DontLookBackInAnger said:
Blue Train said:
Franny saved our club from oblivion. He was handed the wheel of the Titanic five minutes before it was due to hit the iceberg at full speed, and idiots still blame him for the hull damage.
He turned this club around after Swales's two decades of mismanagement and got us back on the road to the top. People will always associate him with the mad scramble for the lifeboats and ful scale panic, but he kept the ship intact and made sure we could repair the damage.
We've only just recovered from what Swales did to us.
I partly agree that Swales mismanaged the club, but the blame for bringing the worst professional manager in the history of the modern English game lays solely at his feet.
This is harsh. It's easy to slag off Ball but there are far worse managers out there (Brian Robson, anyone?) and we were relegated under Ball on goal difference. He actually had us playing some attractive football, particularly in the FA Cup game against the rags when we played them off the park until the ref handed them the worst penalty decision in FA Cup history.
Franny Lee turned our club around financially after Swales ran it into the ground. And that's a fact.