Not so long ago, as the debate rumbled on about “the succession” at United once Sir finally chooses to call it a day, a list of the purple-faced one’s former ‘greats’ was rolled out with alarming regularity. Of course no one was so stupid as to suggest Bryan Robson got the gig. However, Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes, Roy Keane and, latterly, Paul Ince were all seen as names in the proverbial frame.
A look at the current Premiership table is a sobering experience for all those who’ve shouted the odds for an ex-player who “understands the club” over the big name foreign coach most expect the Old Trafford board to go for (as well as giving the lie to Ince’s ludicrous claim that there is a vendetta against ex-United players in management).
Only a hapless WBA team which seems intent on playing its way beautifully out of the division are propping up the self-styled Guvnor’s (ex-) Blackburn gang, Sparky’s rich but misfiring City and Keano’s recent charges at the Stadium of Light. And whilst Bruce’s Wigan currently lie a creditable 9th, his managerial track record to date hardly shouts out “Fergie’s replacement!”
Sir’s old boys are making it easy for the Glazers to look elsewhere. However, if truth be told, how many of the great teams have produced a series of great managers, however many “leaders on the pitch” they supposedly had?
From the dominant Liverpool teams of the 60s, 70s and 80s, only Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish have made a really decent stab at management, and they both have many detractors. Certainly neither has left a legacy to match their managerial mentors Shankly, Paisely & Stein. Similarly only Jack Charlton from England’s 1966 line up could really claim to have been a successful manager, but again hardly without controversy.
Perhaps the best comparison is with Don Revie’s Leeds. Whilst not as all-conquering as Fergie’s United due to an unfortunate habit of falling at the final hurdle when competing on three or four fronts per season, they were a dominant force in the game for nigh on a decade. Their undoubted skill was matched with a hard streak that gained them more enemies than friends, but few would have argued that here was a team with leaders in every position, de facto captains all, and surely a breeding ground for the top managers of tomorrow.
The truth could hardly have proved to be more different, indeed it verges on the comical. Even Leeds fans would probably have quite a laugh at it...were it not for the fact that their club wasted the best part of a decade employing ex-Revie players in the misguided hope that they would bring back the glory days.
Striker Allan ‘Sniffer’ Clarke was the first of the old boys to try his luck having experienced some managerial success at...er...Barnsley. In only his second season he achieved a feat that had eluded predecessors Jimmy Adamson, Jimmy Armfield and even Revie – he got Leeds relegated to Div Two.
The board immediately sacked him, realising a goal poacher was not destined to be a first class manager. Oh no...let’s go for...a mercurial winger! Enter stage left Eddie Gray. Despite less than impressive managerial stints at the less than mighty Rochdale & Hull, hopes were still high that Eddie would be ‘the one’. However, his three seasons at the helm produced only three upper mid-table second tier finishes with a return to the promised land never seriously threatened.
So eventually arguably the most logical of the old Revie gang was appointed – former captain and United icon Billy Bremner. The wee man had hardly pulled up any trees in seven relatively uneventful years at the footballing backwater of Doncaster, but surely reuniting with his beloved Leeds was a match made in promotion-winning heaven. Alas no, despite one run to the Play Offs, Bremner failed too, and lost his job after three seasons.
Leeds then changed tack, appointed a proper manager with a decent track record, and within four years, one Howard Wilkinson (aka “the much maligned Howard Wilkinson”) had not only won them their Division One place back, he only went and won them the title.
In total, 7 of Revie’s great team tried their hand at the management game, with centre back duo Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter, elegant left back Terry Cooper and midfield maestro Johnny Giles also having a crack in the dugout before realising that punditry and after-dinner speaking were preferable options. Gary Sprake stuck with match fixing (allegedly),
Remarkably, only Charlton, with a 40% win rate, had a reasonably good track record, and yet he was never offered the job.
And as we also recall Bobby Moore (30% win rate in two seasons at Southend) and Bobby Charlton (more defeats than wins in two years at Preston), next time you find yourself shouting for a favourite old boy to get the manager’s job at your club, may we suggest you let your head rule your heart.
Leave the ‘Carra destined for Anfield hot seat’ and ‘Terry’s all gold for Chelsea job’ headlines to the tabloids. Like it or not, a latter-day Sergeant Wilko is far more likely to deliver.
