100-game Caldwell hopes for long Exeter City spell

Gary Caldwell's time in charge at Exeter City is his longest stint as a manager at any club

Gary Caldwell hopes to stay as Exeter City manager for "many more years" as he approaches his 100th game in charge.

The 42-year-old Scot took over almost two years ago having previously led Wigan to promotion to the Championship in 2016 and also had spells in charge of Partick Thistle and Chesterfield.

Caldwell has guided the Grecians to 14th and 13th-placed finishes in his two seasons in charge.

City are seventh in League One having won four of their last six games and have not conceded a goal in their past five games in all competitions.

"I feel like the team is really progressing, it's evolving, I think our identity is something that we should be really proud of," Caldwell said.

"We have a clear style of play and that over time, hopefully, gives us the results we need to be a really successful team.

"We still feel we can be better, we still feel we can improve in certain areas and keep building that identity and that way of playing that over time hopefully gets us the success we want."

Exeter City's 2-0 win at Bolton Wanderers at the end of August was the second of seven clean sheets in 12 games this season

Caldwell's reign has not been without its challenges - a club-record 13-game winless spell last season might have seen other sides dispense with the services of their manager.

But Exeter stuck with the former Celtic captain, who won 55 caps for Scotland, a decision which appears to have paid dividends.

A side made up almost totally of Caldwell signings is only outside the play-off places on goal difference, and a sixth-successive clean sheet at struggling Shrewsbury Town on Thursday would set a club record for the third tier.

Exeter have had just three managers in 18 years and Caldwell feels the fan-owned structure of the club and its outlook on being sustainable lends itself to giving managers the chance to build strong sides over time.

"The big thing for me is they allow the football manager to manage the football, which you would think that would be pretty simple," he told BBC Radio Devon.

"But at a lot of other clubs you can be tested with that, you can be put under pressure with certain things - you might not be allowed to buy the certain players you want or there'll be problems within that that make doing your job very difficult.

"I think what I enjoy here is that the football club allows me to do my job and I'll be successful or not successful based on what I do, and not what anyone else does, and that freedom to do that is brilliant.

"The biggest thing for me is support, it's not an easy job, and at times you're going to need support - whether that's finances, whether that's the board coming in to speak to the players and the staff and understand the club more.

"The club have been amazing at giving me that support that I need to do my job and I'm thankful of that.

"Hopefully there's many more games, many more years where we continue to do that and be as successful as this club has ever been."