More About Adminstration
Kevin Keegan was wrong to describe the Premiership as boring.
Today Manchester United square up against Chelsea and the winner could be decided by goal difference - the tiny margin between success and failure - and right up to the last kick of the game the season will stay interesting.
All a far cry from Chelsea’s days in the second flight of English football and I remember City would have played off with Chelsea for a place in The First Division back in 1988 had we beaten Middlesbrough.
I also remember Manchester United going to play Halifax Town in a League Cup game at The Shay. United Town took the lead I think but Halifax came back to win and won 2-1. Halifax Town beating Manchester United seems a long time ago today.
Halifax Town are virtually gone from football. A meeting on Friday in Leeds left them with virtually no hope of a CVA or of any sort of a reprieve from the debtors. They are about to go into liquidation very soon and then there will be no more Halifax Town.
Supporters of Town - and there are not many one supposes - will lose the football club they have followed. Football is a strange thing and hard to understand for most. It is a metronome for the supporter’s lives ticking off weeks and years in the same way that any anniversary or regular event does.
I heard once that humans use rituals to mark out time - why celebrate a birthday anyway? - in manageable units and my better half does not really understand how I can recall dates because they fall within certain seasons but I can.
For football supporters that is one of the functions of the game - to allow a common and shared set of events that we use to mark out the paths of our lives. It is not the only one of these things society holds - I remember other things by which albums I was listening to around that time - but they are important and special and for the people of Halifax they are gone.
Today of all days I say this. Today 11th of May 56 people lost their lives watching Bradford City play Lincoln and we mark that tragic anniversary as we mark the joyous, the sad, the silly, the mundane ones around supporting football in a way that weaves into the fabric of our lives.
I doubt that the armchair supporters watching the Premiership “showdown” have even the faintest idea what I mean. I think they think these point of view to be outmoded and old fashioned. I think they look at supporters of clubs like Bradford City and Halifax Town as being part quaint and part dull following the unsuccessful bloody-mindedly as if community and kinship means nothing.
Manchester United vs Chelsea is Coke vs Pepsi. Whichever wins it makes very little to the rest of football which looks to crumbs to live on while at the top table they gorge.
The Premiership - Thatcherism gone to horrific extremes - will be settled today and at some point someone will mention that Chelsea have not scored enough goals despite paying a man £130,000 a week to do that. £130,000 a week as Halifax Town go to the wall.
Kevin Keegan was wrong to describe the Premiership as boring. It is not boring, it is obscene.
There has always been a bit of a nasty niff in the air when an east winds blows in from Beeston, but of late it seems to be blowing a cloud that matches something from the James Herbert novel “The Dark” in terms of it’s noxious smell and taste.
True, we’ve never viewed Leeds Urinals as the best of neighbours, but somehow that could always be written off as jealousy at their status or ability to compete, and yes we’ve viewed the recent footballing downfall with a bit of amusement.
However, over the last few weeks, things have turned decidely ugly at Elland Road. The smell that permeats from the board room leaves little room for any sympathy to be extended to the owners, but a good deal to the genuine fans who stand to lose their club. A club most have supported long before the current lunatics took over the asylum.
In short, what has happened at Beeston Utd is not far short of criminal. In facts it’s not disimilar to the 1960’s “Long Firm Fraud” made famous by the Krays - where goods were ordered from suppliers, sold off cheap and a runner was done before the invoices became payable.
The Beeston Boys have ordered the goods in, sold them off and now expect the suppliers to accept 8% of the cost.
Now coming from a club who have been in this situation twice, it might seem a bit of pot calling kettle a rather off shade of brown (to be policitally correct). However it has to be said that neither of our administrations were manufactered to a time that suited BCFC, this can not be said of the one at Elland Road, and neither of our rescue packages can be seen as a cynical way of duping creditors in order to dump debt.
I hope Leeds survive, if only for the sake of their fans, but they must realise that they can not be allowed to walk out of administration and straight back into a position where ther pay transfer fees and high wages to buy promotion - forget the 10 point deduction, administration should come with a 5 year embargo on paying transfer fees and and a 5 year salary cap.
If Leeds do survive, and at present that is very much an if, then for the good of football they must be barred from immiedate investment in players and come out with completely new owners.
It’s time for the football league to give the two fingered salute to Mr Bates.
It’s five years since Stuart McCall was shown the door by Bradford City. Considered too old, too expensive and a little disruptive, his contract was not renewed and his number four shirt handed to someone else.
The impending financial meltdown that would come to light weeks later was the true reason behind showing a City legend the door. Yet as a near full house waved goodbye to Stuart during his testimonial game with former club Rangers, it appeared his best days were behind him.
Stuart hooked up with Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United and enjoyed a new leash of life by playing a significant part in the Blades reaching the League and FA Cup semi-finals and losing the Play Off final. Not bad for a player who Jim Jefferies, less than a year earlier, famously wrote off by saying his legs had gone. When those legs did eventually go, his coaching career took off. Rising to Warnock’s assistant, the sight of Stuart stood behind the Blades boss in the dugout has become a regular sight on Match Of The Day this season.
As for his first love Bradford City, it’s not been pretty. Administration, administration again, relegation, relegation again. Six years ago City were the butt of people’s jokes as they exited the Premiership, relegation to League Two was deemed barely worth a mention. The fall from grace may not have been as quick as the club formerly known as Wimbledon, but it’s still startling.
But just as we wondered if good things would ever happen to City again, Stuart comes over the hill as the proverbial knight in shining armour. City shocked the footballing world by signing Benito Carbone seven years ago and some will again be left scratching their heads in disbelief at Stuart’s decision to take the reigns at Valley Parade. Chiefly among them will be us City supporters and the staff, probably even Julian Rhodes himself.
When Colin Todd was dismissed last February, Stuart became number one target. There was nothing doing at the time, so Rhodes entrusted David Wetherall to look after the team and saw it relegated in feeble fashion. The wait continued and, after a turbulent week for the Blades, Rhodes incredibly got his man.
Through all of the waiting and debate of who should be manager, most supporters wanted Stuart in charge. We hoped he’d take the job, but who really believed he would? This is a club that has sunk to its lowest position in quarter of a century, become saddled with debts and played increasingly poor football. Decent players were replaced by average players - and then they were replaced by even poorer ones.
What have we achieved, other than continuing survival, since Stuart left? Staying up in 2002-03, but losing relegation battles in 2003-04 and 2006-07. Signing some decent players like Paul Henderson, Damion Stewart and Andy Gray, but only receiving a fraction of their value back. Attracting a world class big name manager, but discovering he was not a world class manager. Winning some memorable games, but losing more often and when it really mattered.
Good things haven’t happened to Bradford City for a long time. So who would have been surprised if Stuart had of landed the Sheffield United position and turned us down? Of course part of the reason we have got him was because the Blades decided he wasn’t right. But it hardly matters a jot.
A manager to finally unite the fans, attract more interest in the club and breed genuine optimism. A Bradford City man to inspire those who work under him, emphasise with the fans and demonstrate the long sought after ‘passion’ that some supporters believed was lacking in previous managers. A hungry individual with a point to prove to those who rejected him, ambitious for a good career and determined to succeed.
A man to help us remember happier times and look to the future with new belief. Good things haven’t happened to Bradford City for a long time, Stuart’s arrival will hopefully herald a change.