Howard Kendall

Len Rum said:
Hadn't we just snatched a draw from the jaws of victory by blowing a 3-1 lead in the derby in the previous game or am I getting my years mixed up?
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Correct .
Just been watching pride in battle .
All the Manchester derbies City didn't lose between 1969 and 2004 .
 
Len Rum said:
Hadn't we just snatched a draw from the jaws of victory by blowing a 3-1 lead in the derby in the previous game or am I getting my years mixed up?
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Yes spot on the derby was the week before the 1-1 at Sunderland,3-1 up and the rags made it 3-3 think maclaire scored 2 for them and White 2 and Hendry for us.
 
M18CTID said:
Can't deny that I was seriously pissed off when he left and he got a fair amount of abuse off me when we played them at Goodison for the first time since his departure and his first game back at Maine Road early the following season. After that, there was far less animosity towards him in subsequent meetings probably due to a combination of us getting it out of our system and Kendall not having anything like the expected positive impact upon returning to Everton.

I will add that I was totally gutted at the news of his resignation - it probably ranks in my top 5 worst moments as a City fan, only surpassed by relegations, etc. There was a real feeling that we were going places under him. In the space of 11 months he'd turned us from relegation candidates to outsiders for the title - I say outsiders because it's very unlikely that we would have won it in 90-91 if he'd stayed due to Arsenal losing only one game all season, but 91-92 would've been very interesting if Kendall had been at the helm.
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I was gutted when he left - must be one of the top 3 or 4 City shocks of the last 40 years. Remember hearing it on radio and was getting all suited up to go to an evening reception hosted by a potential employer. Ran straight off to phone home to check it was true. The news over previous days had been linking Joe Royle with the Everton job, and I remember telling mates that they'd really want Kendall but had no chance of getting him. Howard when he spoke really did seem excited about what he could achive at City, and I genuinely thought we'd win a trophy or two under him, possibly even the league title. That was why the betrayal seemed so great.

I think there were a couple of nagging doubts he had about City. One was that the uplift in form was achieved with a lot of Everton old boys being brought in and young players we liked being jettisoned (Bishop, Hinchcliffe and others). I think HK formed an impression that a section of our support would never forgive him for that, even though the results had improved significantly under him, and he resented this. I remember him reacting really badly to what I thought was a quite funny fanzine cover, which depicted Kendall and Reid as The Blues Brothers, with phrases adapted from the film such as "Putting the team back together" and "On a mission from Goodison". The other was that, a few years later, a well placed boardroom source suggested to me that he'd been keen to sign Dean Saunders for a couple of million quid and saw the striker as the final piece in a title jigsaw. Swales said we didn't have the money, and Everton promised him more cash for players to get him to agree to go back there.

(As an aside, the source claimed that this pushed Swales into spending unwisely in following seasons by overpaying for the likes of Curle and Phelan. PJS allegedly felt that his own personal position would come into question were another manager to walk out, so did whatever it took to land the players Reid asked for, even if financially imprudent).

Anyway, the bitterness I felt at Kendall walking out on us is long since gone. I thought he showed when in charge at City just what a good manager he was. In fact, even though we've now in recent years had a couple of managers who've delivered the kind of trophy successes I thought Kendall might, I think HK would get the nod to manage my 'Best City XI' from my time watching the club (I started going in 1975).

In hindsight, any successes he delivered had he resisted the lure of that sentimental Goodison return may have been fleeting. Firstly, I suspect the booze took its toll on him quite significantly as time wore on, explaining why his successes after leaving us were pretty few and far between (getting Sheffield United to the play offs, only to lose, was arguably the biggest of them). Secondly, as GDM suggests earlier in the thread, the presence of Peter Swales in the boardroom might possibly have acted as a brake on any pushfor honours.

Still, Kendall was a great football figure - an outstanding player unlucky not to win full caps, and a top manager whose mid-1980s Everton side was as good as others that have won the European Cup but that was denied the chance to try. RIP.

A few final points:

- For all that we hated HK at the time, Paul Lake maintains that Kendall kept in touch with him more and offered him better support than anyone at MCFC during his long and heartbreaking injury saga.

- And a piece of trivia. According to @northumbriana on Twitter, back in the 1950s, Kendall and Bryan Ferry played in the same school team in Washington, Co. Durham. Pictorial evidence here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRgy8M4WIAARnxK.jpg

- I've read somewhere this morning that he was the last Englishman to manage an English club to a European trophy. Don't have time to check whether that's true, but if so, it's an accomplishment.
 
petrusha said:
I was gutted when he left - must be one of the top 3 or 4 City shocks of the last 40 years. Remember hearing it on radio and was getting all suited up to go to an evening reception hosted by a potential employer. Ran straight off to phone home to check it was true. The news over previous days had been linking Joe Royle with the Everton job, and I remember telling mates that they'd really want Kendall but had no chance of getting him. Howard when he spoke really did seem excited about what he could achive at City, and I genuinely thought we'd win a trophy or two under him, possibly even the league title. That was why the betrayal seemed so great.

