The Alan Ball era

Fuck me reading through this thread has put my therapy back a few decades.

My memories of Clough in a city shirt are thankfully limited to the game when someone ran on the pitch and literally told him how shit he was and then proceeded to try and rip the shirt off him. Happy days indeed!

To anyone who wasn’t around in those days … all I can say is that it was character building.
I think that may have been a night match against Oxford (or maybe Port Vale) where they were getting beat after 30 minutes or whatever. I'm sure Dibble threw one in.

I know someone who said that this bloke came in to the Kippax late and pissed, asked what the score was, got told, didn't bother sitting down and stormed on to give it to them. Seem to remember him going towards Dibble, realising he was a big bastard and turning round to give it to Clough instead.

Granted, a lot of that is hazy memories and stories. Could all be shite.
 
Bruce Rioch was interested in the City job in the summer of 1995 but accepted an offer from Arsenal instead, so ceased to be an option for us. The way it worked out for him there, he may have been better off coming to us, but I can understand why he regarded the Arse as an opportunity he couldn't turn down.

We had talks with George Graham as well, but he was facing FA charges over the bungs he received when he was at Arsenal and ended up being banned for a season, so we switched our sights to Brian Kidd. If we'd managed to appoint him at the time it would have been hailed as a massive coup, but he wouldn't resign his post at United. He wanted to go with Ferguson's blessing, which wasn't forthcoming. Given how Kidd performed at Blackburn, he'd probably have been no better than Ball, anyway.

Ball operated with Francis Lee as a kind of de facto Director of Football and Lee felt we had to reduce a wage bill which was vastly excessive relative to our income. It was Lee's contacts who were responsible for the signings of German players in this period, but Immel and Frontzeck as effective replacements for Coton and Phelan left us greatly diminished, as did the swap of Walsh for Creaney, Then there was the signing of Nigel Clough, a painfully slow deep-lying forward when the team required pace and width.

With a bit of luck, we could have avoided the drop but, having sold Quinn and Curle after going down without replacing them, we ended up with a very underwhelming side in the second tier. And the players who were clearly Alan Ball choices rather than Lee's - the likes of Martin Phillips and Scott Hiley - hardly set the pulse racing, either, so Bally doesn't have the mitigating factor that all the players were sourced for him. The recruitment was disastrous all round.

Clark was definitely worse, though what was weird was that he started off pretty well when he lifted us out of a relegation battle when he arrived. He seemed quite assured, identified all the obvious problems and put them right. In the summer, though, he turned into a disaster. I knew he'd lost the plot when, having signed Tony Vaughan and loudly proclaimed the player to be the answer to our problems at left-back, he put the player's poor performances down to not being suited to playing at left-back.

Just before Clark arrived, we'd had a big share issue in which Stephen Boler together with John Wardle and David Makin refinanced the club as it floundered following relegation and the shock of Steve Coppell walking out after 30-odd days in charge. There should have been enough cash to put together a side with a decent chance of promotion in 1997/8 but Clark pissed it all away, left us facing relegation and accumulated a squad of 50-odd players in the process. He was utterly dire.
Bit off topic here but you got my old memories going. I seem to remember under Swales a few years before, reading a big headlined double page spread on the 3rd to last & 2nd to last pages of the evening news that we had all but signed Geoff Thomas from palace for 750,000 & Swales was quoting it was the start of City being back in to the "upper echolons of the 1st division". Of course the transfer didnt happen for whatever reason but my point is it was just one car crash after another. I remember it being news a priest singing, "we want swales out" in the old platt lane end. Then all our hopes of a bright future shattered before "forward with franny" even got going. Unrecognisable from what we have been watching the last 20 odd years.
 
Maybe so but sacking Horton for Alan Ball was mismanagment on a major scale.
Ball wasn't first choice though.

It makes me fucking laugh how so many City fans hold Horton in such high regard. I like the bloke and backed him to the hilt when he was here. I never went down the "Brian Who" road that some fans did when he was appointed (partly because I knew exactly who he was unlike some). But the fact is that he had what effectively amounted to a decent few months in his time with us plus a largely unremarkable managerial career before and after his City tenure, and was doing nothing at Oxford to warrant getting the City job when he was offered it. In fact, his most notable moment at Oxford was some years previous when he booted the visitors dressing room door off it's hinges at Maine Road after we scored 2 very late goals to beat them 2-1! Also, while I appreciate that he speaks well of us to this day, his co-commentary on the Gillingham play-off game in the 1998/99 season review video somewhat bizarrely has a pro-Gillingham slant to it. Why that is I don't know but City didn't include the Sky commentary on the video presumably for copyright reasons so we ended up with some bloke I've never heard of along with Horton. Maybe it was from some Kent radio station which would go some way to explaining the bias.
 
Bruce Rioch was interested in the City job in the summer of 1995 but accepted an offer from Arsenal instead, so ceased to be an option for us. The way it worked out for him there, he may have been better off coming to us, but I can understand why he regarded the Arse as an opportunity he couldn't turn down.

