Thursday 19th March, 2009last year, mid-March
Yeah, but if it wasn’t Stuart…
I have come to the conclusion that the debate on Stuart McCall is impossible to have in an emotional vacuum that is presented with the opening gambit “Yeah, but if it wasn’t Stuart…”
The City boss is Stuart McCall and – when Peter Jackson became persona non grata in the 1990s – he is the only club legend we have. Sacking him, or pressuring him into leaving because it amounts to the same thing, is a permanent severing of that relationship. For confirmation one need only to look how Andrew Stuart McCall Junior turned his back on Elland Road after the way that Leeds United behaved towards Andrew McCall Senior. “I’ll know that a few thousand people in Bradford want me to put one over Leeds.” said the then Rangers midfielder before 1992’s European Cup Battle of Britain.
Nevertheless it is perhaps worth exploring that question of “Yes, but if it wasn’t Stuart” as we come to terms with the manager’s statement that should the Bantams not make the play-offs this season then he will not be in charge next.
Three away defeats in a row have blotted out moving fourth after a 5-0 win at Valley Parade and we are forced to ask what would previous incumbents of the manager’s job at Valley Parade had done in the circumstances that McCall admits, and few would deny, hurt him as much as anyone.
David Wetherall certainly faced his darkest day when the Bantams were so easily swept aside by Huddersfield Town 2-0 in 2006. Wetherall’s response was muted to say the least but as a caretaker – almost house sitter – manager one can expect little else so we move back to the last permanent City manager Colin Todd.
Todd was not popular with the same people who would have rid of McCall, and more besides, and approached his time at Valley Parade as casually as could be. A man who had seen the highs of football and is soon to be glorified as such on the silver screen viewed his time at City with the dispassion of a hired hand. Not that one could say that Todd did not care for the club and his charges but that he cared because of his professional pride rather than being felt from the heart.
Perhaps after three away defeats Todd would have said that winning away from home in football is hard and not to be expected and while he hoped we could improve our form and that he would do everything to ensure we did, he worked under tight restraints. Of the managers I shall mention today Todd is perhaps the only one I would rank above McCall in terms of what one might call “management ability”. Todd was going to leave at the end of the season he was fired in and one can speculate that he had grown weary of the constant unbalance of expectations and resources.
“The job gets harder every year” the man from Chester-le-Street said.
Another man from Chester-le-Street would have lost no sleep over Bradford City’s three defeats on the road. The heart that Bryan Robson put into playing for England and Manchester United was sorely lacking from his time at Valley Parade. When, it seemed, the excuse of administration offered itself Robson accepted that his then second step into management would be a failure and marked time until the end of the season making no enemies and ensuring he would be continue to be thought of as a good guy, a nice bloke.
Bryan Robson would not have lost any sleep over three defeats.
That Nicky Law might be doing now is, one hopes, a result of worries about his son’s place in professional football next season. Law Jnr is much trumpeted but, as with perhaps all the Bradford City players, he is hidden under this criticism of McCall while not putting in as much as he should. Nicky Law Snr’s time at Valley Parade can be defined in a single comment – “At some grounds the crowd is worth a goal for home team, here it is worth one for the opposition.” – and while that became the epitaph of his career as the Bantams manager it is as true today as it was then.
There is a poison in the support at Valley Parade, a cancer, that undermines any work that is attempted and that cancer is so significant than now results are not viewed to their ends but rather to the reaction of the reactionaries. I am told this is the same at all clubs but an appeal to how ordinary and how unremarkable we have allowed ourselves to become is no comfort.
As manager Law would no doubt have made the right noises about how to solve the problems of defeat but perhaps been incapable of solving those problems. As a manager he suffered the same problems of reducing resources, and had boardroom in-fighting to contend with to boot, but one suspected he saw the job as his big chance and in contrast to Robson he would have faught with all the strength he could muster against that chance dwindling.
Law’s predecessor Jim Jefferies reacted to defeats with a retreat, back to Scotland and the safety of the middle of the SPL. His character shall never recover from the smut of it being said that when they going got tough, he went. The impression from Jefferies, who was no fan of Stuart McCall and attempted to drum him out of Bradford City for the sake of winning over the dressing room suggesting a style of management that demanded fealty rather than respect, was that ultimately he cared not for the future of the club as long as he was ensured his pay out to leave a club that five months later would be making redundancies.
A stark contrast to McCall who did all he could to help in 2004 when the club faced closure and, when prompted in 2007 by Mark Lawn’s stabilising investment, answered the call and took on this his role as Bradford City manager. One wonders too about the long term interest and investment of Lawn in a situation in which his choice for manager resigns on the grounds that the effects of the job are too great.
