You're Fired!

Aside from financial matters, the biggest decision of any board of a football club is the selection of their manager/coach. In fact, the coach is more important than finances in many respects because if you have the right coach and get the right results, the finances often fall in line with success on the pitch. That is of course unless you are a kamikaze club and try to spend your way to the top with disregard for money/debt.

During my time with Brentford, the decisions regarding the coach – who to fire, who to hire – were easily the biggest decisions I faced as a board member in my three years at the club. I joined just after they had appointed Leroy Rosenior, and it was less than six months later when we fired him. We then gave the role to Scott Fitzgerald – the youth team coach who picked up some positive results while being caretaker and we decided to give him the position….only for him to leave shortly before the end of the season after another disastrous six month spell. I did not get to know Leroy particularly well but I spent more time with Scott and found him to be an absolute gentlemen. After more deliberation, we went for Terry Butcher. English legend and had earned a reputation at Motherwell for bringing on good young talent like James McFadden and Stephen Pearson, while managing the club in administration and with no resources. That move clearly did not work out, and we gave the job to his assistant Andy Scott, for a trial period.

That one paid off well. The first and only one during my three years with the club. As I have mentioned before in my blog, I genuinely feel Andy is destined to be a highly successful coach at a higher level, definitely Championship, and potentially Premiership with a bit of luck. I always asked myself what he did right that the others did wrong. First and foremost, he had the support and respect of the players. Absolutely key in the game today. The club however has been going through a transitional period when I joined….selling some key players to bring money in, and having lost a popular coach. It was only when Andy came in did they start to regain some pride and self belief.

The fact is, for a year or two, it was a job doomed for failure whoever took over. The decisions of who to appoint were tough and there was no specific science behind appointing Andy but he produced the goods. Firing Scott Fitzgerald especially was a painful decision to say the very least though in hindsight, it was the right decision.

I had to admit this week at being truly surprised and appalled at Newcastle’s decision to fire Chris Hughton. In my mind, there must be something behind the scenes that has led to the decision because there is absolutely no logic in it from a footballing perspective. Nothing much that happens at that club is logical I must say, but this one takes the biscuit.

I read an interesting article this week by one of my favoured writers Phil McNulty on BBC. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2010/12/hughton_sacking_shames_newcast.html). I won’t make the same points he does, but it is worth a read.

The easy decisions to make are when the coach has lost the players. Nothing suggests that Hughton did, in fact quite the opposite. Given the arrival of Alan Pardew as coach, I simply cannot understand that decision neither. Had they appointed a big name coach, then that would have been some justification, but it was never going to happen. To give Pardew a five and a half year contract is just as shocking. In fairness, I like Alan Pardew, but I cannot help but feel bitter about how Hughton has been screwed over here.

I have good friends that are Newcastle fans and the reality is that they probably think the same way as me. I hate to say this for them, but I hope Mike Ashley and the club get exactly what they deserve for the treatment of Hughton. It is nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased to see the League Manager’s Association condemn the club. Bad bad form.