Tag Archives: managers

Police-Basher Holloway Needs to Recognise the Millwall Fan Problem – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 16/02/2015 | 10 comments

Holloway: we’d have done it, too, if it wasn’t for those pesky cops

If this week had been about which football manager could make the biggest fool of himself, then we might very well have ended up with a dead heat between Millwall boss Ian Holloway and the manager of fallen giants Man U, Louis van Gaal. It was the Theatre of Hollow Myths boss that got off to a flying start, reacting petulantly to the jibes of former Fergie poodle Sam Allardyce that the Pride of Devon had metamorphosed into the Pride of Wimbledon, playing a long ball game to thwart the cultured Hammers.

Even Giggs facepalms at the van Gaal outburst

To say that van Gaal was displeased is somewhat to understate the matter. To say that his production of copious paperwork (which he waved wildly and employed to lecture the assembled press) caused some bemusement and raised eyebrows would be hopelessly inadequate. There were embarrassed mutterings and rolled eyes aplenty, among the press and even in certain of the Man U staff present. It was all excruciatingly, gratifyingly cringeworthy.

So, it’s looking very much as though that club has done it again, making a formerly quite sane person head rapidly for the margins of weirdness. They did it to Cantona, they did it (and how) to the already rabidly eccentric Ferguson; even poor David Moyes in his brief spell went slightly doolally. Surely it’s only a matter of time before van Gaal’s presser consists of a single word, the Dutch equivalent of “Wibble” from a wild-eyed Louis with underpants on his head and pencils up his nose. In a club as distantly separated from reality as Man U, it’s just something that happens, figuratively at least.

Millwall manager Ian Holloway, meanwhile, quite possibly has a head start over the previously rational van Gaal in the craziness stakes. Holloway, after all, has solid form for a bit of casual verbal lunacy, as witness his various pre- and post-match pronouncements – especially during a brief Premier League heyday at Blackpool. And let’s not forget, he was a full week behind the Man U manager in the race for any “Nutter of the Moment” Award – but once he got going, he seemed set fair to surge past the Dutchman into pole position, with an incredible outburst after his team’s defeat at Elland Road on Saturday. Eschewing the normal managerial options of blaming the ref, or the pitch, or Lady Luck, Ian has zoomed straight to the extreme end of the loony scale – and he’s pointed his quivering finger directly at that fine body of men and women, the West Yorkshire Police.

Yes, folks – Millwall slumped to defeat not because they were crap and not because Leeds did well enough to overcome them on the field of play. It was those awful West Yorks coppers, victimising the poor old ‘Wall, insisting that their choirboy-innocent fans should have to obtain match-day vouchers, to be exchanged for tickets at a pre-arranged motorway services meeting point. This naturally resulted – as those evil, plotting police had obviously foreseen – in a reduction in the Millwall away support to a paltry couple of hundred. The main big brave boys stopped at home – as they have done for the last few meetings at Elland Road. And, as ever, there’s at least one pisspoor online news outlet ready to join in with some ill-informed and way off beam Leeds bashing, even when – as in this case – it’s the Police being bashed, for once, instead of the club. “Give Me Sport“? Give me strength…

Mr. Holloway is clearly not a man to let a few inconvenient truths get in the way of a frankly ridiculous conspiracy theory. The fact that other clubs with notorious fans among their away support have had similar measures imposed, and yet have still managed to take a large and vociferous following on the road, seems to have escaped Ian entirely. Or has he, in his sudden madness, simply chosen not to see it? Leeds at Cardiff is an obvious example. How nice it would be to blame the Welsh Constabulary for our regular defeats in the Principality. But sanity sadly forbids and facts get in the way too. Bubble match or no bubble match, Leeds are out in force at Cardiff, as they always are, everywhere. Millwall included.

Holloway insists that it’s “time to stop tarnishing Millwall supporters with the mistakes of the past” and suggested West Yorkshire police were “too lazy to deal with the situation in a less draconian way”. All well and good – but imagine the row and disastrous fallout if the WY Police had been as complacent as Holloway would seemingly wish. What if the cops had taken a more relaxed and casual attitude, only to find that a numerically stronger set of Millwall fans had travelled without let or hindrance? What if that carefree band had then decided that some mayhem was in order, some provocation of the locals with tasteful references to Turks and knives, perhaps – with ensuing battles and inevitable broken heads and bloodshed? The police would be a bit embarrassed, wouldn’t they? And Holloway himself would have to look elsewhere for his excuses.

I’m not always here to bury rather than praise a man, simply because he has the misfortune to manage Millwall. After Leeds’ opening day defeat at the New Den, I highlighted Holloway’s timely and sensible remarks about the conduct of his club’s animal fans on that occasion. He spoke frankly, and there was no suggestion of the delusion that such a famously degraded bunch of sick thugs had suddenly grown wings and acquired harps. And yet now, here he is – wanting to deflect attention away from defeat, and seemingly ready to deny the reality of Millwall’s gutter-trash fans in order to find any excuse. I’m honestly baffled and, I have to say, he’s gone down in my estimation – as I know he has in many other Leeds fans’ views. He’s possibly tried to come out with something novel and pungent, but has succeeded only in making himself appear ridiculous, which is a shame. Amused and gleeful Leeds fans have been tweeting the West Yorkshire Police, thanking them for their efforts in achieving victory for United. Holloway has basically contrived to hand the irony initiative to the massive on-line Leeds United presence, and who can blame them for proceeding to hang him out to dry in plain view of a global audience?

