Mancienne, Mourinho and Big Mick!

And that was a mirror image of the journey he first took back in October 2008, when heading up to Compton to discuss the first of three loan spells from Chelsea which would ultimately lead to 60 appearances in a Wolves shirt.

On that occasion, the stylish defender, then a 20-year-old, was asked by his agent if he wanted company at the meeting with McCarthy which would ultimately decide the loan’s fate.

But Mancienne was happy to go it alone. The terms had been arranged, it was just the footballing chat with the Wolves manager. Defenders past and present, though of vastly contrasting styles.

“I got to the training ground and, as soon as I walked in, Mick asked me if my agent was with me,” Mancienne recalls.

“I was like, ‘No he’s not, does he need to be here’?

“’Not at all’, Mick replied, ‘And I ******* love that son’!

“From that moment I knew what kind of manager I was going to play for, and I couldn’t wait to get started.”

Mancienne would go on to make a total of 10 appearances before being recalled by Chelsea at the start of the January transfer window.

During that time he had helped Wolves stay on top of the table, a place they never relinquished, and he would not only land a Championship-winners’ medal in his absence but would return for two further loan spells for Wolves in the Premier League.

“I was devastated to miss out on all the celebrations at Wolves at the end of the season,” he laughs.

Having said that, returning to Chelsea in such good form – he had also landed his one and only senior England call-up whilst with Wolves – did then offer him the opportunity to grace the first team of the club where he was first recruited at just eight years old.

And so, when the time came that he made his only six appearances in the Chelsea first team, in that second half of the 2008/09 season, it was always going to be special.

Not least when you think of some of the team-mates he was sharing a dressing room with.

“To play with people like John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba and work with some top managers was amazing,” Mancienne explains.

“It just gave me so much confidence because stepping onto the pitch knowing you had that quality in the team meant there was nothing to fear.

“Coming through the academy at Chelsea, being surrounded by leaders and international players who were at the top of their games – it was an incredible learning experience.

“Just getting to train with them and be around that group every day showed the level and the professionalism that was needed to reach those sorts of standards.”

One of those six first team appearances came as a substitute in the closing stages of a Champions League win against Juventus, up against Alessandro Del Piero and David Trezeguet, and Mancienne was an unused substitute for many more titanic fixtures, including both legs of the Champions League semi-finals against Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and the FA Cup final win against Everton at Wembley.

“That Champions League night in particular was a dream come true,” Mancienne recalls.

“At the time I was still living where I had grown up and I remember just driving back onto my estate thinking, ‘I’ve just played in the Champions League against Juventus!’.

“It was one of those moments, a great experience and one I will always definitely cherish.”

He ended the season as Chelsea’s young player of the year, impressive progress from first being scouted as an eight-year-old with Kingstonian Colts which later saw him make his reserve team debut whilst still at school and sign his first professional contract under the stewardship of Jose Mourinho.

And, by the time of his long-awaited first team breakthrough, he had already spent that first half season at Wolves, a move which was as much about heading out of his comfort zone as it was the challenges on the pitch.

Mancienne had enjoyed two successful years on loan at QPR, chalking up over half a century of appearances as a young defender, but had the desire and determination to spread his wings from lifelong London roots.

“I had obviously grown up in London, and then QPR literally trained on Chelsea’s old training ground, which was around the corner from me,” he says.

“I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and move away from home to have a new experience, to go through something tougher and increase my confidence.

“Wolves is obviously a massive club, and the appeal was there as soon as I heard about their interest, and then there was that first meeting with Mick!

“He and all the boys made it really easy to settle, I knew a couple of them already but they were – still are – such a great bunch of lads.”

Mancienne enjoyed it so much that, with options at Chelsea restricted after his initial batch of appearances, he would return to Wolves for two further loan spells in the Premier League.

The opportunity to battle it out with some of the game’s top strikers helped develop his game further, as well as working with McCarthy who, while a very different type of defender hailing from what was a very different footballing era, was able to pass on the benefits of his experience to the young protégé.

