More About Paul Jewell
Wasn’t it Paul Jewell who said ‘There are lies, damned lies, statistics and Bradford City’? Oh no, it was something else that Jagger said. Back to that in a minute. No, according to Mark Twain it was Benjamin Disraeli who made that comment – or at least he would have done if he had still been alive back in 1903.
But have a look at the official club website and you’ll see some quite alarming statistics from Saturday’s game. They say, for example, that City, starting a home game as second in the league, had just 29% of the possession, had just half of the number of shots on target as the Daggers and won 4 corners as against their opponents’ 13. Those are the kind of statistics that don’t lie.
At least now I know why the manager keeps his hair as long as it always has been. It’s so that nobody realises how much of it he tears out whenever we gave the ball away – which happened roughly every thirty seconds yesterday. He will soon be as follicularly challenged as the rest of us, especially when we concede possession about 25 yards from our own goal.
Personally, I wouldn’t have minded the Daggers’ corner count being 14, if the extra one had been the ball TJ could just have knocked out of play instead of letting it be put back across the face of Evans’ goal, thereby setting up the equalizer. But come on, be fair to Evans. He’d kept us in it and there was very little he could have done to prevent that goal.
Of course, what the statistics don’t tell you is that, for all that City were outplayed up and down the pitch, there was only one team who were ever going to score that opening goal. I don’t suggest it was fated or anything like that. What I mean is that it took a passing team, operating at pace and a real quality goal scorer to create and score a goal like that. We’ve done it before – Rochdale comes to mind – and we’ll do it again this season. There are ways of soaking up pressure and still scoring goals and we seem to have some of the best ways. They’re called Boulding and Thorne.
Even allowing for the justice in the equalizer, City could have lost the point gained. Apart from the referee, who else thought it wasn’t a penalty? And what about the reaction of the Dagenham players? The last time I saw that sort of scrum round the ref was when Andy D’Urso had the temerity to award a penalty against the home team at Old Trafford and Roy Keane’ eyeballs were several inches away from the sockets. Wasn’t that exactly what the Respect campaign was all about? So how come not a single yellow card resulted from the cavalry charge?
Ah yes, that was what Paul Jewell said. After the recent Derby game against Nottingham Forest he gave the referee 100% in his report card, because he wanted to see if anyone actually read the numbers awarded by the managers. That was the game where the ref gave a penalty for a handball that wasn’t, where quite literally a one second pause would have solved everything, that being the time it took for Derby to put the ball in the net. The penalty was saved and even the second time Derby put the ball in the net the ref found a push, although he couldn’t say by which Derby player. Replays showed two or three from Forest, none from Derby.
And why was I reminded of Paul Jewell? Easy really. That Derby ref was none other that Mr Atwell, he of the phantom goal in the Watford and Reading game and he of the non-penalty and no respect at Valley Parade yesterday. (I gather Derm Tanner’s substitute on Bantams World needed the prompting of John Hendrie to point out that this was the phantom goal ref. Still, given that he also insisted that the cross for Boulding’s goal came from Jones, maybe he could give up the day job and become a linesman.)
I just wondered how a Premiership ref couldn’t book anyone for that confrontation. Then I thought of the absolute howlers he’s made already this season, each of which has cost points for different teams and, for Aidy Boothroyd, a slap on the wrist for his reaction. But yesterday there were no TV cameras, save for the highlights package which will never show the incident. Or maybe Mr Atwell finally figured that, when you have just dug that hole a little deeper, there really must come a time to stop digging. I could almost wish for the return of Graham Poll.
Well, almost.
Nine years and change ago I started this here boyfrombrazil.co.uk website about a club that was aspiring to be in the Premiership. It was lead by a dogmatic, bluff chairman and had a team of exciting players under the eye of new, young manager Paul Jewell and while everything around the club is utterly different there is one constant in the fact that from that day to this there has been a rumbling underbelly of a concept that Bradford City would be improved by a new manager.
The history books of this club never include the talk against Paul Jewell - he is airbrushed to perfection - but at the time there were plenty of voices suggesting that if City wanted to be a serious contender for a Premiership club the season after the anticipated play-off failure of 1998/1999 then they would have to appoint a “proper” manager. During his time in the Premiership Jewell did not enjoy the universal support he is credited with now.
Chris Hutchings enjoyed no support and a change of manager from him to anyone would be an improvement except - of course - it was not and Jim Jefferies quickly had the same murmurings which became a cacophony and on and on through Nicky Law who must be sacked or we would be relegated but Bryan Robson got us relegated and on to Colin Todd who would take us down so had to go but of course we went down…
At the moment there are people talking about the qualities of Stuart McCall and Wayne Jacobs. People saying “I know he is a legend but…” and drifting off into some discussion of if the gaffer “knows what he is doing” as if football management were a map and a route could be planned through it.
There is a definition of insanity that has it that repeating the same action and expecting different results is the mark of that condition. Honestly - after trying a rookie, an experienced manager, a young guy who had done well in the lower leagues, an England captain, an jobbing football man - does anyone still believe that the solution to all City’s problems is in sacking the manager and appointing the best CV that comes along? That train of logic is so feeble as to question the capabilities of anyone who would suggest it.
