By Graham Thomas

 

It’s the temperature gauge of football management, the barometer of the bosses, the indicator of a possibly poisonous touchline atmosphere.

I’m talking, of course, of the managers’ pre-match and post-match handshake.

The other day, two Welsh managers – Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis – made headlines by not shaking hands, either before or after West Bromwich Albion’s 1-0 victory over Stoke City at The Hawthorns.

Admittedly, it wasn’t much of a game by all accounts, but the fixation on the handshake – or rather the lack of it – dominated most of the match reports. It was like two zoo-housed giant pandas who had disappointingly refused to mate.

Hughes has been on the receiving end of a bit of handshake history, a little shake-gate shenanigans. Earlier in the season, be berated Walter Mazzarri, Watford’s Italian manager, when he went straight down the tunnel after Stoke had won 1-0 at Vicarage Road.

“I think he just forgot for a brief moment it’s what we do over here, win, lose or draw,” Hughes told Sky Sports.

“In fairness he’s come and apologised. I think maybe he was told to.”

Hughes added: “It is something maybe the foreign managers don’t always do and they need reminding it is something we do over here.”

But is it? And if it is, when did it start? Who made it the essential starting gun and finishing tape of every match played in the Premier League?

I’ve no doubt Brian Clough reached across to grab the mitt of Bob Paisley, or Tommy Docherty clasped the hand of Bertie Mee in the 1970s, but it’s just that I have no childhood memory of it.

Maybe they shook hands in the boardroom, or as they were both hanging up their sheepskin coats in the club cloakroom, but it certainly wasn’t the demanded public performance it is today.

These days, no Premier League live coverage can begin on any channel without the obligatory shots of managers pressing the flesh.

And, certainly, the go-to shot for any match director at full-time is the manager’s formal seizing of the hand of his vanquished opponent. Any slight delay in this choreography is embellished into a full-on snub, regardless of whether the manager is still dealing with crushing disappointment, seething anger, or near heart failure – or perhaps, all three.

There is so much rich material here. The long, lingering embrace that Jose Mourinho gave to fellow Portuguese manager Marco Silva when Manchester United played Hull City, compared to Mourinho’s mastery of what might be called the micro-shake – that blink-and-you-miss-it arm thrust which a losing manager often does before he takes his sneer with him and disappears down the tunnel.

There’s no doubt that managers should shake hands. It’s a sign of civility and manners in a sport where many familiar values have been undermined or even crushed by commercial priorities.

After all, if The Queen can shake hands with Martin McGuinness – and be expected to soon do the same with Donald Trump – (even with those white gloves on), then Sean Dyche should be able to do it with Claude Puel, even after a controversial goalless draw at Turf Moor.

But I confess, I have a sneaking regard for the non-shaker, the back-turner, the tunnel-stomper.

Refusing to shake hands in public is a withdrawl of etiquette, a quiet protest. It says, ‘I’m not playing the game’ and so long as hands are shaken elsewhere then it usually means no more than a signal for the media to dig elsewhere for the real story.

Oh, look . . . there’s Saido Berhahino.

 

This article first appeared in the Swansea City match day programme v Leicester City