Joe Royle - has he been acknowledged enough?

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butlerkb

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In this period of comparing how resilient city have been, 2-0 down against gillingham, 2-1 down against QPR , 2-0 down against Villa, showcasing our never say die attitude, we have interviewed players from all eras and fans comments too, have we afforded Joe Royal the attention( interviews and invites back to the club etc. considering Gillingham , Blackburn etc.,?having played for the club and being manager in a massively instrumental era for City becoming what we are today, does he deserve more attention....everybody loved him at the time!
 
I loved joe when he was in charge, brought back some pride and dignity to the club after a few woeful years. Brought some exciting players such as mark Kennedy and Terry cooke, Darren Huckerby and Introduced swp. I think the season we got promoted back to the prem was a step to far in hindsight. I think we were riding on the crest of a wave after the previous year.

We lack quality and creativity in that first season and maybe he thought he could replicate his Everton dogs of war mentality which obviously failed miserably.

maybe it has something to do with the way he left the club and trying to sue the club that has left a bit of an after taste but I’m only guessing. Whatever happened shouldn’t detract from the magnificent job he did from dragging us by the bollocks and getting us back where we belong.

As another thread has been started I can’t believe it was 23 years ago at Wembley.!where does the time go. It’s easy to look back and say what a great day etc but it wasn’t really. Ok maybe the last few minutes after dickov scored and after penalties but the rest of it was awful.

Anyway top lad Joe and and thanks for giving us a city we can all be proud of.

ctid
 
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Without Royle and Bernstein steadying the ship in our darkest hour we may have been languishing in the lower tiers for a long time, the city council might never have sanctioned the move to the Etihad and the subsequent investment might never have happened. I for one will be eternally grateful for what they did for our club
 
Gave us back our pride. Fan of our great club for well over fifty five years and their was never a team I felt more affinity with than the promotion sides of 99 and 2000. My second favourite manager behind Mancini made me fall back in love with City and stopped me feeling embarrassed to admit being a blue. Royle ended a long downward spiral and will always have my gratitude, without Joe Royle no Pep, without the play off no Premier league titles. Thanks Joe.
 
I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of years I ago where I thanked him personally and said it was down to him and his team we are we are now.

He smiled and thanked me.


99 play off saved our club. We could have been Celebrating/Crying about losing a national League play off this weekend instead.
 
We were an absolute shambles on the pitch when Joe Royle joined us . A team playing with no pride and heading in one direction. In 1998 the end game seemed to be us eternally falling down the leagues. Managing us was the kiss of death for any manager and lesser managers wouldn’t go near us

Of course he wasn’t perfect and yes we got relegated from the Premiership but success may have dulled some memories

I think Joe Royle was a great manager for us and I am grateful for what he did for us
 
Reminds me of a story my brother-in-law told me following our back to back promotions under Joe Royle. He (my brother in law, not Joe Royle) was tiling a guys house in Bramhall when a highly respected former City player visited. The talk was naturally around our return to the top flight and the ex player said "The first decision the club will make will be who the new manager is". Now I can't be certain that's what was said but, if true, it suggests the club recognised (rightly as it happened) that Joe was the right man to get us into the PL but not the right man to keep us there. Maybe they were swayed by the emotion of back to back promotions, maybe they felt there would be a media backlash if they sacked Joe under those circumstances or maybe there were financial restraints which meant he stayed.
Always had a liking for Joe, saw his debut at Liverpool on Boxing Day 1974 and, despite the manner of his departure, I've never heard him badmouth the club.
 
He did a great job getting us promoted twice.
Maybe he would have kept us up if he brought in a few more players. I remember we were chasing ugo eghio for 8m which would have been a big fee for us then.
Pissed me off trying to sue us though.
 
Put an end to the disasters we had as manager with Ball and Clarke. Got rid of dozens of players we didn’t need, sorted out the wage bill, instilled a better culture at the club, built a team the fans could get behind, brought in leaders and winners, and got us promoted twice in a row.

Brilliant manager.

That team in the Prem in 2000-01 was still full of players who got us up from the third tier and the Prem was a league too far for many of them. But he changed everything at City and laid the platform for Keegan to come in and take us that step further to establishing ourselves as a Prem club again.
 
youngbob said:
Rescued us from freefall in the 90s and made us stable enough again to go one step further under Keegan.

Probably has more of an association and affiliation with Everton, though. Understandable.
Click to expand...

not really
 
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