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having blatantly stoled binny's excellent idea for a championship manager tribute and seeing as challenge stories don't count towards the 7 day rule, i have decided to share with you five games which have shaped my current (non-story) game. i'l post one game per day for the next five days
oh, and remember this one when the awards come round again
Tottenham vs Bolton - White Hart Lane - Saturday 18th August 2001 - Attendance 33,312
English Premiership
As I walked out onto the White Hart Lane turf for my first competitive game as a football manager, the nerves hit immediately. I knew we had good players and that we had prepared well, but the negatives had been running through my mind all morning and it was all I could do not to vomit on the sidelines. The referees whistle to signal the start of the game went someway to calming me down, but the 33,000 screaming Spurs fans in the stands did nothing to relax my nerves. They expected nothing less than comfortable victory against Sam Allardyce’s foreign legion.
The sun was baking the turf as the players tried to ease their way into the game. The temperature was topping 28° and my pessimistic mind made that favour the visiting team as they had more experience of playing in hot conditions. My bunch of pale-skinned Brits would fade well before the end, of that I was sure.
But just as my negativity began to reach new heights, we took the lead. Bolton had just had a great chance thwarted by an inspired Paul Robinson in our goal as he clawed El-Hadji Diouf’s goal-bound volley round the post. From the resultant corner, we broke quickly. And at the heart of the break was none other than central defender Ledley King. ‘Deadly Ledley’ as the fans had come to call him reached the halfway line before he spread the ball to the right for Pedro Mendes and kept on charging forward. Medes made another twenty yards before checking his progress to assess his options. Immediately he recognised the chance and swung a cross deep into the Bolton penalty area. Emerson Thome misjudged the flight of the ball and it proved costly as King arrived with perfect timing to side foot his effort past Jussi Jääskeläinen.
1-0 and the fans were in full voice. Suddenly the day seemed sweet for me and my mood swung right round to blind optimism that we would easily walk away with the three points. My arrogance was only enhanced when Robbie Keane struck on the stroke of half time. Robbie’s strike partner for the day Jermaine Defoe broke clear down the right flank and skinned Anthony Barness before cutting into the box. Keane had taken up a great position on the back post, and Defoe lighted a beautiful ball across the six yard box, leaving Robbie the simplest of headers to double our advantage. It was becoming a great day.
That was as good as it ever got though. In a second half that would prove to be symptomatic of the rest of our season, we crumbled. Big Sam had obviously given his boys a huge kick up the arse in the interval as they came out fired up and looking like a totally different side to the one of the first half. It took them only four minutes to halve our hard fought lead and, from our point of view, it was a terrible goal to concede. King and Gardner left a gap between them in the heart of our defence which would have been big enough to drive a double decker bus through. Instead, it was Brazilian Emerson Thome who took the gift of space, and Kevin Davies’ pass before turning and creaming a shot past Robinson.
The nerves had set in once more and this time not just in me. The players in white were clearly expecting a Bolton onslaught as they searched for the equaliser and committed the eighth deadly sin, defending deep on a one goal lead. And we were made to pay. Just six minutes after their first, Bolton were level. This time, however, there was little we could have done, well if you count tackling the man with the ball as ‘little’ that is. Stelios was given all the space he could want thirty yards form goal. To everyone in the ground except my players it was obvious that he was going to try a long shot. And that he did. And what a shot it was. It screamed past Robinson’s right hand before our ‘keeper had really had a chance to move and the scores were back even.
Luckily, we came out of our shells somewhat after that, and neither side really had a good opportunity to seal all three points. But, in a microcosm of our season to come, we had started well before tailing off to a bad finish.