It’s high time, in fact, that Holloway recognised and acknowledged exactly what he has on his hands – which is a bunch of supporters who will always let their club down with sick taunts, violent behaviour and a determination to live up to their injured-innocence anthem “No-one likes us, we don’t care“. They’re the worst in football, bar none outside of Istanbul. Millwall the club are complacent and complaisant in the face of this, always ready to minimise the impact of these cretins on the unfortunates they meet along the way, always ready to offer excuses and blame somebody – anybody – else. That’s the situation, and Holloway appears to have shifted from an early season position of recognising and being dismayed by it, to slavishly following his club’s abhorrent line – even to the extent of coming out with such bizarrely ridiculous rubbish as these deeply silly “Policegate” remarks.

A message to Mr. Holloway from Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything. You’re a decent man, Ian – and even a half-decent manager. But you work for a scum club with scum fans – as the contents of my email inbox demonstrate every time I have the temerity to write honestly about them. Time to wise up, acknowledge the truth and stop speaking rubbish. If you’re lucky, you’ll be sacked after relegation; perhaps then you can be a proper man at a proper football club again.

10 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Leeds United, managers, Manchester United, Millwall, West Yorkshire Police

It’s a League Cup Tale of Two Uniteds as Minnows Progress – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 28/08/2014 | 54 comments

Matt Smith – scored for Leeds to momentarily cause despair among the Gobshite Tendency

To be more accurate, it was a tale of two alleged Uniteds – plus one City and what might politely be termed a franchise as Milton Keynes Dons and Bradford City saw off the ‘disuniteds’ of Manchester and Leeds respectively. On the face of it, the similarities in the two cases are striking. The Pride of Devon were condemned by English football’s only even more plastic club to a pre-Christmas period of plain and simple League fare, unrelieved by any spicy Cup-tie delicacies. They must concentrate on recovering, under new management, from a wobbly start to that bread-and-butter marathon, and forget all about knock-out glamour until it’s time to get knocked out of the FA Cup.

Leeds have likewise been dragged down to the level of that other United from ovver t’hills. They, too, will be stuck with repairing a dodgy league position until the new year rolls around. They, too, are in transition, rebuilding under a new regime. But there the similarities end – in terms of the manner in which the two Uniteds departed this season’s League Cup competition, anyway. Leeds, for the umpteenth time this season, were reduced to ten men, due on this occasion to foolhardy rashness on the part of Luke Murphy, who gave the ref every opportunity to brandish a second yellow. Murphy let down his team-mates, his coach and indeed his club, all of whom were relying on a united performance. The remaining ten stalwarts delivered though, and in the end Leeds were somewhat unfortunate to lose, as was pointed out by coach Hockaday afterwards – to depressingly predictable storms of social media abuse – about which more anon.

Man U, for their part, had no dismissals to cope with. They were simply out-played, out-fought, out-thought, thrashed out of sight by a team nominally two leagues inferior. Their much-vaunted manager, the former World Cup coach of the Netherlands, left out some supposed big-hitters, despite the lack of European distractions. Man U contributed in full measure to their own downfall, but the wretched MK Dons, a club whose origins leave the nastiest of nasty tastes in the mouth, nevertheless thoroughly deserved their crushing victory.

So the two Uniteds are no more, in this Cup competition at least. Life and the League Cup will go on without them, though there will be a few regrets on all sides about a third round draw that could have been a Roses clash at the Theatre of Hollow Myths, or which could have seen either minnow land a big fish instead of nibbling away at each other. Such is Cup football.

What remains to be said, other than that, in summary, Leeds were slightly unlucky and Man U got exactly what they deserved? Well, quite a bit, actually.

I’ve been rather quiet this season so far, due to some family health problems and various other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, all of which – I’m glad to say – are being properly addressed. But I’ve still been keeping an eye on things, shaking my head gloomily at times, brightening up at bits of exciting transfer news at other times – and tut-tutting away as a middle-aged fan who remembers better times is wont to do. It’s been quite a good and exciting season, really – except for those pesky occasions when some fool has blown a whistle and we’ve actually tried to play a game of football. Big mistake, that. But the over-riding impression of this season so far, for me anyway, has been the clatter and clash of bandwagons being jumped on, over and over again, by far too many people who really should know a lot better.

The people I’m talking about, for the most part, manifest themselves in social media – Twitter being a particular offender in this respect. Some alleged Leeds United fans out there need to take a long, hard look at themselves after some of the unprecedented abuse being heaped on the head of a man in Dave Hockaday who is totally unable to defend himself and has managed to weather an ongoing storm with what can only be described as impeccable dignity. Hockaday has copped for the lot, from school playground stuff like the oh-so-clever plays on his name (Whackaday, Hockalot, Shockaday – and all the other dismally unfunny variants), to far more serious abuse from the kind of people who feel free to say what they like from what they gleefully feel to be safely unaccountable positions. I’ve seen fans freely expressing a hope that we would lose at Bradford, so that Hockaday might be sacked. Some of the bile and spleen vented has been utterly disgusting and degrading; some has been frankly laughable. The other day, there was a veritable Twitter-storm because Hockaday mentioned that Leeds would “inevitably” be back in the Champions League some day. He expressed a desire to be involved in that. And the world and his scabby dog seemed to join in an unseemly scramble to pour contempt on those innocent and sincere words.

Now, just imagine. What if Hockaday had faced the interviewer’s mike and had said “There’s not an earthly of Leeds ever getting into Europe again, not unless there’s a war. As for the Champions League – don’t make me laugh. And if they did, well – I wouldn’t want any part of it. Stuff that for a game of soldiers!” Would he have been applauded for his disarming frankness? Would the various social media have been abuzz with praise for his words of wisdom? No, of course they bloody wouldn’t. The fans would be outraged at such defeatist nonsense, and quite right too. So why go for the guy’s jugular when he expresses the naked ambition and belief in a brighter future that should be burning hot in any true fan’s heart? It makes no sense, and it reflects even less credit on those who, mindlessly sheep-like, follow the masses onto that overloaded bandwagon. For heaven’s sake, it’s nothing less than pathetic. And it grieves me to say this – but after what’s been said and written lately, I’m thoroughly ashamed of many, many Leeds fans right now.

