The Alan Ball era

tolmie's hairdoo said:
It wasn't Alan Ball who caused the real mess.

It was the useless fucking clown Frank Clark.

The worst manager in our entire history.

A shit stain of a man, contempt for our club, played politics with everyone and left us an impossible shit sandwich.

A **** of the highest order, along with his odious assistant Alan Hill.

At least Ball cared, as did Phil Neal.

Clark and Hill had contempt for City.

I made sure Joe Royle got the job.
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Made sure royle got the job? :)
 
Slightly off topic, but out of interest how was the Board formed in those days? Eg if a director stepped down, how were they replaced. Did they have to nominate themselves or were they put forward by the board and elected by board vote?

Just interested in how the directors came to be in those positions back then. Especially if they didn't have previous football knowledge.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
Clark dubbed me part of the Fifth Column.

Horrific manager, pretty much told him so to his face.

He was the reason we went into Div 2.

I put City and Joe together.
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It's interesting you have such a low view of Clark, I recall a Forest supporter just after he signed for us talking to me about how toxic he was there.

Maybe I was lucky as I moved overseas, if my memory is correct when he first arrived we went on a really impressive run and I recall thinking as I left that we where in good hands and we would be back in the top flight in a couple of seasons.

Anyway the end result is I feel nowhere near the level of animosity towards him as I did Ball, perhaps with Lee before he appointed Ball we just had higher hopes, with Clark it was more the relief we found someone!
 
DontLookBackInAnger said:
It's interesting you have such a low view of Clark, I recall a Forest supporter just after he signed for us talking to me about how toxic he was there.

Maybe I was lucky as I moved overseas, if my memory is correct when he first arrived we went on a really impressive run and I recall thinking as I left that we where in good hands and we would be back in the top flight in a couple of seasons.

Anyway the end result is I feel nowhere near the level of animosity towards him as I did Ball, perhaps with Lee before he appointed Ball we just had higher hopes, with Clark it was more the relief we found someone!
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Agree with this.

Ball was so inept and some of the performances so horrific, plus the final day 'hold it in the corner' fiasco, makes me blame Ball above the rest. But yeah Clark was crap.

Loved Brian Horton. When he went I sent him a letter thanking him for making us worth watching and giving us excitement and he sent a nice letter back. It was clear he loved the fans, if not the board.

So for Ball to turn up and give us the shittest start to a season we've probably ever had, leaving us at the bottom of the table as a laughing stock, well yeah, I couldn't stand him.

Tbf I won a few quid on our results around Oct/Nov, just by betting on 1-0s or Kinkladze first scorer, because it was clear that we weren't going to score twice in a match!

Tbf to Ball, at the point of relegation we weren't one of the 3 worst teams in the division, but we'd just given everyone else a massive head start that we couldn't quite pull back. Relegation was yet another disappointment, but tinged with a bit of relief about being out of the spotlight and that it would be easier in the division below... :-/

After Clark had gone we were sinking massively. Royle did brilliantly to turn things around.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
It wasn't Alan Ball who caused the real mess.

It was the useless fucking clown Frank Clark.

The worst manager in our entire history.

A shit stain of a man, contempt for our club, played politics with everyone and left us an impossible shit sandwich.

A **** of the highest order, along with his odious assistant Alan Hill.

At least Ball cared, as did Phil Neal.

Clark and Hill had contempt for City.

I made sure Joe Royle got the job.
Click to expand...
There was a bloke who had a season ticket two rows behind ours in Block H who we used to call "Harry Enfield" because he used to go red as a beetroot and scream "Clark! You're the worst manager we've ever had!" repeatedly during that time. Was that you, Tolm?
 
Didsbury Dave said:
There was a bloke who had a season ticket two rows behind ours in Block H who we used to call "Harry Enfield" because he used to go red as a beetroot and scream "Clark! You're the worst manager we've ever had!" repeatedly during that time. Was that you, Tolm?
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Haha. I was too busy holding the press door getting kicked in and telling my mates to do it next week when I wasn't there!

Sounds like a few H Blockers, to be fair.
 
I remember discussing his appointment in my mates backyard over a beer and a fag, as we did every couple of months over a new manager, and trying to look on the bright side. To be fair the Steve Coppell shitshow must have been the lowest…there was no looking on the bright side over that.
 
