Ex-Reds boss Yems backs Drummy for the long haul

Former Reds boss Yems is good friends with the ex-Arsenal and Chelsea youth coach and backs him for success at the Checkatrade Stadium.

Horsham-based Yems, who is currently the football operations and recruitment manager at Premier League side Bournemouth, was Crawley’s caretaker manager in 2007.

The Londoners know each other from back when they were based at clubs in the capital.

Yems said: “We go back a long way. He was very successful when he was at Arsenal and I was at Millwall and we were London boys, so we go back quite a bit.

“He’s a very, very good coach, who knows what he wants. He’s worked at the top level coaching wise and has a good assistant wrapped around him in Matty (Gray).

“He’s a longevity person, he’s not here for today and gone tomorrow.

“He knew the owners of the club and he’s been talking to me after he got the job and I back him all the way, he’s a good man.”

And Yems has dismissed any possible doubts over Drummy’s experience at first-team level, saying he’s a good enough to work anywhere.

“He has worked with top players at Chelsea,” Yems added. “He has worked with first team players and coached players that are playing in the Premier League

“There is a big thing made up now of knowing the league I think, but he is a football person.

“He knows football, so it doesn’t matter what level it is. The good thing with a good coach like Dermot is he can jump and work to any level he has got to.

“Knowing the league, I understand what people go on about knowing the teams and knowing this and that, but let him get people knowing about Crawley, that is all he will be interested in.”

Drummy said: “I have a personal friend in John Yems, who was a manager here and has done the Bournemouth journey and a very unsung hero in my opinion.

“I can lean on John for anything, he is like an encyclopedia, he has been a great help to me in the time I have been observing the game.”

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