The Football Gaffer

Love ‘em, hate ‘em or merely tolerate ‘em, managers have always played vital roles in football. I’m not sure the breed has changed an awful lot since my early days following the sport in the late Sixties. You still get the jacket-and-tie brigade and the tracksuits bearing the wearers’ initials (such a quaint tradition!); the brash characters and the quiet, noble types; the ex-stars and those who came apparently from nowhere. The main difference is that they are not the hugely-respected father figures of old.

Maybe it’s because I am now in my late-fifties and most top managers – apart from the Roy Hodgsons and Neil Warnocks – are younger than me, but as a child the managers seemed like men I would look up to: not father figures but grandfather figures. You had men like Alec Stock, the blazer-clad inspiration for Paul Whitehouse’s Fast Show character Ron Manager (“Jumpers for goalposts, isn’t it, mmm?”), Arsenal’s Bertie Mee and West Ham’s Ron Greenwood, contrasting with the more colourful characters like Liverpool’s Bill Shankly, Tommy Docherty and the legendary Brian Clough.

Up to the early Seventies, managers seemed to stay at the same club for donkeys’ years. Bosses like Matt Busby (Man Utd), Ted Bates (Southampton), Don Revie (Leeds), Joe Mercer (Man City), Bill Nicholson (Spurs), Greenwood, Shankly and others each had their names on their respective office doors for at least ten, even twenty years. Even if they were relegated, getting the sack was unthinkable. Since the retirements of Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, the manager’s tenure is more likely to be measured, not in years but in months. At the time of writing, only one manager in the entire Premier/Football League has been at the same club for more than six years.

The long-serving icons have been replaced by the rent-a-coach who knows he’ll be lucky to survive two years. Men like David Moyes, Alan Pardew, Nigel Adkins and Neil Warnock are hired and fired with a frequency which has become infuriatingly predictable. Get us promoted/keep us in the Prem/qualify for Europe* (delete as applicable) or else…. The pressure on coaches – and indeed players - must have soared, correlated with the stakes for failure. I wonder why they accept such posts when chairmen/owners will wield the axe at the first adverse run of results. I suppose the Premier League clubs’ multi-million pound contracts provide adequate compensation so it’s hard to weep for their woes. There is one exception: I do still feel sorry for Roberto di Matteo who finally won Roman Abramovich the Champions League he and Chelsea so desperately craved only to be booted out because he wasn’t a big enough name. Pardon?

So who have been my favourites? I must admit a sneaking regard for Brian Clough. He took Derby and Forest to League and European titles and proved such a reliable source for fantastic quips and quotes It’s a shame that ‘bungs’ and alcoholism made him an increasing liability (punching pitch-invading fans?) because he was a special leader. I also held Southampton’s Lawrie McMenemy in very high regard – articulate, likeable and football through and through – while who could not like Sir Bobby Robson of, Ipswich, England, Porto, Newcastle and many others?

These, plus the likes of the unfairly-maligned Graham Taylor, were characters capable of bringing out the best of players, be they League One strugglers or La Liga galacticos. I have little time for the dodgy cowboys of management – wide-boy wheeler-dealers like Terry Venables, Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp – or the former England stars who think that management is as easy as sitting in a comfy studio pontificating on what others are doing wrong. Being an England captain has never been a guarantee of managerial ability, either. Just ask Moore, Charlton, Adams, Shearer, Hoddle, Keegan or Bryan Robson. I wonder how newbies Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard will fare given that Rangers and Derby are presumably stepping stones to the England role, a very different kettle of fish to club football.

People who have achieved success across the globe deserve particular credit. However, when managers start assuming deity-like status, they lose my respect completely. Yes, Jose Mourinho worked wonders at Porto and, in his first spell, Chelsea, but his well-grooved grumpiness, and over-willingness to blame everyone but himself when things go wrong, grate horribly. Like a Man U predecessor Alex Ferguson – who also demanded respect at Aberdeen and in his early years at Old Trafford – his predilection for mind games in place of honesty and tenable philosophy have led me to hate him. The ‘Special One’? Well, let’s see him take over at a Wycombe Wanderers or Rochdale for an appropriately paltry salary and see how special Jose really is.

When the overseas head coach began to take over the Premier League in the Nineties, along with the players they bought, English football benefited from a kick up the arse; they brought a fresher feel to the role. Don’t get me wrong; the PL badly needs homegrown talent like Sean Dyche and Eddie Howe. However, from Wenger (“I deed not see eet”) and Claudio Ranieri to Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, for whom everything is “cool”, a soothing zephyr of continental air has infiltrated domestic club football, not to mention different ideas on how football should be played. Jose might specialise in bus-parking but Pep knows a thing or two about regaining and retaining possession, creativity and attack. He also knows how to charm the press and fans alike. His biography by Guillem Balague makes a fascinating read, yielding an insight into the uber-manager’s tactical head.

The old cliché is that football management’s all about results, unless you’re a Chelsea manager, of course. But from this fan’s point of view, it’s also about dignity and respect. A bit of old-school fist pumping and hair-drier ranting can go a long way but when it also involves disgraceful behaviour (for example, Fergie’s orchestrated intimidation of officials and Neil Warnock’s four-letter dismissal of the Wolves manager) give me a Klopp or Howe any day.