We had talks with George Graham as well, but he was facing FA charges over the bungs he received when he was at Arsenal and ended up being banned for a season, so we switched our sights to Brian Kidd. If we'd managed to appoint him at the time it would have been hailed as a massive coup, but he wouldn't resign his post at United. He wanted to go with Ferguson's blessing, which wasn't forthcoming. Given how Kidd performed at Blackburn, he'd probably have been no better than Ball, anyway.

Ball operated with Francis Lee as a kind of de facto Director of Football and Lee felt we had to reduce a wage bill which was vastly excessive relative to our income. It was Lee's contacts who were responsible for the signings of German players in this period, but Immel and Frontzeck as effective replacements for Coton and Phelan left us greatly diminished, as did the swap of Walsh for Creaney, Then there was the signing of Nigel Clough, a painfully slow deep-lying forward when the team required pace and width.

With a bit of luck, we could have avoided the drop but, having sold Quinn and Curle after going down without replacing them, we ended up with a very underwhelming side in the second tier. And the players who were clearly Alan Ball choices rather than Lee's - the likes of Martin Phillips and Scott Hiley - hardly set the pulse racing, either, so Bally doesn't have the mitigating factor that all the players were sourced for him. The recruitment was disastrous all round.

Clark was definitely worse, though what was weird was that he started off pretty well when he lifted us out of a relegation battle when he arrived. He seemed quite assured, identified all the obvious problems and put them right. In the summer, though, he turned into a disaster. I knew he'd lost the plot when, having signed Tony Vaughan and loudly proclaimed the player to be the answer to our problems at left-back, he put the player's poor performances down to not being suited to playing at left-back.

Just before Clark arrived, we'd had a big share issue in which Stephen Boler together with John Wardle and David Makin refinanced the club as it floundered following relegation and the shock of Steve Coppell walking out after 30-odd days in charge. There should have been enough cash to put together a side with a decent chance of promotion in 1997/8 but Clark pissed it all away, left us facing relegation and accumulated a squad of 50-odd players in the process. He was utterly dire.
Very well articulated as always Peter.

As you say, the Frank Clark appointment promised so much early on. IIRC he started off with mainly draws but those draws soon became wins. I think there was a spell of 5 wins and a draw in the space of 6 league games in February and March 1997 and all of a sudden any relegation worries gave way to hopes of a late bid for a play-off spot. He also signed Kevin Horlock early on too of course. Our form petered out somewhat and we ended up in mid-table but those few months after he was appointed had given City fans fresh hope and optimism. I recall the atmosphere at some of the away games being pretty mental. We won 3-0 away to Bradford and our end was bouncing as much as I've witnessed at most of our big away wins in the league over the past decade.

I seem to remember the bookies being convinced enough by Clark to make us favourites for promotion the following season. We all know how that one turned out! But as shit as it was, we still came up with some big results. We beat Forest away early on and 'Boro at home just before Christmas - both of whom would go on to get promoted - but we could never seem to be able to string just 2 wins together (in fact, upon checking I see we only managed it once all season) and so many times during the season one good display would be followed by an inept one. It was the points that we dropped against the likes of Stockport, Bury, Crewe, and Port Vale that did for us rather than the defeats against the teams up at the top end of the table. It was typical City that we went down with a goal difference of just -1.
 
Ball wasn't first choice though.

It makes me fucking laugh how so many City fans hold Horton in such high regard. I like the bloke and backed him to the hilt when he was here. I never went down the "Brian Who" road that some fans did when he was appointed (partly because I knew exactly who he was unlike some). But the fact is that he had what effectively amounted to a decent few months in his time with us plus a largely unremarkable managerial career before and after his City tenure, and was doing nothing at Oxford to warrant getting the City job when he was offered it. In fact, his most notable moment at Oxford was some years previous when he booted the visitors dressing room door off it's hinges at Maine Road after we scored 2 very late goals to beat them 2-1! Also, while I appreciate that he speaks well of us to this day, his co-commentary on the Gillingham play-off game in the 1998/99 season review video somewhat bizarrely has a pro-Gillingham slant to it. Why that is I don't know but City didn't include the Sky commentary on the video presumably for copyright reasons so we ended up with some bloke I've never heard of along with Horton. Maybe it was from some Kent radio station which would go some way to explaining the bias.
I think that commentary was from the official club web site, I agree it's pretty dire! Although saying that Alan Brazil's constant Rag references on the Sky one isn't great either - he was clearly delighted Gillingham were 2-0 up... "Party time in Kent tonight!!" Lol! Soon rammed that down his fat face!
 
people will probably point to Pearce but for me this was the worst of times. A literally unbelievable appointment of a person with an average (at best) managerial eecord

What WAS Franny thinking???
How quickly Coppell is forgotten, Benson is in the dustbin of history,
I made sure Joe Royle got the job.
And how exactly did you do that?
 
I think that may have been a night match against Oxford (or maybe Port Vale) where they were getting beat after 30 minutes or whatever. I'm sure Dibble threw one in.

I know someone who said that this bloke came in to the Kippax late and pissed, asked what the score was, got told, didn't bother sitting down and stormed on to give it to them. Seem to remember him going towards Dibble, realising he was a big bastard and turning round to give it to Clough instead.

Granted, a lot of that is hazy memories and stories. Could all be shite.
Dibble had an absolute shocker that night, I still haven’t forgiven him.
 

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