It’s already been the same in the wake of the Bradford defeat. A few saner souls have pointed out that Murphy was an idiot getting himself sent off, that we battled well for an hour when a man down, took the lead and were only undone by a worldie and then a crap header that zipped through our keeper’s legs. AND we should have had a penalty when Poleon was taken out by the keeper – no, don’t listen to Don Goodman, he’s rabidly anti-Leeds and spouts nonsense. So, a few have broken the ranks of the silent majority – and they’ve highlighted the positives of the Bradford match. But many, many more of that knee-jerk faction of jerks have simply resorted to more abuse, more insults, more demands for the sacking of a guy who’s been there five minutes, and has spent that short time coping with the least helpful circumstances imaginable. That’s disgusting, ridiculous and completely unforgivable.

I’m old enough to remember demonstrations in the West Stand car-park when the fans had had enough and wanted Adamson Out, or on another occasion, Eddie Gray Back. I’ve seen little if any of that this time around. It’s mainly those big, brave Twitter types, sniping away from the safe anonymity of their keyboards, pouring their brainless vitriol onto the head of a man who probably will be gone soon, and who should, anyway, probably walk of his own accord – because he’s up against more than the opposition in the other dressing room every day of his working life. I’ll not comment on whether he’s a good enough coach – there hasn’t been the time or the proper circumstances in force to make a reliable judgement on that. But the players seem to like him – and aren’t they the best ones to ask, normally?

Back to the Bradford game. Once Luke “Stupid Boy” Murphy signed his own dismissal warrant, there were three possible objectives for Leeds United. In ascending order of importance, least important first: get to the next round of the Cup. OK, we didn’t make it, so what. We weren’t far off, in the end. Secondly; secure local bragging rights. I’d argue we managed that, making a good fist of a rearguard action against a spirited and motivated Bradford, and taking the lead against those formidable odds. Relative to the Man U debacle, we’ve no need to be ashamed of the effort and commitment of our ten warriors at Bradford. But the most important objective was to use an adverse situation to kick-start the bonding and gelling of this new group, under a new coach. The hour of battle against superior numbers in a hostile atmosphere will have gone a long way towards getting that process under way – and that really IS important, with the vast bulk of this nascent season still ahead of us.

In truth, I’m sick of the current situation, sick of the poisonous atmosphere in that odd virtual world, which is so much less apparent in the more old-fashioned world where fans still go to the match and get behind the shirts – I’m sick to death of so many of Leeds United’s yappier, dafter and more deluded fans – a vociferous but less than cerebral group I can only describe, rather impolitely, as the Gobshite Tendency. It’s a toxic mix, for anyone who loves the club, and I really am less than happy with it right now – so I shall return for the time being to looking after my family and parents as they struggle with real problems, far more intimidating than the daft footballing ones which seem to provoke such nastiness in some people. I’ve had enough, for the moment. So, as on a few occasions before, I shall take refuge in the past. I’ll write some nostalgia pieces, starting with one I promised a while back to my good mate Andy Gregory, of the excellent “We All Love Leeds” blog. We beat Southampton 7-0 in that one – but if Twitter had been around then, I’m sure there’d have been some eejits moaning that it should have been eight or nine and calling for the Don to be sacked. Just now, it really is that daft and annoying.

So – see you back in the Seventies, maybe.

54 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged bandwagon, Bradford City, Dave Hockaday, dignity, fans, League Cup, Leeds United, managers, Manchester United, MK Dons, sack race, social media

Taken From Us 25 Years Ago Today: Revie, The Don of Elland Road – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 26/05/2014 | 19 comments

The Don – the Greatest

They say that great players don’t always make great managers, and Bobby Charlton is a stand-out example of that essential truth. His brother Jack, by common consent not anything like the player Bobby was, but ten times the bloke, was by far the more successful manager. Then again – he learned from the best.

And they will twist the argument around to show that average players can make great managers. We’re usually invited by a brainwashed and indoctrinated media to take Alex Ferguson as an example of this; my own choice would be Arsene Wenger, a deeply average player but a highly superior coach, tactician and innovator who made a significant dent in the Man U monopoly of the Premier League – despite the vast off-field advantages of the Salford club. Remember Wenger’s “Invincibles”? There is also, of course, Jose Mourinho – and many others who pulled up no trees as players, but blossomed into legendary managers.

But there are a select few examples of truly great players who went on to be truly great managers – the likes of Busby and Dalglish, for instance – and I will argue passionately to my last breath that the best of the best was Donald George Revie, who died of Motor Neurone Disease 25 years ago today.

Don Revie was an innovative, thinking footballer, the pivot of the famous “Revie Plan” at Manchester City when he was the first to exploit deep-lying centre-forward play to great effect as City hit the heights in the mid to late fifties. He was instrumental in the Wembley defeat of Birmingham City in the FA Cup Final of 1956, and also helped restore English pride after two batterings by Hungary – the Magnificent Magyars having trounced England 6-3 at Wembley and 7-1 in Budapest. Revie’s adapted attacking role helped the National team annihilate Scotland 7-2 and his reputation was made as a selfless team player who was adept at making the ball do the work while team-mates found space as he dropped deep, baffling the defences of the time.