“Playing for Wolves in the Championship had been brilliant,” Mancienne explains.

“We know how tough that league is and how hard it is to get promoted but we were going into every game with so much confidence and thinking we were going to win.

“To then go back to Wolves in the Premier League was a great experience because it gave me the chance to play regularly at that level.

“It was an exciting challenge, going up against top centre forwards every single week, and another big learning curve.

“Mick’s man-management was spot on, one of the best I had, and he was always looking to do work with players and would do extras with me after training, giving me pointers in certain areas.

“For a young defender, to learn from someone who had been there and done it in the game like Mick, was really important.”

During those formative years, Mancienne was a mainstay of the England under-21 defence, and his tally of 30 caps puts him six in the all-time appearance list, which is headed by James Milner on 46.

Yet while he was at Wolves, the defender enjoyed an international call-up at senior level, named in Fabio Capello’s squad for a friendly in Germany before he had even featured in the Premier League.

He didn’t get to taste any of the action in Berlin, but it was another much cherished accolade.

“I remember even now when I heard about that call-up,” he recalls. “I was in the apartment where I was staying in Wolverhampton and my friend was up to see me and I got a call from Frank Arnesen (Chelsea sporting director), saying I had been named in the preliminary squad.

“I was like, ‘Do you mean the under-21s’? and he said, ‘No, the senior squad’, and I couldn’t quite believe it.

“Me and my friend both went a bit quiet, and not long after, Frank called me back to say I had made it.

“We were both jumping around the apartment, celebrating, and to go and meet up with the squad for that game was so exciting.

“It was another great experience, and I was lucky in that so many of the players there were at Chelsea, so I felt really comfortable joining up.”

Mancienne remaining an unused substitute on that night did ultimately open the door for international football later in his career, as he made several appearances for the Seychelles, following in the footsteps of his father, Michael senior.

And opening himself up to those different experiences is a trait that continued throughout Mancienne’s career.

He would later make almost 150 appearances for Nottingham Forest, Wolves’ next Premier League opponents after Chelsea, and rounded off his playing days with a spell at Burton Albion, but, in between, headed much further afield to test himself in new situations.

He spent three years in the Bundesliga with German giants Hamburg, and later another couple Across the Pond with New England Revolution in the MLS (Major League Soccer) in America, broadening his horizons both in football and in life.

“Hamburg was comfortably one of the highlights of my career,” he reveals.

“They are a massive club with a great stadium and I loved the city and loved playing for them.

“Playing abroad was something I had always wanted to do, from being a young boy at Chelsea and seeing a lot of overseas players coming to the club.

“That just made me ask the question as to why more English players didn’t do the same and go and play abroad, and I always said to myself I would take that opportunity if it ever came along.

“America was similar, although difficult at times as I was out there with my wife and our young baby at the time when Covid took hold.

“But overall, it was still enjoyable, to experience a different kind of football and another different culture and something I look back on with fond memories.”

There are only fond memories, too, of his career as a whole. A career launched with Chelsea and nurtured by Wolves, which officially came to an end in May of last year.

“I am so grateful for the career I have had and thankful to God for the memories and experiences I have been blessed with,” he declares.

Mancienne is still involved in the game in one capacity, dipping his toes in agency work with the Unique Sports Agency whose stable he was part of throughout his career.

He is also involved in a property business – Mancienne Rowe – and is taking the opportunity to enjoy the family time often sacrificed during a playing career.

When it comes to his footballing family, that Night at the Museum at Molineux back in June offered the perfect way to catch up with the group with whom he shared such special memories.

“It was great to see all the old faces, my team-mates and Mick and TC, and I don’t think anyone has changed!

“It was like we’d just stopped talking for a day or so and had met up again, that’s how well we all got on, and it definitely didn’t feel like 15 years.”

Good times celebrating good memories. And, once again, Mancienne didn’t need to bring his agent.