one of the most depressing sequences in football. It is 12 years since an ex-England international won a major domestic trophy as a manager and 30 years since the league title was secured by a manager with England caps

First Division 1977-78 Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest (2 caps in 1959)
FA Cup 1995 Joe Royle (Everton, 6 caps); 1991 Terry Venables (Tottenham, 2 caps); 1978 Sir Bobby Robson (Ipswich, 20 caps)
League Cup 1996 Brian Little (Aston Villa, 1 cap); 1989, 1990 Brian Clough (Nottingham Forest)

TABLE OF SHAME

16 Italian league titles won by coaches with Italy caps since 1978
14 French titles won by coaches with France caps since 1978
8 German titles won by coaches with Germany caps since 1978
5 Spanish titles won by coaches with Spain caps since 1978
Zero English league titles won by managers with England caps since 1978