Final Score: Tottenham 2 - 2 Bolton Keane 18"; King 45"; Thome 49"; Stelios 55"
along with the copy of my world cup story that i found on my sister's pc, was a file containing this short story. so on we go
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Tottenham vs Birmingham – White Hart Lane – Sunday 19th May 2002 – Attendance 34,212
English Premiership
What a season it had been. A start that had seen me crowned Manager of the Month for August and, more importantly, saw Spurs sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership having taken 16 points from the first six games of te campaign. The only failure to win had been the opening day slip-up against Bolton at the Lane. From that point; however, everything spiralled downwards. We won only 25 more points in the remaining 32 games, and though we hadn’t dropped into the bottom three at any point during the season, we entered the final day with the threat of relegation still just behind us.
We’d hit the magical 40 point mark with four games left. A draw in game number 35 against Liverpool at Anfield made us certain that we would, at least, have the comfort of being in the Premiership for the following season. Crushing defeats (6-1 against Arsenal and 4-0 against Newcastle) in games 36 and 37 had left us in that bit of worry, though. Sitting in 15th position, we were two points ahead of 18th placd Birmingham. Then behind us, on 40 points, were Aston Villa and Fulham. Both would win their final games, heaping even more pressure on us. Already consigned to division one were Southampton and Everton, the race to escape the final drop place came down to a straight fight between Birmingham and ourselves.
At the Lane on a blisteringly hot Sunday in May, two sides who were both considered, at the beginning of the season, to be candidates in the battle for European places, were in a dogfight for their top-flight survival. With home advantage in our favour, we were the favourites to remain in the holy land. Top scorer Robbie Keane was back in our ranks after an ankle injury that had kept him out of the previous three games, but since he hadn’t scored a goal since netting his 19th of the season in January, how much of a blessing that was I wasn’t quite sure. Up front, he was partnered by a £5M flop. Robert Earnshaw had come to the club with great expectations in the wake of Jermaine Defoe’s sudden December move to Old Trafford, but a solitary goal scored in the FA Cup third round was scant return for such a player. Every time his name was announced over the tannoy at the Lane it was accompanied by a round of boos from the less forgiving of our faithful fans.
It was a much changed side from the one that had taken to the field on day one. Mark Delaney, Erlend Hanstveit, Espen Hoff, Liam Miller, Earnshaw and Mario were all in the starting XI and had all been signed by myself. Meaning that the likes of Sean Davis and Michael Carrick were relegated to the bench, it was a risky card to play, and one that had not entirely worked out.
As the clock ticked to 3:45 and referee Martin Bodenham blew his whistle to bring about the half time interval, I was in far better spirits than at any other point during the day. We knew that just a point would be good enough to keep us up, so the one goal lead that Espen Hoff had afforded us had smiles on faces all round the ground. Club captain Jamie Redknapp had set the chance up for right winger, Hoff. A slide-rule ball played between Matthew Upson and Martin Taylor found the Norwegian on one of his regular runs into the box, and connecting with a first time shot, he sent the ball skidding under Maik Taylor. The roar that had accompanied the goal was the kind you’d more associate with the winning of a league championship. Things were looking good at the Lane.
How I wish they had looked so good come quarter to five. We had received a warning of a change in the wind just seconds after the break when Emile Heskey was put clear, but the big muppet fired over with just Paul Robinson to beat. We didn’t heed the warning though, and we paid the price. On the hour, the Brummies were level. Jesper Grønkjær, booked in the first half for a disgraceful challenge which should have seen him sent off, sent a perfect cross into the danger area, and a late arriving David Dunn appeared at the back post to sidefoot an effort into the net, with Robinson still trying to scramble across his goal.
Still reeling from the blow of having our lead eradicated, we commited the cardinal sin of letting the heads go down. Rather than try to fight back and ensure that we stayed up, which at 1-1 we would have done, the boys seemed instead to accept their fate. A fate which was sealed with more than twenty minutes remaining when Heskey grabbed the third, and final, goal of the game from the penalty spot after Hanstveit had hauled down Damien Johnson.