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.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
Imagine being man of the match in a World Cup Final for England and working with players who spent more time on the piss than playing football!
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Makes me feel like me and my mates, and im sure plenty of other fans, were no different to the players. Well they were getting paid. Im sure plenty of our fans could play pretty good too.
 
eversince 76 said:
And here I am. Coming on this forum once in a while. To try and get me a smile. Some joy in life. Saving me from killing meself.

And than someone brings in a topic about the “Alan Ball”-erea.
Are the moderators on holls or what?!

Anyways. At least I’ve seen my club win a few medals. Unfortunately Pep hasn’t been around long enough to forget Alan fck Ball. Bye world ..
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Hey man go easy on yourself ok. One day at a time.
 
petrusha said:
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.
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You've touched on one of the biggest problems of this era: Franny Lee.

Whilst I agree that hindsight shows it would have been a failure, the reason that Kidd didn't come was directly down to Franny. Kidd had agreed to join City verbally but not told United. Lee rang Kidd and asked if he'd done it yet, and Kidd said he hadn't and he wasn't looking forward to it, to which Lee replied "Are you sure you're the right man for us then?". At that, Kidd got cold feet and changed his mind. This is the side of Lee which fucked up the club: he was an abrasive, aggressive, controlling "leader" and that type of management rarely works in the long run, certainly not in a football club. That's why I personally give short shrift to the Coppell rumours: I think Coppell was a nice man, like Kidd, and was bright enough to realise that Lee was a prick.

Also we nearly got Dave Bassett from Palace who was a resepcted manager at the time, maybe after Ball's resignation. He tells a similar story from memory: he accepted and then Lee put him off.

You also forgot one of the decisive factors in our 1996 relegation which can again be traced back to Lee: we sold our best player, Garry Flitcroft, at Easter in the middle of a relegation battle, purely because we had totally run out of cash.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
Imagine being man of the match in a World Cup Final for England and working with players who spent more time on the piss than playing football!
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I've made the point before about the lack of professionalism around City in the 90's.

I reckon it goes back to the renowned piss head Howard Kendall. As I understand it the players and coaches would regularly meet up in pubs during that era. Peter Reid was part of that Everton connection when he took over so I don't think much changed under him. Dunne has spoken about his run in with Keegan about professional standards (being out late on the piss, being overweight and unfit). He didnt sign for us until 2000. So i reckoin that hole decade we had players who just were not fit because the culture was wrong.
 
Gaudion M said:
I've made the point before about the lack of professionalism around City in the 90's.

I reckon it goes back to the renowned piss head Howard Kendall. As I understand it the players and coaches would regularly meet up in pubs during that era. Peter Reid was part of that Everton connection when he took over so I don't think much changed under him. Dunne has spoken about his run in with Keegan about professional standards (being out late on the piss, being overweight and unfit). He didnt sign for us until 2000. So i reckoin that hole decade we had players who just were not fit because the culture was wrong.
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All true, but I think most clubs were that way throughout the 80s/90s.
 
petrusha said:
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.
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A great account of what happened though the Clark era seems to be two very distinct phases. What happened to him in the summer of 97 because he'd done a decent job in the months previously. Up to that point I'd have said he was much better than Ball yet after that summer he was even worse.

I recall hearing him being interviewed after the City 0 Bury 1 debacle when neither team managed a shot on target. He was asked "What is wrong?" to which he replied "I don't know." He had to go anyway but that capped it.
 
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Didsbury Dave said:
Further to my last post, I just found this. My God, this is a journey to the dark heart and soul of Franny's City.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-bassett-ready-to-take-over-at-city-1363900.html
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Remember it like it was yesterday. Pre-kick off at Lincoln the talk was about Bassett being there in the morning.

I don't doubt for a moment that it was Lee rather than that result itself put him off. Whatever people think of Bassett's style of play, he would not have tolerated the shirking and bottling that we repeatedly saw that season and the next.

Horrific times that now make what we have today even better. Every win, every success is not taken for granted here.

It's probably a reason why this middle age bloke blubbed at the final whistle after Gundo sealed it in May.
 
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