So to answer the question “Yeah, but if it wasn’t Stuart” I would say that if it was not Stuart then I worry whom it would be. If it was not Stuart I worry that we would have someone who cared less, who did the job for the financial situation or personal betterment, who slept well knowing that the football club paid him today but another would tomorrow.
If it was not Stuart then I would worry that we would go once more down the ridiculous route of believing that the next manager, whoever he may be, will be better than the previous despite all the evidence to the contrary. If one will talk about rose tinted spectacles then one would do well to explain that contradiction.
Primarily though I would say that if it was not Stuart then Bradford City would be worse off because the chances of any successor being a vast improvement on McCall’s abilities are slight while there is a certainty that whomever should follow McCall as manager of this club whenever that change comes will care less about the club, will put less effort into the club, will engage less of his heart into ensuring the clubs improvement and will have less reason to engage whatever abilities he has into the progress of the club and in those very real, very important ways will be guaranteed to be a lesser manager than Stuart McCall.
Stuart is in the position where he knows who is good enough and who isn’t. Why bring a new manager in who has to start afresh. We have improved on last year, and we will improve again next year.
If Stuart goes it will be a travesty. Todd was hounded out and we got relegated. I say those people who keep quiet, stand up and be heard and let’s keep Stuart. Don’t let the negative, cup half empty types win!! It will knock us back 2 years. The worst thing which will happen is that we lose a few ‘supporters’ and I say good riddance to those.
I started supporting when we were gash and I will continue supporting. Let them join the fake Yorkshire scousers/mancs who were in Walkabout Saturday morning.
It is to be hoped that this article, as with Roland’s yesterday, is read by Stuart and the powers-that-be at VP. They will see that they do have the support of the majority and should treat the comments of the overly vocal minority as not representing certainly how I feel. Sure, I am disappointed with how the season seems to be going, but it’s not over yet and there’s still a good chance of at least the play-offs.
I have never demanded that a manager be sacked, as all it does is detract from supporting the team, which we all want/have to do, no matter how poorly they may be playing. I didn’t make any of the last 3 away games (some might say good decision!) but I will be there again on Saturday, trying to make some noise in the Sunwin – well someone’s got to..!!
It would be a disaster if SM walked away at the end of this season – he is only just starting in this phase of his career and whilst the sights may have been set a little too high by some at the beginning of the season, he needs to keep learning and perfecting his craft at this club, because as you say, he cares about it and we should care about him.
Come on you Bantams!
The rollercoaster ride that is Bradford……………
3 more desperate away results (although they did not deserve to lose at Exeter) and now the threat of Stuart leaving.
I know how I feel about recent results (and more so performances) so god only knows how Stuart must be feeling – his self confidence has taken a massive hit but he MUST remain the mangager of the club he loves.
He desperately wants the club to succeed and it must engulf him in both anger and frustration that the players who enjoyed a 5-0 home win just over a week ago can then perform so abysmally and with an apparent lack of heart and confidence away from VP. I think it is true he has some questions to answer on aspects relating to tactical awareness and in particular on the ineptitude of certain players he has brought to the club, both in terms of ability and there desire to succeed. But he must, and we must, remain resilient to his long term plans and ambitions for the club. If season 1 was in many ways his learning curve then I am certain that season 2, where both his and the fans expetations were considerably raised, has probably taught even more lessons.
On the whole the players should be ashamed of their efforts, in particular during recent weeks, and there is no doubt that whatever division we are in next season there will again need to be some serious pruning. My big hope was that as well a spotting players with the necessary talent, Stuart was better equipped than most to spot a player with the necessary winning mentality and it is in this area that I have been most disappointed this season.
There is also no doubt that failure to reach at least the play offs was largely unthinkable when the season started (and I am certain that not achieving this minimal goal did not enter Stuarts head) and whilst there have been the usual ‘over the top’ responses elsewhere, I also think the vast majority of ‘reasonable’ and loyal fans have been genuinely taken aback at recent events and results and in the realisation that there is a very serious chance we may not even achieve this minimal goal.
But the hurt Stuart is feeling, if not apparent in all our players, is so tangible and we know he matches our desire for the club to become successful again and we can only hope that the next few weeks deliver a positive outcome in a number of areas – but most importantly that Stuart will still be leading Bradford City next season. He will know more than anyone that mistakes have been made and that further changes to the team are inevitable and necessary but lets not go back to square 1.
Stuart needs the support of all fair minded and true City fans more than ever – and this positive backing might just have the galvanising effect necessary in pulling the team together for the final matches.
There has been evidence over and over again that changing managers is very rarely a positive long term effect for a club, so regardless of who it is, it would be wrong to do so.
I think we are always going to be a club that sits uncomfortably in League 2 – expectations always sky-high. Perhaps unrealistic.
Are our players any better than those at Rochdale, Bury, Wycombe etc – evidence would say not! We havent even beaten Chester yet this season despite playing them at home.