Revie was clearly a thinker, and developed very definite ideas about the game during his playing career, ideas he would later put into practice to devastating effect as a club manager. It is undeniable that, during his thirteen years in charge at Leeds, he elevated them from simply nowhere in the game to its very pinnacle, preaching togetherness and the team ethic above all else. Respected judges within the game have described the football played by Leeds at their peak as unmatched, before or since. In the eyes of many, that Leeds United team were the finest English side ever, a unit of grisly efficiency and teak-hardness yet capable of football which was outstandingly, breathtakingly beautiful, intricate in its conception and build-up, devastating in its effect.

Here is the scale of Revie’s achievement: in an era before the advent of lavish sponsorship and advanced commercial operations, he built a club from the ground upwards – a club with an apathetic support, which had hardly two ha’pennies to rub together, and whose prime asset was a group of raw but promising youngsters. The way that Revie nurtured those youngsters, moulding them into a team of supreme talent and majestic ability, is the stuff of legend. In some cases, he had to ward off the threats of homesickness: a young Billy Bremner was determined to go home to his native Scotland and Revie arranged for his girlfriend to move to Leeds, helping the lad settle down. Sometimes he had to adapt a player from one position to another – Terry Cooper was an indifferent winger who was made into a world-class overlapping full-back. Examples of his inspirational and man-management skills are many; he wrote the modern managerial manual from scratch.

Revie raised almost an entire squad from the junior ranks through to full international status, but he also had an unerring eye for a transfer market bargain. He took Bobby Collins from Everton, and saw the diminutive veteran midfielder produce the best form of his career. He lured a disaffected John Giles from Old Trafford where he was an under-rated performer. Giles swore that he would “haunt” Matt Busby, the manager who let him go, and Revie enabled this vow to be realised, converting Giles to a more central role after the end of Collins’ first team career. Giles and Bremner would form an almost telepathic central midfield partnership for Leeds, carrying all before them over the muddy battlefields of Division One. Revie later described his recruitment of Giles from Man U as “robbery with violence”.

As the sixties wore on, the Don would add Mick Jones and Allan Clarke to his formidable squad while it grew up together in a family atmosphere at Elland Road. Rarely if ever before or since can a manager have been so involved in his team’s welfare and well-being, no mere tracksuit manager this. There would be flowers and chocolates when a girlfriend or wife celebrated a birthday, a listening ear and helping hand whenever problems threatened to affect a player’s form. Revie was a father figure to his players for over a decade, forming a bond of mutual loyalty and respect that still sets the standard for enlightened management today.

Don Revie has been described in scornful terms by the ignorant, as a dossier-obsessed and over-superstitious manager by some people of insight and judgement, and as simply the best by his players who still survive from that amazing period of Leeds United’s dominance at home and abroad. He was perhaps too reliant on lucky suits and the lifting of gypsy curses, and other such supernatural preoccupations. He could maybe have let his team “off the leash” a little earlier than he did – when given full rein, they were next door to unstoppable. But it’s hard to hold the caution and superstition of the man against him; this was a time unlike today when livelihoods depended on a bounce of the ball, when results mattered in a bread and butter way. There were no cossetted millionaires then, no examples of young men who could pack it all in tomorrow and live in luxury for the rest of their lives. It all meant so much more in those days and the word “pressure” had real resonance.

The modern coaches have greats among their number, there’s no doubt about that. It would be invidious to single out names; after all, the media in a misguided fit of uncritical and commercially-motivated hero-worship have been busily engaged for most of the last three decades in dubbing “S’ralex” as the greatest ever. But the legend that is Don Revie can sit comfortably on his laurels, the man who – more than any other – took a sow’s ear of a football club and made of it a purse of the very finest silk which yet concealed a core of Yorkshire steel.

Donald George Revie (1927 – 1989) – Simply The Best.

19 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Arsène Wenger, Bobby Charlton, Don Revie, Leeds United, Man Utd, managers, Matt Busby, Sir Alex Ferguson, soccer, UK Football

It Was the Man U Myth, NOT the Job, That Was Too Big for Moyes – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 23/04/2014 | 12 comments

Moyes – brought down by a myth

So the dust is settling on David Moyes’ departure from the appropriately-dubbed Theatre of Hollow Myths. It was the increasingly poignant tragedy that had been waiting to happen as Moyes appeared to become progressively more haunted and helpless with every passing interview, following each successive, damaging defeat. Now, in the aftermath of his inevitable sacking, the media have gathered like a host of scavenging vultures and they’re asking one question above all. David Moyes: was he really clueless – or merely luckless?

The thing is, though – this has not really been about David Moyes at all. His sad fate would have been the natural destiny of any inheritor of what was clearly a poisoned chalice, made more poisonous by the addition of the lethal factor of self-delusion. Because Manchester United have succeeded in convincing themselves that they are something special; the Biggest Club in the World™. It is a problem that is unlikely to go away in the short term, whoever eventually succeeds the former Everton boss. The problem that Manchester United have is that the myth they have been complicit in building up could well now be the one single factor that reduces them to the ranks of also-rans.

Manchester United have willingly, eagerly saddled themselves with this “Biggest Club in the League/World/Universe” tag, one that they were only ever even apparently able to live up to through the – let’s say “unique” – approach of former manager Alex Ferguson. His intimidatory, choleric style and remorseless insistence on the accrual of each and every marginal advantage available, resulted in a domination of the rest of the pack. In a game of fine margins, Ferguson’s regime – his mind games, his fear factor, his volcanic tantrums – continually gave his club the edge over the rest. The truth of this is amply illustrated by the club’s title success last season – with a squad probably the fourth or fifth best in the league – and conversely by their hapless capitulation this season. A serpent with its head cut off is bound to find that its biting potential is not quite what it was.

