Cardiff City manager Mick McCarthy will celebrate reaching the 1,000 game milestone as a manager tonight – four games earlier than expected.
McCarthy has taken the Championship by storm since being appointed in South Wales in late January. His team have won seven and drawn one of their last eight league games and another victory at Huddersfield this evening would take them in to the play-off positions.
McCarthy, meanwhile, was expected to oversee his 1,000th game when his team travel to Nottingham Forest on April 2.
But having been informed this week that four games managing Millwall in the long-forgotten Anglo-Italian Cup in 1992 and 1993 count towards his total, the 62-year-old believes he will actually reach his milestone a month ahead of schedule.
‘I don’t want to make a fuss about it as getting a good result at Huddersfield is all I really want to think about,’ McCarthy told Sportsmail last night.
‘Buy yeh, it seems as though this will be number 1000. I didn’t know those four games counted. I will have a nice think about it once the game is over.’
McCarthy began his managerial career as player-manager of Millwall in 1992 and as well as two successful spells in charge of the Republic of Ireland, has worked at Sunderland, Wolves, Ipswich and, most recently, APOEL FC in Greece.
Certainly those four Anglo-Italian Cup games were not the most memorable of his career. In four games against Charlton (twice), Crystal Palace and Portsmouth, Millwall failed to win and finished bottom of their three-man group in both seasons.