Experience of following this club has told us that the next manager is never the answer.
Move back to the days of Paul Jewell and Chris Kamara and we see a club strong on infrastructure and leadership with continuity at the heart of it. This is not to suggest that Geoffrey Richmond had everything or anything right just that when he did things well the club did well and when he started to misstep badly the management changes helped not one jot.
City’s next manager after McCall will be no better. Jose Mourinho is not waiting to take over and if he was - as Avram Grant shows - management changes are the stuff of tweaks and not sea change.
All of which gives unnecessary oxygen to the idea that McCall is somehow an inferior manager to those around him in the division or other managers who currently have the job at 91 other clubs. He is young and learning and he makes mistakes but he also has triumphs. Criticism of the manager is plentiful but for every mistake there is a credit unsaid. Stuart McCall brought in Peter Thorne, Kyle Nix, Scott Loach just as much as he signed up Alex Rhodes.
For every curious set of displays by Paul Heckingbottom - he has struggled since signing full time - there is a success story like McCall’s handling of Joe Colbeck who is started to show real quality and consistency.
Likewise understanding the season was dead sometime ago McCall allows Rhodes the chance to show what he can do - not much in this writer’s opinion - as he looks to offer contracts out for next season. To sack a manager at this point is like sacking him for losing pre-season friendlies.
Sacking managers is just a bad idea - experience shows us that - sacking this manager goes past bordering on ludicrous and calling for him to be sacked is akin to vandalism of this football club.
As with Kevin Keegan at Newcastle it seems that being a legend is not what it used to be and Keegan and McCall get a couple more games before the firing squads are assembled. Legend is a fan applied title and the respect they given is the behest of supporters. What does it say about our supporters as some try chop away the legs of our “legend” as he takes his first steps in management?
What would it say about the supporters if we let the louder agitators in our community be heard louder than any other voice? This is especially the case when that voice makes all the sense of a stick being hammered around an empty bucket of swill and is just as sensible. A case could have been made for sacking some of the managers of the last nine years but the majority of dismissals are mistakes compounding mistakes.
All the voices who called for Nicky Law to be sacked never comment on Bryan Robson’s failure to turn the club around. The people who said Colin Todd should go do not accept the blame for the relegation to League Two.
Stuart McCall and Wayne Jacobs should be in charge at this club. End of story.
Colin Todd went from Bradford City to manage Randers FC and complains about clubs - all keen to unearth the new Paul Jewell - go for younger managers rather than bringing in experienced gaffers.
Todd’s time at Bradford City is not well viewed but the former City boss would point to the club’s slump to League Two on his exit as proof of what a good job he was doing rather than a suggestion that he had been underachieving.
Indeed it would be hard to argue that City are a better team post-Todd although very few are not much more happy to see Stuart McCall in the dug out rather than Todd.
In a week where English managers have been founding wanting by the FA Todd’s example of going aboard to further his career is a revealing one. After his team’s 2-0 defeat by Everton yesterday Alan Curbishley bemoaned the inability for an English manager to get a job at a club that can offer Champions League experience.
Curbishley jumped ship from Charlton and ended up at West Ham just as Sam Allardyce went to Newcastle United with the idea that excelling there could get the fourth place in the Premiership that while previously a could do better season is now bigger than the FA Cup.
There managers could take a look at Todd’s example and set there sights away from these shores. Should Curbs set his sights further than the other side of that London and looked at jobs in places like Denmark, Portugal or France or even the Charltons of Italy and Spain then he and his peers could have returned to England a few years down the line with more varied experience than a decade at a sturdy, steady football league club.
Take a manager like Sven-Göran Eriksson who moved from Sweden after winning a double with IFK Göteborg onto a more respected league Portugal - and taking another double with Benfica before heading off to Italy and picking up another double and an armful of other titles and then - eventually - the England job, Jingoism aside it is no wonder that overseas managers are getting the better jobs in British football - they are prepared to take a few risks to further their career rather than sitting at The Reebok or The Valley until the blindingly obvious becomes apparent. Paul Jewell and Martin O’Niell take career risks for progression but even they do not think that the way to get a job at one of the clubs that plays European football is to manage a continental European club.
With risks comes failure - take a look at the Chris Hutchings style sackings on Rafa Beneitz’s CV before he got it right and got rewarded - but setting off the risk is the rewards of success.
Colin Todd will probably not be offered the England job but a good display with Randers could see him move about the Danish league and further around Europe augmenting his CV much more than a few more years battling the reducing budget at Valley Parade ever did.
Paul Jewell has ended up at Derby. Lens, Auxerre, PSG and Metz are four of the bottom five of the French league and a survival great escape in that League would be much more of a feather in the cap than even doing the same at Pride Park.
It would seem that in being banish to Denmark Colin Todd has fallen on a way to push his career back on track far better than jobbing around the lower leagues of English football.