Roy Hodgson's "Church in the centre of the village" expression

Solution 1:

"You always want the church in the centre of the village" is not an English idiom or well-known phrase, but a borrowing from the Swedish "kyrkan mitt i byn".

Roy Hodgson, the manager of the England football team, is saying that the power must lie with him, and not with the players, as becomes clear when given in a fuller, earlier, context.

The phrase was also used when he was the manager of West Brom in April 2012. From PlanetSport.com:

Hodgson says that a manager should be the top dog at a club, and that players who misbehave or cause havoc should either be controlled or let go. He cites Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson as an example of a gaffer who firmly keeps hold of the reins at all times.

The 64-year-old, who spent much of his early career at Swedish clubs, said: “It’s very difficult because, to use a Swedish expression, you always want the church in the centre of the village.

“In football terms, the church is the club itself which is often embodied in the manager, with Sir Alex Ferguson being the classic example.

“Once you get difficult players, backed up often by a sympathetic media who are happy to see the church get moved around, then it becomes very difficult.

“It should be that no player is bigger than his club. No player should really be a stronger person than the manager at the club.

“Once that happens you’re taking the power from where it should be, in the hands of someone who represents the club, the fans, the owners and the team.

“You’re giving it to someone who may have very personal, egotistical reasons for wanting to change things.”

Hodgson has been repeating this phrase during Euro 2012. The Guardian from 7th June 2012 says:

Talking to Gary Lineker on the BBC's Football Focus before the departure for Poland, Hodgson emphasised the need to restore optimism to the squad and surround the players with a positive atmosphere after a series of dispiriting performances in major tournaments. "We have to try to get back to putting the church back into the village," he said, leading to much Google searching and speculation that this must be a saying picked up during his employment in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland or Italy. Such enigmatic remarks were not characteristic of his predecessors in a job that has been said to possess the capacity to relieve its incumbents of their sanity. If things go wrong those words will no doubt be presented as evidence for the prosecution.

And a commenter added:

That thing about the village church,
A Swedish expression - "kyrkan mitt i byn" meaning the church in the centre of the village ' and denoting the tried and trusted order of things.
Not that a Swede would ever say anything about putting it back there.