Even on the morning of Moyes’ sacking, as BBC radio went into debate and post-mortem frenzy, the usual suspects were still at it. Ex-Man U player Mickey Thomas talked fluent bollocks about Moyes taking charge of “the biggest club in the world”, having to cope with “the biggest job in the world”. This lazy tendency towards hyperbole has long caused hysterical laughter in places like Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Turin – even in London and Liverpool – and understandably so. Take any empirical measure of the size of a club – stadium capacity, attendance records, trophies won – anything – and Manchester United would have to acknowledge, in the cold light of day, that they are not world leaders. And yet the myth has persisted, has thrived even, as the club and the media have deliberately nourished it. It has been an extremely useful marketing tool in the interests of encouraging the mass-delusion of the particular type of people – of whom Dr Freud would have had so much to say – that choose to support a club based on perceived size and power. There is now a nervous terror out there in Singapore, Nairobi, Bangkok and Milton Keynes, at the thought of not being the biggest and the best – and that is very much the product of expectations fostered by extravagant and untrue claims. But, perhaps fatally, it has become self-delusion on a grand scale too.

Some of the sound-bites from the morning of Moyes’ dismissal were risible – and frankly insulting to other institutions of the game. Moyes, it was said, “lacked big club experience”. This is a man, let us not forget, who was in charge for over a decade at Everton – an undeniably massive club of illustrious history and achievement; one which was able to win League Championships in the eighties on a pre-Murdoch, pre-Sky level playing field – something which conspicuously eluded the alleged “biggest club in the world”. This casual denigration of fine and dignified football clubs is very much a part of the modern Man U psyche, and it is something that – aided by a complaisant media and a gullible support – they were allowed and able to carry off under the bluster and tyranny of Ferguson. But it’s a dog that will no longer bark when reality sets in; when the tyrant is deposed and when the superior quality of rivals has consigned the fallen champions to the hinterland of mid-table mediocrity.

Manchester United today stand in dire need of a wake-up call. Like it or not, they are not the biggest club in the world, and a continued insistence on such a demonstrably groundless claim will do them more harm than good in the future. Whoever next ascends the hot-seat will find that he is playing catch-up as thoroughbreds like Liverpool, City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and – yes, Everton too – threaten to disappear over the horizon. One thing Man Utd do have going for them is a large and, in parts, fanatical support – but even this is an asset that will eventually be diluted by foolish attempts to perpetuate a dying myth. All football fans share a common “we are the greatest” delusion to a certain extent, but at Man U it’s been elevated to the level of brand identity – and that cannot be sustained in a harsh, post-Ferguson reality, where there is no longer a fulminating Govan Svengali to hold the rest of the game in thrall, and to inspire fear and terror in the corridors of power.

Man U is a huge club and one that should be able to sustain success along with the other huge clubs. But they have no divine right to that success, and certainly not to utter domination as they have rather stupidly come to expect. Whoever comes next will have the best chance of long-term recovery if they have the wisdom (and if they are granted the time) to introduce a modicum of humility and respect; two qualities that have been sadly lacking over the past two decades in this part of Greater Manchester.

A failure to embrace and deal with this new mid-table reality is going to mean that things will steadily get worse before they can feasibly get better. The days of domination – of a near-monopoly – have gone, and for the game of football as a whole, that is definitely A Good Thing. The current big four, and the pretenders just behind them, will not allow that situation to be repeated. Ferguson was a one-off and not in a particularly good or healthy way. His time is gone, and now football goes on without him – and without the skew effect his tenure imposed on the game’s honours list. Manchester United now have to learn to live with this – and if they are wise, they will commit to a manager who is capable of finding for them a place in a game where it’s a lot tougher at the top than they have been used to.

Who that man will be is a matter for speculation. But again, whoever comes in, it will be necessary to be realistic. This is still a poisoned chalice of an inheritance in terms of exaggerated expectations from a global, glory-hungry fan-base; yet there is no Champions League football, possibly no Europe at all next season. Will the top players come in at that price? Will the likes of Rooney, van Persie and even Mata relish at least a season out of the Champions League limelight?

Whoever the next manager of Man Utd might be, he certainly will have a job on his hands dealing with just these problems. To expect him to labour under the weight of a hollow myth as well, is likely to be too big an ask. The spurious label of “Biggest Club in the World” proved to be a fable too far for the hapless David Moyes. His successor will have to hope – probably in vain – that wiser and more realistic counsel will prevail from now on.

12 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged David Moyes, Glazer family, managers, Manchester United, myth, reality, self-delusion

Would Leeds United Fans Welcome David Moyes? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/04/2014 | 64 comments

McDermott: miracle man

The unthinkable has happened. It’s been the talk of football for the past few weeks, the subject of fevered speculation. Debates in pubs and clubs up and down the country have raged white hot, with arguments put passionately on either side. And now, after a comprehensive two goal defeat at the weekend, the sensational news can be confirmed: Brian McDermott is still in his job at Leeds United.

In other news, Man U have sacked David Moyes.

On the face of it, these two facts have very little to do with each other. But McDermott’s continued tenure at Elland Road is, if anything, much more unexpected and sensational news than even the sacking of Moyes. The received wisdom has been than Man U are a club that do not subscribe to the hire and fire cycle common to – well, more common clubs. This is all part of the Man U self-image as something special, the hollow “biggest club in the world” façade that is rapidly being eroded away by a new, post-Ferguson reality. The news that Moyes has finally gone is, really, no surprise. He had been struggling with a job at a club founded on self-delusion, the “Biggest & Greatest” myth. Anybody would have struggled. The next man will too, unless Man U wake up and smell the coffee. But that’s their problem, and I wish them endless bad luck with it.

