The_Maverick
Well-Known Member
Missed this thread first time around. Thanks for the bump. Fascinating read
The life story of Jack Reynolds is amazingJust reading the interesting stories of two unsung heroes and legends of the game who I’d never heard of before this morning: Jack Reynolds and Jimmy Hogan.
https://thesefootballtimes.co/2014/11/09/jack-reynolds-the-father-of-ajax-amsterdam/
www.ajaxdaily.com/2017/ajax-and-total-football-the-jack-reynolds-story/amp/
https://copa90.com/creators/diana-al-shammari/tbt-godfathers-total-football
http://www.punditarena.com/football...-manager-jimmy-hogan-story/amp/?source=images
Jack Reynolds was from Whitefield and was at City in 1902. Jimmy Hogan was from Nelson in Lancashire. Both had unremarkable playing careers, both stopped playing early and started coaching at a young age, both went abroad to coach, both were POWs on the continent, and both coached and influenced some of the greatest teams in football history.
Without ever having worked together, they are the roots of what we are seeing flowering today with Pep at City. Before, between, and after the World Wars Reynolds was successful with Ajax and pioneered that they would play the same style of football from the first team to the reserves to the youth teams. At the same time Hogan was successful with MTK and pioneered that teams should play a short passing attacking style of football.
Their work saw their styles successful for the Austrian “Wunderteam”... Shalke’s “Der Schalker Kreisel”... River Plate’s “La Máquina”... Gusztáv Sebes’ (who played under Hogan) “Mighty Magyars” Hungary team... Rinus Michels’ (who played under Reynolds) “totaalvoetbal” at Ajax and their direct impact on Holland’s “Clockwork Orange”... Johan Cruyff taking that on to Barcelona who Guardiola would eventually play for after graduating from La Masia... and Guardiola taking that forward with Barcelona, then Bayern, and now City.
Maybe it’s fitting that City turned to Ferran Soriano, Txiki Begiristain and eventually Josep Guardiola and we adopted Pep’s preferred style of football that actually has its origins back with Jack Reynolds and Jimmy Hogan in the North West of England and in Reynolds’ case in Manchester and back at the club he started at, City!