To say I was disappointed would have been the biggest understatement I had come across. I was irretrievably morose. And, even more, I was astonished that I wasn’t given my marching orders. Instead, I was given one season to get us back to where the club belonged. It was not a decision the fans were entirely happy with, but it at least made up, in some ways, for what had been one of the worst days I had experienced.
Final Score: Tottenham 1 – 2 Birmingham Hoff 35”; Dunn 60”; Heskey 68”
Tottenham vs Wolverhampton Wanderers – White Hart Lane – Saturday 17th April 2003 – Attendance 29,219
English 1st Division
My remit at the start of our my second campaign as Spurs boss, our first in the depths of division one, was simple. Get the team back into the Premiership at the first attempt. There was no room left for doubt, it was that or find myself claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance. Thankfully, from the word go we had looked a different class to the rest of the division. Robbie Keane had hit the form of his life, netting 40 times in 42 appearences before this game. Rohan Ricketts had bagged 17 goals from 32 games from midfield, and both Dean Ashton and Liam Miller had broken into double figures for the season. The defence hadn’t been as stable as we would have liked, in our 50 games we had conceded 73 goals, but we simply played by the philosphy that we’d score more than our opponents, no matter how many they got.
A play-off place had already been assured by the time we faced Dave Jones’ Wolves at the Lane. A win coupled with a defeat for third placed Sunderland would see us promoted, if Everton lost their game against Reading as well then we would be crowned division champions. It may have been that things would have to go our way in other games for us to lift the trophy, but the prospect of silverware had brought out the biggest crowd we’d seen that season. The first time, indeed, that we’d breeched the 27,000 mark.
The game started well, as within twenty minutes we were two goals to the good. Robbie Keane had netted goal number 41 of the season with a well placed volley from Paul Ifill’s cross, before Antonio Nunez, a winter recruit from Liverpool, clipped a good pass into the penalty area for his fellow midfielder Ricketts to blast past Michael Oakes. With news coming through just moments later that Rotherham had taken the lead at the Stadium of Light, the crowd was jumping and the players were passing the ball about with the ease of a side who knew their fate was being handed to them on a plate.
A hectic nine minute period saw three goals fly in. Unfortunately, two of them were for the visitors, and come the half time whistle our gap had been cut to one. Kenny Miller had bagged the first for Wolves, a simple finish from four yards after Curtis Woodhouse had set him up. Ricketts restored our two goal advantage on the half hour with a good finish, taking up Ian Murray’s pass before rounding Oakes and slotting home. But our nerves were on edge once more after Carl Cort had claimed his 35th goal of the season with a stinging drive into the top corner from fully thirty yards.
With Sunderland losing 1-0 to Rotherham, and Everton drawing 0-0 at Reading, we would be promoted, though not champions if the scores stayed as they were. Within minutes of us restarting the game for the second period, news filtered through of three goals. Sunderland had equalised against Rotherham, whilst Everton had suffered big time as Reading had fired two goals in the space of sixty seconds to give the Toffees a real uphill challenge.
The game at the Lane progressed with us on top, though being far more defensively careful as we looked more to hold onto what we had than to race out and try to grab a fourth goal. The news that Rotherham had re-taken the lead in the north-east made us go into our shells even more, but we still had the rare foray forward. And it was on one of those that we got a, perhaps undeserved, fourth. Keane had been fouled just outside the area by Lee Naylor, and Spaniard Jesuli, signed on deadline day from Celta, whipped the free kick over the wall and past Oakes to make our game safe. With Everton now losing 4-0 and down to nine men and Rotherham still holding off Sunderland, the championship trophy was being readied.
And it was sealed with six minutes of the game left when we netted the seventh goal of the game, rounding out the day’s scoring. After good work from Nunez down the right, Mark Delany whipped a good corner in and centre back J’Lloyd Samuel headed past Oakes with relative ease for his fifth goal of the season. The final whistle sounded at all three games and we were crowned champions. Lifting that trophy high above my head was the best feeling I ever had at Spurs, as the following season it would all go sour again.