The point, as far as Leeds United are concerned, is that there is now a managerial high-roller on the market, at a time when our incumbent man – nice guy though he undoubtedly is – has a record which would normally have earned him a whole pile of P45s under previous regimes at Elland Road. It might be that people would scoff at the idea of somebody like Moyes at Elland Road – and yet ex-England boss and former Dutchman Schteve McClaren has been in charge of comparative minnows Derby County this season, to good effect. It may also be that Moyes himself, once bitten and twice shy, would not wish to work with a character like Massimo Cellino who appears to change managers on a whim, depending how he feels when he gets up that morning. But the question is still there to be asked: would Leeds United fans welcome Moyes to Elland Road?

The immediate objection is the fact that he’s been in charge of “them”. But really, the Man U pedigree is a non-factor. Let’s not forget, two of our favourite sons in Johnny Giles and Gordon Strachan were denizens of the Theatre of Hollow Myths, until they saw the light and bettered themselves. And Moyes was a square peg in a round hole at Man U – he started out by trying to act like a Fergie-Lite, attempting to carry off a whinging and moaning act worthy of the Govan tyrant. It wasn’t in him; he’s not that type of guy, and the Man U experience has worn him down to a twitching and Gollum-esque husk of a man, bug-eyed and hunted – it’s easy to feel relief for him that his misery there is over.

What could Moyes bring to Elland Road? A reputation untarnished by his time with Man U, for a start – certainly among football people including the more enlightened fans. He’s liable to have benefited from a massive pay-off from his former employers, who have torn up most of a six-year contract before his bewildered eyes. It may well be a more relaxed and a happier Moyes that walks into his next job. And he might possibly prefer, in the immediate aftermath of his Pride of Devon experience, to shun the Premier League limelight. Again, this appears to have been the option favoured by McClaren, another former Man U man and another highly effective operator in more conducive circumstances. Moyes did a solid job over many years with little money at Everton. He was recognised as a highly competent coach before that, at Preston.

The hole that Brian McDermott currently finds himself in, following yet another abject display against Notts Forest, could well be too deep for him successfully to clamber out of. His first year at Elland Road has been one of upheaval; takeovers protracted to a farcical degree, sackings and reinstatements, the whole nine yards. Leeds United have been – along with possibly Blackpool – the Charlie Corrolli of the Championship, the laughing-stock of the league. In these circumstances, it’s difficult for any manager to manage but – again, even acknowledging his undoubted good-guy credentials – the performances have been abject and now the excuses are beginning to have the dull ring of repetitive hopelessness.

This blog has been a supporter of Brian McDermott – but there comes a time when you just have to acknowledge that something isn’t working and that it urgently needs remedial action. If the time is right for a change of management (or coaching) at Elland Road, then it’s also an appropriate time to be looking at who is out there, who might be available. Malky Mackay is a name that many might advance, and with good cause. Billy “Job Done” Davies? No, thanks. David Moyes – hmmm. It’s a fascinating thought, not all that realistic on the face of it – but just imagine. What if Moyes, not short of a quid or two after his Man U contract is settled, were to stroll into Elland Road and re-establish himself as a football man who knows what he’s doing? What if he were to drag our club back up by the bootstraps and get us motoring into the Promised Land? Giles came from Man U as a player and did it for us. Strachan too. Could Moyes be the latest Man U discard to find success in LS11? Could he complete a hat-trick for us to relish?

Stranger things have happened. If you want to identify just one – it’s the fact that, after Forest cruised to victory at Elland Road in second or third gear, Brian McDermott remains Leeds United manager. Surely that is one ongoing miracle whose days are well and truly numbered.

64 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Brian McDermott, coaching, David Moyes, Leeds United, managers, Manchester United, Massimo Cellino

Happy 44th Birthday to Leeds Legend Simon Grayson – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 16/12/2013 | 20 comments

Simon Grayson – Leeds United legend

The happiest of happy birthdays today to Simon Grayson, the man who stands third in the ranks of all-time great United managers, surpassed only by longer-serving luminaries who brought the League Title itself to Elland Road.

Coming as he did to a once-great club at the very lowest ebb of its historical fortunes, Simon was the driving force behind the start of a Leeds revival that is still, slowly but surely, heading us back to the top-flight pastures we used to graze with such relish and assurance. The fact that we’ve had those dark League One days will, when we are back, make success taste all the sweeter. Simon Grayson is the figure in United’s history who will forever be remembered as kick-starting that process – and delivering us a rare and treasured win at the Theatre of Hollow Myths into the bargain. To go to the home of the Champions as a third division side, to outplay them and out-fight them, to win by a goal that could so easily have stretched to a margin of three and to dismiss the Pride of Devon from the FA Cup – these are achievements that will write Grayson’s name indelibly into Leeds United folklore.

Click here: Celebrating United’s promotion – BBC interview

It must be remembered also that Grayson achieved all of this against a background of almost a decade of decline, with a demoralised support and a chairman who could charitably be described as “less than supportive”. In an entertaining forum the other night, Simon and some of his colleagues from his time at Elland Road – well, let’s say that they “lifted the lid” a little on his time as United manager, and on his relationship with the Chairman and various of Bates’ cronies and dressing-room spies. The natural conclusion is that Grayson has finally received his financial entitlement from Leeds United and no longer feels confined by any “gagging order”. I do hope that’s the case. Simon was treated shabbily by the Bates-regime Leeds United, both in his tenure and in the manner of his departure. His is a dismissal I can’t think of without regret – although it clearly has to be said that we have the right man for our times now.