However, in summary – Stuart should stay, but perhaps he himself should think about all those early season statements he made about promotion, which can only fire expectation even higher.
For the record, my original choice to replace Todd (and then Wethers) was Jacko and that opinion still stands. Yes, he allegedly made comments to City fans whilst at Town, but surely he too has some long-lasting connection with the club. Like McCall, he left the club after doing a great job for us and came back at a later stage in his career. I don’t believe that he wouldn’t be desperate to get us back up the leagues and he has the experience and know-how to do it.
In relation to Damian’s response, whilst he is right that any new manager would have to rebuild from scratch and would put us back two years, the same could surely be said of McCall if we fail to get promoted. He would also have to break up the squad and rebuild as the majority of his signings will be a year older and the loanees would have left.
Thank God for the sense that is BfB.
I was beginning to think the oafish opinions posted by a minority on the T&A website were starting to win the day in the McCall debate. Supporting your club is very easy. You just support, not slag or boo like some of absolute cretins at City have done for what seems like an eternity.
And yes, I was at Bournemouth on Tuesday.
I am a McCall supporter and can see both his good points and sadly the less good ones, and would love him to continue for the forseeable future as our manager. However, he is learning his trade and together with his backroom staff has little or no knowledge of being a manager other than that picked up as a player. I still firmly beleive that the club and McCall could benefit from having an elder statesman on board. Who that is, or should be I am not sure, but somebody to bat ideas back and forth who has had a few more years in the management game, I feel sure would be a help.
I have not been to a game all season, and only one last year due to work, money and parenting, so I only have the opinions of others to go on and the league table and am prepared to be shot down for speaking, but indulge me as I’ve followed City since I was about six in 1979. i can;t comment on the attitudes of the current players as I;ve hardly seen any of them play.
Other than echo the comments about Stuarts heart being in the club, the folly of always thinking the next man can do better, the ridiculousness of ’starting again’ every 18 months, I’d like to add that the idea that ‘a more experienced assistant is needed’ also seems rather odd.
When Trevor Cherry did what he did, did he have an experienced right hand man? When Paul Jewell did what he did, did he have an experienced right hand man? In both cases the manager and assistant were in their first senior management positions. Now you may say “but they got us promoted after a couple of years!”, but they both had the advantage of building on the momentum created by a recent promotion acheived by someone else and were involved in the clubs one true period of ‘progressivism’. McCall has arrived when we have finally bottomed out and is charged with creating his own momentum. no easy task. I saw one post on the T & A askin “what does Jacobs add?” to the City set up. Well, I’ve no idea, but why assume its his fault? What insider information do people have to suggest that Wayne Jacobs is no good as an assistant/coach? Do they even know WHAT makes a good assistant manager?
I would also like to ask those people who accuse McCall of ‘tactical naivety’, how many World Cups they’ve played in, how many Scottish championships they’ve won, how many European Cup games they’ve played. I could go on, but I despair at the arrogance of some people who seem to think they know how a team should be run. PES or ChampMan do not a manager make!
We need to let Stuart and the Board know that the majority of supporters are wanting Stuart to stay for the long term. Those who claim to be supporters and want Stuart out are the ones who moan when we don’t win every game. They are also the ones who can’t claim to be supporters. A supporter is someone who supports their team through both the good times and the more difficult times. We are still in striking distance of the play-offs and maybe McCall made his claim of leaving the club without having enough time to reflect on the three consecutive away defeats. I was at Exeter last Saturday and there was very little between the two teams except a lucky goal for Exeter. Yes – some people say that you earn your luck and maybe ours is still to come this season. If the minority moaners “force” McCall to quit and, so suddenly after signing an extension to his contract I will be pi**ed off.
Take Everton for example; David Moyes has been their manager for just over seven years and whilst they haven’t won a major trophy during his reign I sure that most Everton supporters are glad that they have stuck with him. They have some good young British players coming through into their first team and Moyes speaks honestly after games unlike other Premiership managers. Like Moyes, Stuart has had a role to play in developing Colbeck and O’Brien, and he speaks honestly after games. So as some supporters would sing…”don’t you take my Stuart away. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you never noticed how much I love you, so don’t you take my Stuart away!!!”
We have come from a position where only a few years ago we nearly lost City. We now have a manager & chairmen who love the club, JR & ML must convince Stuart that his place is at Valley Parade, he must stay – for their collective benefit and ours. There has been a huge over reaction to the recent defeats, some of the posts on other sites are poisonous. We are not doomed to fail despite the latest display, just as we were not guaranteed promotion by thrashing Aldershot. The fact is City are making progress and our support is the best way of ensuring this continues.
Its great to see so much support on BfB for Stuart and I totally echo that and we just have to hope that he realises that most of the fans want him to stay for a long time to come.