I think there were a couple of nagging doubts he had about City. One was that the uplift in form was achieved with a lot of Everton old boys being brought in and young players we liked being jettisoned (Bishop, Hinchcliffe and others). I think HK formed an impression that a section of our support would never forgive him for that, even though the results had improved significantly under him, and he resented this. I remember him reacting really badly to what I thought was a quite funny fanzine cover, which depicted Kendall and Reid as The Blues Brothers, with phrases adapted from the film such as "Putting the team back together" and "On a mission from Goodison". The other was that, a few years later, a well placed boardroom source suggested to me that he'd been keen to sign Dean Saunders for a couple of million quid and saw the striker as the final piece in a title jigsaw. Swales said we didn't have the money, and Everton promised him more cash for players to get him to agree to go back there.

(As an aside, the source claimed that this pushed Swales into spending unwisely in following seasons by overpaying for the likes of Curle and Phelan. PJS allegedly felt that his own personal position would come into question were another manager to walk out, so did whatever it took to land the players Reid asked for, even if financially imprudent).

Anyway, the bitterness I felt at Kendall walking out on us is long since gone. I thought he showed when in charge at City just what a good manager he was. In fact, even though we've now in recent years had a couple of managers who've delivered the kind of trophy successes I thought Kendall might, I think HK would get the nod to manage my 'Best City XI' from my time watching the club (I started going in 1975).

In hindsight, any successes he delivered had he resisted the lure of that sentimental Goodison return may have been fleeting. Firstly, I suspect the booze took its toll on him quite significantly as time wore on, explaining why his successes after leaving us were pretty few and far between (getting Sheffield United to the play offs, only to lose, was arguably the biggest of them). Secondly, as GDM suggests earlier in the thread, the presence of Peter Swales in the boardroom might possibly have acted as a brake on any pushfor honours.

Still, Kendall was a great football figure - an outstanding player unlucky not to win full caps, and a top manager whose mid-1980s Everton side was as good as others that have won the European Cup but that was denied the chance to try. RIP.

A few final points:

- For all that we hated HK at the time, Paul Lake maintains that Kendall kept in touch with him more and offered him better support than anyone at MCFC during his long and heartbreaking injury saga.

- And a piece of trivia. According to @northumbriana on Twitter, back in the 1950s, Kendall and Bryan Ferry played in the same school team in Washington, Co. Durham. Pictorial evidence here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRgy8M4WIAARnxK.jpg

- I've read somewhere this morning that he was the last Englishman to manage an English club to a European trophy. Don't have time to check whether that's true, but if so, it's an accomplishment.
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Great read that!
 
Len Rum said:
Hadn't we just snatched a draw from the jaws of victory by blowing a 3-1 lead in the derby in the previous game or am I getting my years mixed up?
Click to expand...
Bluemoon, you started singing too soon, you thought you beat us 3-1 and now Howard Kendall has gone....

Bluemoon, you started singing our tune, you won't be singing for long beacause we still beat you 5-1
 
That 3-3 draw was talked up at the time as an absolute classic derby but I struggle to remember another match we didn't lose that left me so absolutely devastated. Was listening to it on the radio and was so wound up when they equalised that I smashed my desk chair to pieces, meaning that I had to pay for another one plus a fine from my college authorities (from whom I was renting the room). Heaven knows what I'd have done if they'd got a winner, which they nearly did. Funnily enough, for about 80 minutes, we absolutely battered them and could easily have been 5-1 in front, as we had been a year previously.

Off the top of my head, perhaps only the draw against Liverpool in 1996 that sent us down and the win at Stoke in 1998 that failed to keep us up qualify as non-defeats that were more disappointing.
 
880125 said:
I remember his first game as manager for City. At Southampton, and typical City we turned a one up score line with a 2-1 defeat. I was stopping at the same Southampton hotel as the City players, and hung around the hotel entrance all morning, was able to get a picture and autograph of Howard Kendall before they moved on to the Dell. I did have a word with Kendall and told him to make sure he sorted out our team. Events proved that was what he did. R.I.P Howard.
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The following game at Everton was more memorable due to the fact that it was a crime against football as a form of entertainment.

We played five at the back as I recall with Allan Harper as a sweeper!

A 0-0 ensued , it was live on ITV as well

RIP
 
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