Final Score: Tottenham 5 – 2 Wolves Keane 13”; Ricketts 18”, 30”; Miller 26”; Cort 35”; Jesuli 73”; Samuel 84”
Aberdeen vs Dundee United – Pittodrie – Saturday 10th April 2004 – Attendance 20,641
Scottish Premier League
With a squad that was more than capable of staying in the Premiership, I had, for a second time, proven myself incapable of keeping Spurs safe. On Sunday 4th April, with Tottenham sitting in a precarious 16th place, just two points above the drop zone, I was approached by managerless Aberdeen. At a time when my position was being questioned, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Aberdeen needed four points to make their SPL future safe, and with the talent on show there I was certain I could do a good job for them.
And so, 363 days after I had secured the division one championship for Spurs, I left them, though admittedly with a heavy heart. Many put our second season failings down to the fact that we had lost both Keane and Ricketts in the summer. Both had minimum fee release clauses, and both were activated, Keane joining Man City for £14M whilst Newcastle paid £13.5M for Ricketts. But pastures new were calling, and I had six days to prepare for my first SPL game, against Dundee United.
I managed to complete two transfers in the time before the visit of Dundee Utd. Stewart Thompson was brought in on loan from Liverpool, as was fellow striker Ashely Sestanovich, though he came from Sheffield United. The Dons had already lost three games to United during the season (2-0, 4-1 and 3-2) so I new the task would be difficult.
Or, at least, I thought it would be.
Ex-Hibee midfielder John O’Neil gave us the lead before twenty minutes had passed when he finished off a wonderful move started at the back by Phil McGuire. But that prepared us not in the slightest for what would come before half time. In the twenty-fifth minute, Thompson got his Don’s debut off to the perfect start when he headed home Calum Bett’s corner. The fans were warming to the big Scouser in a big way. Next on the scoresheet, to give us an incredible three goal lead, was Frenchman Jerome Vareille. Thompson turned provider for Jerome’s goal, threding a great ball through the Dundee defence.
Three minutes after setting up Vareille, Thompson was back on the scoresheet himself as he completed a debut double. This time it was left back Chris Kerr who sent the ball into the box (from a free kick) and Thompson chested it down before smashing a left-footed volley past Tony Bullock in the Dundee goal. The game was becoming a dream, and I simply couldn’t believe my eyes when we bagged a fifth before the break, Alen Orman curling a superb 25 yard effort past Bullock.
As you would expect, the second half was a somewhat more subdued affair, and only one more goal was added to the tally. Happily, though, United failed completely to get themselves on the scoreboard, and six goals plus a clean sheet spells a mighty good debut to me. The sixth of those goals came seven minutes after the break, Kerr this time decided to go for goal with his free kick, and his stunning shot from thirty yards left Bullock with no chance.
It was the first of many good days at Aberdeen. Though I spent only 11 months there, they were the most successful of my career. Safety was guaranteed the very next game with a 2-2 draw at Ibrox, Thompson further enhancing his cult status as he bagged another double. The following season went wonderfully as we held third place all along until my departure in early March. After the sacking of Alex McLeish, Rangers turned to me, and the stature of the club gave me the chance I had been waiting for.
Final Score: Aberdeen 6 – 0 Dundee United O’Neil 17”; Thompson 25”, 38”; Vareille 28”; Orman 43”; Kerr 52”
Kilmarnock vs Rangers – Rugby Park – Saturday 3rd December 2005 – Attendance 18,085
Scottish Premier League
Seventeen points behind Celtic come the start of March was too much for the Rangers board which had been forced to watch their cross-city rivals sweep all before them since Martin O’Neill had taken over at the club. The Celts had even managed to find their way to the Champions League Semi-Final in the previous season. McLeish’s loss was my gain, though, as I was tempted away from Pittodrie to take on the mantel of the once great ’Gers.
