Was Alan Ball as bad as people remember?

[ancoats]

it was a job given by his mate franny ????

ball had the best player in england in kinky but could not work out how the fuck to build a team around him, it was like a scene from jimmy grimble just pass it to gordon ?? brian horton should have been given more time and money he had us playing some good stuff uwe rosler paul walsh peter beagrie also niall quinn was out was a bad injury for most of the season, but franny took over and wanted his own man ?? and alan ball was in like a flash, some funny stories about ball's training and a megaphone on the sidelines ???

 

[chaddblue]

Probably worse

 

[Cityfan]

Looking back were we just in free fall and with Ball just happening to be the manager at the time, or do you think he played in big part in our ultimate downfall?

I read once that if you took away the awful first 3 months of the season where we collected around 2 points, we were actually top half from our first win up until the end of the season. Ultimately of course we were still deservingly relegated but I just thought it was an interesting note.

To be honest I don’t think he ever endeared himself to the players or fans and he even claimed after a thrashing away at Liverpool that he had enjoyed the scousers performance.

If you take away any managers bad games they do better. We still played poor football even in our winning games.

 

[paulchapo]

The basic problem was that Alan Ball was appointed two months too late (he got the job just a week before the season started if memory serves). The first ten games were effectively our pre-season, cos we had no manager for the actual pre-season. The blame for that lies squarely with the Chairman, who sacked Brian Horton with absolutely no fucking idea what he was going to do next. It was very convenient for f h lee that Ball took all the flak. He still is taking all the flak. If Ball had been the issue, things would have improved at least to a degree when he left. But we all know how well it went after his departure, don't we?

I never saw franny lee play for City and the rest of my family did, so I was the only one to not be blinded by lee the player. lee the chairman (such as he was) was in my opinion the single biggest blight on Manchester City in my lifetime, if not in the whole history of the club. Lower mid-table first division when he took over, third division when he left.

You make some good points ( Lee was a fantastic player by the way) but the biggest blight on City was Peter Swales. When he took over City we were one of the biggest clubs in the country. If I remember correctly he said if we hadn't won a trophy in three years he would resign. Unfortunately for us we won the league cup in 1976 so he stayed. Swales was so bad and did so much damage to the club many actually thought he was a Man United plant, he was that bad!

Lee took over and I think he quickly realised things were a lot worse than he imagined. People more in the know behind the scenes at that time will be more informed at to the state the club was in. Joe Royle once replied to a question when it looked like we would be relegated, " I wasn't here when the ship hit the iceberg but I'm trying to save the ship." I think Lee felt the same but it was a monumental mistake to appoint Ball.

 

[tommybooth]

Great footballer. Very very very poor manager. Franny couldent see it.

 

[sir baconface]

A one-trick pony.

When things were shit, the solution was to squeak louder.

 

[Indaparkside]

A one-trick pony.

When things were shit, the solution was to squeak louder.

Dyche's father ginger cvunts who can't speak properly?? Resemblance

 

[Sir peace frog]

And after all
Your my Alan ball

 

[its a Barm]

Yes he was very poor as a manager end of.

 

[M18CTID]

I had very little time for him and his comments about enjoying watching Liverpool thrash us 6-0 wound me up to fuck. However, as others have said, it was the first 10 or 11 games that did for us. We were fucking awful in those matches by and large and couldn't even claim we were unlucky in any of them with the possible exception of the away derby where we lost narrowly, (that was the game where no away fans were allowed as United were still doing up the North Stand so I watched the screening at Maine Road), and unless I'm mistaken Neville got away with a professional foul on Rosler which should've got him a red card, and Quinn missed a sitter that he should've buried. After that initial run, our results improved immensely and so did the football, and we only went down on goal difference. I actually thought we might have a good chance of bouncing back straight away under him and while he only lasted 3 games the following season, I think it was clear even at that early stage that it wasn't going to happen. We beat Ipswich at home in the first game on a Friday night in a half-decent performance but then went to Bolton and lost 1-0. I wasn't at that game but by all accounts we were every bit as bad as we were at the start of the previous season. I was at Stoke though and before we knew it, we were 2-0 down and the City fans were joining in en masse with the "Fuck off Alan Ball" chant.

All in all, he was the wrong appointment but don't anyone try and tell me that Brian Horton should've been kept on. There's some serious re-writing of history going on here - either that or some posters didn't watch any of our games between mid-December 1994 and mid-April 1995. Our football initially under Horton and in particular following the signings of Rosler, Walsh, and Beagrie was indeed entertaining and that carried on into the start of the 1994-95 season, but it was mainly at home where we played well as the away results were shocking. There was the 3-0 at home to West Ham, the 4-0 against Everton, and the famous 5-2 against Spurs which was a great advert for attacking football from both sides. When we won at Ipswich in early December 1994 I think we were 6th in the league but that was as good as it got because we then embarked on a prolonged downward spiral of form that saw us dragged into a relegation battle. It was only the back-to-back wins over the Easter weekend at home to Liverpool and away to eventual champions Blackburn (both great results of course) that saw us pull away from trouble but even with a couple of games to go there was an outside chance that we could be relegated. We eventually finished just 4 points clear of the drop zone. Horton was a decent bloke by and large and like many blues I backed him to the hilt when that wanker John Maddock decided to appoint him, but the way some go on you'd think he was the best manager in our history. He fucking wasn't and his CV before or since City hardly makes for spectacular reading.