CelticBhoyCityBlue
Well-Known Member
Dyed Petya said:Blue Lloyd said:During our promotion season in 88/89 I seem to remember our former manager being very critical of us and this caused a lot of anger in certain members of our squad - ie the likes of Hinchcliffe, Lakey etc.
What was the motive behind the bile? anyone remember? I'm assuming it's Swales related.
Granada used Bond as a pundit that season for that season and he was consistently critical of us. I remember that, the day we played at Blackburn just after Easter and lost 4-0, he was interviewed on the pitch pre-match for the following day's Granada highlights programme. He got a merciless chorus of "Johnny Bond is a w@nker, is a w@nker!" and I think - though the memory is a little hazy - that they actually had to abandon the interview. (The Hillsborough tragedy happened the same afternoon, so the highlights show was cancelled, I think. At any rate, I don't ever recall seeing it).
Bond was bitter about the circumstances of his leaving City. He felt that some of the directors who liked to stick their nose in were conspiring against him: he was having an affair with a club employee, which broke as he resigned, and I think he felt that someone was using the threat of going public with that to try to force him to quit. He was also angry, I heard him say later at a fan event, with supporter reaction to the heavy defeat at Brighton in his last game. He claimed to have suffered really vitriolic verbal abuse and been spat at by Blues when he was leaving that game.
I also read a quote in which he said he regretted not resigning in the summer of 1981. He claimed that, on the Saturday evening of the drawn first game in the Cup final, a director had drunkenly given him a lot of stick for failing to win that day. He's referred to City being a "cold,calculating" club more than once, contrasting it negatively with the atmosphere at Norwich and saying he regretted moving to Maine Road - see here: http://www.ex-canaries.co.uk/players/bond.htm.
Slightly ironic that he claimed to have been a friend and admirer of Swales given that the rampant cronyism under Swales allowed directors who were his mates to behave in that way. And, with so many of the Swales cronies out to feather their own nest, the fact that such an atmosphere flourished was again down to the former chairman.
All told, Bond's time at the club doesn't seem to have left him with a great deal of residual affection for MCFC. I don't remember much of what he said as a pundit that season, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was coloured by his apparently negative view of the club.
Would it be churlish to say that John Bond was one of the main reasons for our relegation in 82/83? I was sure he fell out with Swales? Either way it left John Benson in charge and the rest is unfortunate history.