Steve Evans: ‘Look at Klopp on the sidelines. That’s me 10 years ago. That’s pressure’

‘Alexa, stop,” Steve Evans says, sitting at his kitchen table, shutting off the Motown playlist as he reflects on Stevenage’s superb start to the season, hours after victory preserved their perfect home record. It is a summer’s day in Rutland, the sun blasting in from the garden that doubles up as a football pitch for him and Joseph, his eldest grandson. Evans spent the morning strimming the hedges and mowing the lawn and is at ease as he looks back on a colourful career in the dugout. It all began in the 90s, a few minutes down the road at Stamford AFC where he won two of his eight promotions and the management bug gripped him, but much has changed since then.

The rhino skin remains – it is a necessity to last this long in the game – but Evans insists the caricature of the uncensored character who would overheat and berate officials on the touchline is out of date. So does he feel he has mellowed? “Without a shadow of a doubt,” says Evans, 60 next month. “I’ve think if you’ve seen me 10-15 years ago, it could be the most blatant goal-kick and I’m appealing for a corner, and if we lose it’s not my fault because I got the team or the shape wrong, it’s the referee’s fault because he didn’t give us the right throw-in on 74 minutes. I had to change, for health, and because we’re getting to the stage where grandsons are coming to the games. Joseph comes and he’s like: ‘Pops, pops!’ You have to be a bit careful, do you know what I mean?

“You only need to look at Jürgen [Klopp] on the sidelines. That’s me 10 or 15 years ago. That’s pressure. But when there’s 50 or 60,000 there, people forget about Jürgen and they’re more concentrated on the pitch. It’s pressure to win. Do I still have that burning thing to jump up and appeal