article: He doesn't do Facebook. He doesn't do Twitter. More than that, the 41-year-old Brummie, reared from the school of hard knocks, believes in serving a proper apprenticeship as a manager - just as he did as in his 20 years as a player, at almost every level of the professional game. The boyhood Birmingham City fan released as a teenager by his favourite team played in non-league for Telford United and Kidderminster Harriers. He then found his way back into the professional game with Crewe Alexandra, Bristol Rovers, QPR, Rushden & Diamonds and Millwall. And, before he became manager of National League new boys Solihull Moors, he helped to cut his teeth in women's football, coaching Birmingham City Ladies. But it is as manager of Solihull, where he has worked for the past five years without a contract, that he has done most to enhance his growing reputation - and all at a time when Telford and Kidderminster have gone in the opposite direction. So much so that when the Moors went up in April, it was actually the Harriers they swapped places with, in the process becoming the top non-league side in the Midlands. "Why," asks Bignot, "do these things happen? Why did the fates decide that we go up at the expense of Kiddy? I wanted to manage Kiddy, I could have managed Telford. Instead, I'm at Solihull." Although he retains an interest in Blues Ladies, purely on the coaching side, it is as manager of the Moors that Bignot is currently most preoccupied as he prepares for life in the fifth tier of English football after winning the National League North title last season. Solihull were the first of the National League's four newly-promoted clubs to go up last season, following a highly satisfactory campaign in which the Moors won 25 of their 42 league games, to go up by nine points. A successful conclusion to his fifth season in charge. But it was not always like that at Damson Park, the home of the club created in 2007 by the merger of two under-achieving non-league local rivals Solihull Borough and Moor Green. Having taken over following the death of long-serving boss Bob Faulkner and the departure of his assistant Micky Moore to Mansfield, Bignot's managerial career did not start well. "I didn't know the level," he said. "I didn't know the players. I lost my first seven games and I was suspended for five of them." The Moors turned it around to avoid relegation. But worse was to come off the field the following season when the financially-challenged club were close to going under. "We nearly folded," he winces. "It never got reported. That's how tightknit we had the dressing room. "There's a reason why two clubs merged and it wasn't because they were doing well. I remember the chairman saying we had a £30,000 deficit and that we might struggle to reach the end of season. "A friend of the club, Ian Atkins [the former Birmingham City and Everton midfielder] introduced us to Mike Turl, who we
summary: Solihull Moors manager Marcus Bignot is old school.