Maybe we need a petition so the minority with negative views don’t drown us out?
I would echo Tom’s thoughts. The idiot supporters like Wayne McManus aka Waynus get too much say over how this club is run and ultimately drag it down and hold it back. Those of us who believe in Stuart have as much right to make our views known but are probably guilty of failing to do so.
I totally support those who want to keep McCall at Bradford. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve improved the squad, performances, and results compared with last season. We were on a downward spiral when he took the job (how long was it that we went without a win at VP prior to Medley’s winner against Wrexham?) and now we are heading in the right direction for the first time in a long time. Just because we don’t get there in one year or two years people start to fret more than they should. And that probably includes McCall. I don’t know how staying down would affect us financially, but football-wise I don’t think it would exactly be a disaster. We’ve consolidated and improved over the one-and-a-bit seasons McCall has been in charge, which is better than the direction we were moving in when he took over.
We’ve seen things under McCall we’d not seen for a while. 5-0 against Aldershot – we get 5-0 scores about once a decade! Clean sheets, back-to-back wins. I’d almost forgotten such things existed…
A fair argument and I am sure there will be good points to back up both sides. For the record the points in favour of Jackson are;
He has managed to get a team out of this league before (at the first attempt) and built several good squads in his time at Huddersfield.
I agree Lincoln are behind us in the table. However, he didn’t take over until October 08 and then missed three months of the campaign, meaning he was only in charge for five months in his first season. He did win a Manager of the Month award in that season. His overall record at Lincoln is;
Games 64, W23, D16, L25. Win Rate 36%. (1.33 pts p/game)
McCalls stats are;
Games 92, W35, D21, L36. Win rate 38%. (1.37 pts p/game)
I understand that Jacko pushed the boat out to get Rob Burch, but I still don’t believe he has the same financial clout McCall has been given this season. Our Chairman, Lawn, readily admitted that we had pushed the boat out for McCall and that we have one of the highest wage budgets in our league.
I haven’t said Jacko would have done a better job than McCall. I simply said his ‘previous record’ indicated he would have done a decent job for us and was my choice for manager. I haven’t changed my viewpoint on this, although I do acknowledge the work Taff did behind the scenes and take your point regarding this.
I don’t hold Jackson in the same disregard as some do at City (they are entitled to think of him poorly if they wish, he did accept the job from Geoffrey Richmond and then call back two days later to say that he would rather not) but I also do not hold him in as high a regard as some and fail to see why a man who is four places below us in League Two as we speak should be considered better than our current manager?
What is it about Lincoln’s 48 points that make them a better achievement than City’s 58? In Jackson we can make a like for like comparison with Stuart and frankly our gaffer is better than their gaffer. He may have been your choice to replace Todd but two years there is no indication that he would be doing any better than McCall is. I would be interested to know what it is about doing worse than McCall that suggests that Jackson is better?
Personally I believe that appointing Jackson without Terry Yorath is a much different proposition to him with the current Margate manager as his number two and – as with Paul Jewell without Chris Hutchings – I’d be very wary at assuming he could look at his record at Huddersfield and assume he could repeat it.
The fact that he is in our league in a team that – like us – declared that they wanted automatic promotion and that they were able to outbid us for players (Rob Butch) suggesting that they have similar resources that he is in a comparable situation doing less well.
Does this mean he is not as good a manager as Stuart McCall? Perhaps. Does this mean it is impossible to make a case that he is categorically a better manager? Certainly it does.
It is good that you agree that Lincoln are behind us in the table because I would have found the debate that they were not to be very interesting. Sticking to things one can comment on Lawn’s statement that we have a high budget is relative to things he has no way of knowing – how would Mark Lawn know how much Brentford, or Luton, or Lincoln for that matter are spending? If their chairmen rang VP and asked what our our bill was would we answer? As for Yorath’s work: Different management teams work in different ways and Jackson has been very clear that he is not a training ground manager or a coach and I personally would say that in that context Jackson the manager is defined by his assistant.
Ultimately though I don’t think anyone is arguing that Jackson could or could not have done a decent job and that your insistence that he was your choice despite an acknowledgement that you do not think he would do a better job presents two interesting questions for me.
Firstly is your personal crusade against McCall which Jason refers to simply peevishness because you did not have your choice installed? If you don’t think that Jackson would have done a better job than McCall why campaign against him as you frequently do? This leads onto a second point that if you think they would have done the same type of service at City then would you now be calling for Jackson to leave for the same reasons you want McCall to go?
What scary sense of entitlement is it that says that you want the manager you want at the time you want him and even though you admit that a failure to comply with your edict has served no ill for the club – that Jackson would not have done a better job – that you want to break what is there because it is not what you had wanted?