Simon Grayson, 44 years old today and with a long managerial career still ahead of him, already has three League One promotions to his credit, and appears to be working on a fourth at Preston. Leeds fans should wish him nothing but well, may success crown his efforts at Deepdale, the home of a fine old club and a great name in English football. Should his path lead him back to the away dugout at Elland Road in the future, Simon Grayson should be assured of a warm welcome as befits a United legend.

Oh, and it’s Dennis Wise’s birthday too, 47 he is. Yeah. Happy birthday, Wisey.

20 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged Deepdale, Dennis Wise, Elland Road, Heroes, Leeds United, legends, managers, Preston North End, promotion, Simon Grayson

Vote For Your Top Leeds United Manager

Posted on 05/11/2013 | 9 comments

Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything wants to know readers’ views on just who are the greatest Leeds United managers of all time. To be helpful, there is a short list of candidates, with the obvious contenders and maybe the odd wild card. You can also nominate and vote for your own choice if you don’t see him among the managers suggested. Make your views known! Have your say on the greatest Leeds United manager of all time by selecting up to three choices.

Thanks for reading and participating!

9 Comments

Posted in Football, Leeds United

Tagged best ever, Football, Leeds United, managers, Poll, soccer, vote

Is Nice-Guy Moyes Starting to “Fergify” Himself?

Posted on 15/08/2013 | 2 comments

Many good judges are predicting that, with the Alex Ferguson era over at Man U, the club will now struggle to continue with their run of success. By common consent, Fergie was not the greatest coach or tactician out there – his major contribution to the success down Salford way was more to do with his choleric temperament and his habitual intimidation of referees, reporters, players, other managers – just anyone who got in his way, really. The terrifying effect of “The Fergie Factor” made the big difference in a game of fine margins, as a legion of cowed and downtrodden individuals would confirm, if they thought it was safe. But now we have ex-Everton boss David Moyes, and his track record suggests nothing of the talent Fergie had for using tantrums and hairdryer-like bollockings to get his own way. But could it be that the new gaffer is now setting out on the process of reinventing himself? Are we about to see the Fergification of David Moyes?

It wouldn’t be the first time that a youngish football manager, with illustrious predecessors inconveniently prominent in fans’ memories, has appeared as a sheep trying to don the clothing of a wolf. Allan Clarke, after an apprenticeship at Barnsley, returned to Elland Road as manager, and immediately started trying to come over all Brian Clough. “I’m a winner!” he would bark whenever a microphone was pointed his way. As a player he certainly was just that, and he’d made a decent start in management too. But as the new boss of Leeds United, following hard on the heels of the hapless Jimmy Adamson in 1979, he was suddenly operating in a goldfish-bowl environment, all eyes trained on him, all ears hanging on his every pronouncement. His “I’m a winner” mantra swiftly made him a laughing-stock among local football writers, and he managed to fritter away the goodwill that had been built up between the club and the reporters by previous managers Don Revie and Jimmy Armfield. Few tears were shed among the denizens of the local Fourth Estate when “the winner” turned into a loser and took Leeds down. The moral would appear to be: Don’t reinvent yourself – just BE yourself. Clarkey had some limited managerial success later on, so maybe he’d learned his lesson.

The early signs of similar folly are there with the Man U new boy Moyes. Either off his own bat, or in response to a Govan Growl of advice, he’s setting forth to sound like an echo of Fergie – the accent is there to start with, but the incipient paranoia sounds familiar too. Take his comments about the Man U opening fixtures. If you read them without knowing it’s a Moyes quote, you’d be looking for a name at the bottom and expecting to see that it was one A. Ferguson. In a delayed response to the fact that Man U have to face Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool in the first five games, Moyes opined: “I find it hard to believe that’s the way the balls came out of the bag, that’s for sure. I think it’s the hardest start for 20 years that Man U have had. I hope it’s not because Man U won the league quite comfortably last year [that] the fixtures have been made much more difficult.”

It’s to be hoped that Moyes doesn’t feel he’s under any obligation to reprise his immediate predecessor’s policies of intimidation, or the tiresome “Mind Games” so beloved of a media in thrall to the grizzled and grizzling Glaswegian. One of the many benefits of a Fergie-less football scene – apart from the very real prospect of Man U collapsing amid internal strife and external expectations – should be the chance of a rest from all of the nonsense that went with Ferguson and the way in which all and sundry used to defer to a man who really needed nothing more than a lesson or two in manners and deportment. It seems highly unlikely that the relatively diffident Moyes could carry this tribute act off in the longer term, so surely he’d be better off setting out to stand or fall as his own man – not as some watered-down version of the tyrant he’s replaced.

The jokes have been going around along the lines of – oh dear, a nice Man U manager, how very unusual and depressing. But in reality, Man U are in sore need of a bit of niceness at the top level of the club – they’ve had 27 years of the other thing, and have seen their image growing steadily grubbier in the process. Good luck to Moyes – if that’s who he decides to be. He could be instrumental in reinventing a once-great football club. But if he chooses merely to ape Fergie in his pronouncements and his modus operandi – as suggested by his sulky comments over the opening fixtures – then he’ll deserve all he gets, which would probably amount to a needlessly sullied reputation – and a premature P45.

2 Comments

Posted in Football, History, Leeds United, Sport

Tagged Allan Clarke, Brian Clough, Ferguson, fixtures, Leeds United, Man United, managers, Moyes, Premier League, soccer, UK Football

Shameful: BBC Spit on Don Revie’s Grave

Posted on 20/05/2013 | 13 comments

Don Revie OBE: The Greatest

History, they say, is written by the winners. In last night’s “Match of the Day”, the BBC provided ample evidence to show that it is also rewritten by hypocritical sycophants who should know better.

