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?

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.

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…

Maybe we need a petition so the minority with negative views don’t drown us out?

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!!!”

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!

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.