Football news - Paul Parker: Sol Campbell and Thierry Henry can learn from hero Hughton

Sol Campbell is someone to look to for those young England players. As an ex-professional you walk into a dressing room and you get unbelievable respect, especially if you were a top star.

But you have to keep their respect when you start the job. The former England, Arsenal and Spurs defender has been calling out certain clubs about why he hasn’t been given a role so he now has to deliver – and I hope he can.

People will be looking more intently at how he does now – specifically whether those players underneath him improve. If he then gets to take over that team then it will be the results that matter more than anything.

If he wants to go into club football then that’s where he’ll be judged incredibly harshly if it goes wrong because he’s already gone out there with a big opinion involving race in football. If it doesn’t work out for him, there’ll be some back biting.

If it was Chris Eubank doing it, saying these things, then it’s different as he achieved so much in the boxing ring and only has to look after himself. But Campbell, although he was a great player, has not done anything as a manager. And he needs eleven players to play for him.

Whatever that team delivers, that is you. You are the team you coach.

Merit has to play a part with this diversity drive from the FA – I’m not into filling positions based on minorities or gender. You can’t just put someone in to fill a berth as that will affect the people underneath them – the players and the other coaches – and their ability to improve.

They have to be good at their job, it doesn’t matter what colour or religion they are. Is he better than others in similar jobs at the moment and the five others who are in the frame for it? He has to answer those questions.

If it works out that a black person goes for a job and a white person gets it, especially given the margins in football, then it comes down to opinion. We can’t keep blaming the colour of skin as a reason.

Thierry Henry also has a chance to impress at Monaco.

But just like everyone else, he has to earn his stripes as a manager. Earn respect that is separate from being a player.

Because he was a great striker, everyone talks about him, he’s on TV and was assistant for Belgium. But now he’s had to go and do it on his own, and it isn’t easy - especially when you go to the top level and results are already going wrong when you arrive.

As soon as he started they had to arrest the situation they were in with the previous manager, Leonardo Jardim. He hasn’t done that. So, already he is struggling.

And although he should be given more time, the problem is that he is managing Monaco, who always expect to be in Europe. It is so important for that club because they have so many good young players coming through that if they don’t get into that shop window then there is nothing to sell in order to get others in.

So what can he do?

I tried being a manager. I failed. Why? Honestly, I think I sat back on my laurels as an ex-player, just thinking it was going to happen.

But it doesn’t. You have to make it happen, never stop asking questions, always learn.

I couldn’t put the yards in that were needed and it led to me not enjoying it. I suddenly realised that football takes up every minute of your life. And I was a non-League manager!

They called it ‘part-time’ football but that is just a name – football is never part time, even as a dad running a team on Sunday. And if you treat it as such, you part-deliver.

I found out that there were too many other things I wanted to do. I couldn’t fully commit to managing a football team.

Your life is ruled by a result. Even if you win, it can become negative, about how you win. And, when I was doing it, there was racism. Someone in the crowd would shout I was a ‘useless black so and so…’

I couldn’t take a day off, people are in your face the whole time, you never get a chance to relax. It's even worse these days with social media, the press, and phones everywhere.

So whoever goes and does it is so brave. And to go in there as a black manager... I hope they succeed.

That’s why Chris Hughton is such a hero to so many black people. They look at him and what he has achieved as a footballer at Spurs, then an assistant manager, then as manager of Newcastle where he was disgracefully sacked. And now what he has achieved at Brighton - superb.

But it's not just the results, it’s about how he conducts himself. When he’s on TV his manner is perfect. And that’s what he’s like as a person as well: it’s him, not just for the TV cameras.

That’s why he’s respected wherever he goes – because of how he deals with it. He knows that there might be people out there who don’t like him because he’s black and managing Brighton. He knows that when he loses a game of football someone, somewhere will not be saying ‘that manager is terrible’, it will be that ‘black b*****d of a manager is terrible!’

He knows that is still around. But he’s not going around being bitter towards others. He knows that’s life. You can’t turn round and fight the world. What you have to remember is that every hour, every day, every week, month and year there are fewer bigots in this country. Kids grow up and learn and it gets better.

He comes from my era or just before. We knew what we grew up in and we didn’t look for excuses to throw things back or to moan or whinge or sulk. We get on with it.

Don’t get bitter, get even. And the way to do that is go and do the job properly.