The events of the afternoon had not panned out as the scriptwriters would have wished, though all looked well ten short minutes from the end of Man U’s match at West Brom, S’ralex’s last game as manager. The Plastic Champions were 5-2 ahead, and John Motson had purred, gasped and chuckled his way through 80 minutes of exhibition football, punctuated by comical home defending, and it looked very much as though another team was going to roll over meekly for the men from Salford.

Then S’ralex brought on Paul Scholes for the Ginger Minger’s own last appearance before his latest retirement. The cameras prepared to adjust to soft focus, Motson drew in another breath preparatory to more shudderingly orgasmic tributes as he was consumed by an ecstasy of highly marketable sentimentality. The stage was set for the Govan Guv’nor to stump off into the sunset, his purple-blotched features lacerated by a parody of a smile.

Then it all went wrong. West Brom struck three times in the last ten minutes, Ferguson’s smile dropped to the floor quicker than a Gareth Bale dive and the mighty Man U were holding on at the end to avoid saying goodbye in the face of a last blast from a defeated Hairdryer. 5-5 it finished, and the BBC were denied their expected valedictory stroll in the sun; the Baggies had pooped the Corporation’s party.

Maybe it was this that prompted the spite and small-minded pettiness of the montage which prefaced the Match of the Day highlights late last night. More likely though that it was always going to be yet another calculated slap in the face to the memory of a great man, a man whose boots the assembled hacks and ex-pros on the MOTD couch are not fit to lick, a true great of the game that the Establishment seem determined to pretend was never there. Ferguson was painted in admiring and rose-hued tones, to a background of his many achievements as compared to the other “managerial greats.” Bob Paisley, Brian Clough, Jock Stein, Bobby Robson, Ron Greenwood, Bill Shankly, Matt Busby, Bill Nicholson; all these legends were held up as examples of managerial excellence to be rightly lauded for their achievements and the mark they left on the game.

But no mention of the greatest of them all: Donald George Revie OBE.

This was no mere oversight. It’s been going on for years, and it’s a premeditated and vicious attempt at the excision from public memory of football’s greatest manager, a cowardly and shameful act of malice aforethought. It reflects ill on the researchers who put these things together; aren’t they aware of their history, we in the know might wonder. Don’t they have access to Google? But they know all about the Don, they know he transformed a tired old joke of a football club into the most feared and respected force in Europe; they know he did it without massive financial backing and without paying obscene wages; they know how he did it all to the dubious background of an initially apathetic support, fans who had only ever known mediocrity at best, and expected nothing else. Out of all this, Don Revie wrought a miracle – a team that respected judges of the game have described as the finest club side in English football history.

The accidental omission of Revie’s name for any TV item concerning itself with managerial greatness would be unforgivably slipshod; the act of a clueless nincompoop. But this was much, much worse than that. It was an exposition of hypocrisy underpinned by malice and the bile of fifty years’ accumulated resentment. It was a crass attempt at revisionism, a blunderingly clumsy try at pretending Don Revie never existed. It was wishful thinking in its bitterest and most destructive form, a playground insult to a giant of the game. The BBC cowards and toadies have exposed themselves as classless fools, deserving only of contempt and ridicule.

“And Leeds will go mad. And they’ve every right to go mad!” – as Barry Davies memorably put it back in the day, in more realistic times before the game turned plastic, when everybody knew who the heroes were and we weren’t fed a diet of pap and lies. And Leeds should go mad again. The city, the club, the fans – none of them should continue to lie down and accept this disgraceful treatment, this attempted erasure of an iconic figure whom we all worship as “Simply The Best.” There should be a loud outcry, a vehement protest. This is my small contribution, but the fans as a body have form for hitting back at media and establishment when they feel one of their own wronged.

In 1994, the FA handed down a mandate that all clubs should observe a minute’s silence in respect for the late Matt Busby. They did this because it’s what you do when a respected figure dies – except of course they’re not consistent. They failed to mark the death of Don Revie, a tragic and cruel end from Motor Neurone Disease. They failed even to send a representative to his funeral, although – to his eternal credit – Alex Ferguson was there, and Denis Law, as well as most of the Leeds United greats and other proper football men. But none of the hypocrites in suits from the game’s ruling authorities saw fit to get off their backsides and pay tribute. Revie was dead; let them get on with pretending he never existed. So in 1994, when they were supposed to lapse into a respectful silence, the Leeds fans at Blackburn Rovers’ ground exploded in a raucous and repeated cry of “One Don Revie! There’s only one Don Revie!!” The great and the good of the sport were scandalised. People pursed their lips and shook their heads sadly. How dare these yobboes ruin our tribute to our Chosen One? But I’m so, so glad that it happened. We should not knuckle under to the official view; we should never bow down before such blatant hypocrisy.

They’re getting wise to rebellion now. There tends to be a minute’s applause these days, lest any disrespectful mob should see fit to assert their unwanted point of view the next time some officially-beloved figure keels over. But the fans will be heard, believe me. And if the media – typified by these contemptible fools in charge of the increasingly poodle-like Match of the Day – continue so determinedly to ignore and try to obliterate the legacy of The Don, then I hope that defiant cry will be heard again, loud and proud. While ever Leeds United fans are prepared to stand up and be counted, happy to raise their arms and voices and be heard – then Don Revie will never be forgotten, whatever the wishes of the pompous suits and deluded TV types.

Don Revie, “The Don” (1927 – 1989) A true legend and a great of the game. Whatever you might think of him – and God knows, I’m no fan – just ask S’ralex.