Head scratching Exeter City exit opened doors to Spurs and Liverpool | OneFootball

Alex Inglethorpe's reign at Exeter City was most memorable for those Manchester United FA Cup ties.

There are thousands of coaches up and down the country who would give their right arm to manage a professional football club.

But mid 2000s Exeter City drove one man to turn his back on the role and move into a different field of expertise.

The Grecians are no ordinary club and there can't be too many sides who have seen their manager walk away and head back into the anonymity of coaching, let alone two in a row.

But that's exactly what Alex Inglethorpe did back in 2006, leaving City to take up a role coaching Tottenham's kids around 20 months after his predecessor Eamonn Dolan did the same and left for Reading.

And, to be fair to Inglethorpe, it's a decision that's worked out pretty well for the former Leyton Orient, Watford and City striker.

Inglethorpe has gone on to achieve great things

Inglethorpe is now the Academy Director at Liverpool and has helped nurture the likes of Conor Bradley, Trent Alexander Arnold, Curtis Jones, Rhian Brewster, Caoimhin Kelleher, Neco Williams and many, many more since heading to Anfield in 2012.

Inglethorpe played for the Grecians in the 2000/01 season and went on to take the top job at the club in the October of 2004, guiding the side to a club-saving FA Cup Third Round clash with Manchester United at Old Trafford.

City held a much-changed Red Devils side to a 0-0 but Gerard Pique, Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Scholes couldn't find a way past Steve Flack, Paul Jones, Scott Hiley and the lads to set up a replay down in Devon.

Those cup matches were Inglethorpe's crowing glory at Exeter but, ultimately, he couldn't achieve his main goal of getting the Grecians into the Conference play-offs, finishing 6th and then 7th during his two seasons in charge.

At the end of the 2005/06 season it was announced that he was leaving Exeter, with the MK Dons' managerial job and a coaching role at Spurs mooted as his potential next destinations.

It was to be Spurs and, as it turned out, he nor the club ever looked back.

Inglethorpe had a one-year rolling contract which meant City got a decent payout for their manager and they would go on to appoint the great Paul Tisdale as his replacement.

Inglethorpe's done a great job at Liverpool

The former City boss was at White Hart Lane for six years and even graced a Premiership touchline as caretaker manager for Spurs between the sacking of Juande Ramos and the appointment of Harry Redknapp in 2008.

In 2012 Liverpool came calling and Inglethorpe headed to Anfield to manage the Reds' under-21 side under Brendan Rodgers.

Two years later he was promoted to Academy Director for the Kop and it's a position he still holds, having been a key part of a famous period for Liverpool with Jurgen Klopp leading the first team.

As strange as it was to see a manager of a professional side, who was fairly safe in his job, leave to join the backroom of another side, it was the second successive time it had happened to Exeter.

Inglethorpe replaced the late, great and much missed Dolan, who had steadied the ship at SJP before himself taking a role at Reading's academy.

Inglethorpe followed Dolan's lead

Dolan sadly died of cancer in 2016 but was well-loved at Exeter and Reading and he's got a stand named after him at the Madejski.

To lose a manger to another side's academy once is careless, to do it twice is perhaps sign of the success of the path the club was taking at that point.

The Supporters' Trust clearly targeted managers who were good with developing young players and it's a policy that would bear fruit in the 2010s and continues to do so now, though current boss Gary Caldwell seems less interested in the pathway.

The mid noughties were a turbulent time for City but it's always darkest before the dawn and Inglethope's replacement, Paul Tisdale, worked miracles at St James Park before he was forced out in 2018.

It's just another example of why Exeter City is the most unique and unusual club in the EFL at the moment and long may it continue.