The final two months of the season had seen things being badly for me. Only two wins were gained in the league, and we finished 24 points behind the Bhoys, and only 1 ahead of the Dons. Having squeaked into the Champions League group phase with a penalties victory over Shelbourne, we were roundly dumped out of the tournament, finishing bottom of our group without a single point. The league was going just as badly, and come the end of November we were wallowing in 4th place, 13 points off the pace set by Celtic.
I knew that, unless things improved quickly, the end was nigh. Kilmarnock had provided my real high point of the season as we thumped them 5-1 at Ibrox in October, so I felt the trip to Rugby Park gave us a real chance to kick start our season. Claim our first away win of the campaign and move forward, close the gap on Celtic and squeeze our way back into the Champions League.
The game, as one could have expected, began slowly. Neither side were willing to take the big risks that might let the other in. Kilmarnock, sitting bottom of the table, had targeted our visit to give themselves a confidence boosting win, and the defensive frailties that everyone had found against them during the season were not evident at all.
Not even my big money signings, including Dutch superstar Patrick Kluivert, Portuguese wizard Tiago and free-scoring Belgian Wesley Sonck could prise a way through the Killie back line. And when we suffered the blow of Steven Hammell leaving the field on a stretcher having suffered an horrifically broken leg, things went from bad to worse. With Barry Ferguson, re-signed from Blackburn at the beginning of the season, now having to fill in as left wing-back, Killie were growing in confidence as our boys tried to remove the thoughts of sympathy to Hammell from their minds.
We made it through to the break with the scores still level, an important fact as the home side had had by far the better of the game. The second half progressed in much the same way, with the hosts on top, but our defence holding out resolutely, and ourselves only threatening through the odd breakaway. With just two minutes left on the clock, the scores were still unbroken and we were pushing with all our might to steal the win.
Amidst the snow that had begun to fall around the hour mark, we finally managed to get what we so desperately desired. A long boot out from Stefan Klos, fiercely aided by the strong wind, found Sonck on the edge of the Killie penalty area. Kluivert tore past him into a good position and Sonck found him with a perfect pass which our Dutchman fired first time past Myles Hogarth. The sense of relief was immense.
It lasted; however, for about 67 seconds. From the kick-off, James Fowler pumped the ball into our penalty area. It seemed as though Klos had it easily covered, but our usually so reliable German ‘keeper spilled the ball in the foul weather. Jon Macken got to it first, but was upended by Grégory Vignal as he tried to round Klos. Referee George Clyde had no hesitation in awarding the penalty and sending Vignal off. Our only hope was that Klos would repel the penalty, but Killie captain James Fowler sent Stefan the wrong way and tucked the ball into the corner of the net.
And that wasn’t the worst. With our heads down having lost our lead, and as such a vital three points, Kilmarnock stole the ball of us within seconds of the re-start. Another long ball was sent into the area, and another Klos mistake cost us dear. The German lost the flight of the ball in the wind and snow and could only watch as it sailed over him. He had a second chance, though, as the ball plugged in the mud just a yard from the line. Quickest to react; however, was Killie winger Joachim Liknes and he slid in to tap the ball over the line. We had gone from euphoria to despair in the space of two minutes.
And, though I didn’t know it at the time, it would be my last involvement in a football match. When I came into the office on Monday morning, the board called a meeting at which my future was discussed. It was explained to me that it had been decided to let me go. I had, apparantly, proven to them that I could not take the club forward, and they felt the need to cut their losses as quickly as possible. It was a blow, but something I had suspected might be in the offing. A tough period followed as I considered my future in the game. I had always been of the opinion that something was only worth doing if you could do it well, and my abject failure at two big clubs had convinced me that I would never top the management game. It was a sad way, perhaps, to end a career, but it was certainly the right choice. I had just over four years as a football manager, and I wouldn’t swap them for anything else. I guess you just have to know when to call it a day.
thief! (a short story) 
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