Was Alan Ball as bad as people remember?

[Scaring Europe to Death]

I’d go a little earlier and suggest that, given the benefit of hindsight, the writing was on the wall, from the day that Howard Kendall returned to Everton, just as City were beginning to emerge as possible title contenders.

Under Reid we finished a flattering 5th, but there was too much short termism, allied to huge overspending, unlucky injuries, dreadful long ball tactics, the underwhelming Platt Lane redevelopment (just as other clubs were starting to expand their stadiums), and a general sense of accelerated downturn, not helped by United beating Sheffield Wednesday in the 115th minute.

I’d write more, but I’m getting depressed just thinking about it…..

 

[Keeper!]

I’d go a little earlier and suggest that, given the benefit of hindsight, the writing was on the wall, from the day that Howard Kendall returned to Everton, just as City were beginning to emerge as possible title contenders.

Under Reid we finished a flattering 5th, but there was too much short termism, allied to huge overspending, unlucky injuries, dreadful long ball tactics, the underwhelming Platt Lane, whilst other clubs were starting to expand, and a general sense of accelerated downturn, just as United were beating Sheffield Wednesday in the 115th minute.

I’d write more, but I’m getting depressed just thinking about it…..

It still baffles me why Kendall went back to Everton when he did, we looked in great shape and he was building a very, very good team which Peter Reid destroyed.

 

[JGL07]

Yeah, I remember the plans for rebuilding MR on all 4 sides and it looked good but I think that was understandably shelved when we agreed the deal to move to the new stadium.

I seem to recall Lee trying to block the new Kippax Street Stand when he came in. He later had to go ahead with it as there was insufficient time to commission a redesign.

To be honest, Maine Road was truly messed up by Swales. The new Platt Lane stand was poor and the new Kippax a disaster. Neither held many supporters and were overloaded with hospitality. Hence Maine Road struggled to fit in 30,000 until the Gene Kelly extension was put on.

The only solution was probably to bulldoze the whole of Maine Road and rebuild. It was no surprise that they were so keen to move to COMS.

 

[OB1]

No personal knowledge of what Clark was like as a man, and he did look more or less as though he knew what he was doing for the first four months after his appointment. But from the end of the 1996/7 season onwards, his performance was abject. At that stage, he had a squad, including several of his own acquisitions, that had just managed a fairly decent end to the season, and he was handed a very handsome transfer budget by the standards of that division back then. To leave us two-thirds of the way through the following campaign one place off the foot of the table and averaging less than a point a game was truly pathetic, definitely worse than Ball in my book. I knew that Mad Frank had lost the plot when, having announced to all the world in the summer that new boy Tony Vaughan had been recruited to fill the problem left-back slot, he was moaning a few weeks later that Vaughan's poor form owed to having to play out of position at left back.

Anyway, back on topic. As for Ball, it shouldn't have taken the benefit of hindsight to know he was a poor appointment. Yes, in his previous post at Southampton, they'd avoided the drop twice but he was aided by the exceptional form there of Matt LeTissier. I'm one of those posters on this thread who was underwhelmed by Brian Horton, despite him coming across as a dignified, likeable man who inspired some superb attacking football; those displays were very much the exception rather than the rule, and I thought we could probably do better. But if asked whether it was worth sacrificing Horton so we could hire Ball, I'd have responded with a resounding no and the latter's performance in the job showed why.

We had a series of awful appointments.

Real pity that Kendall left: it didn't do him or us any favours.

If only Swales had (been able to?) let Peter Reid buy Trevor Sinclair from Blackpool...

 

[cyberblue]

Not one player who came to the Prestwich & Whitefield branch meetings had any time or respect for him .Many times he told them he was a winner and showed them his world cup medal

 

[petrusha]

If I remember correctly, the chance to move to the New stadium came after Lee, in the David Bernstein era.

They were negotiating for it from quite early on, and Lee was always very keen for City to make the move. I worked for a law firm in town in 1995/6 and we acted for a couple of the board members at City at the time. Colin Barlow* was definitely in talks with the Council at that point. IIRC, they showed an interest even at the initial stage before Manchester was confirmed as host of the Commonwealth Games - at that point, they were trying to have it named national stadium, ahead of Wembley (which was never seriously going to happen).

It was in September 1998 that the Council and Sport England agreed in principle for City to occupy the stadium, but the lease was signed in August 1999 (on the pitch**, before the opening home game of the season against Wolves). Gary James has written that Sport England would probably have cancelled the plans had we lost the play-off final to Gillingham, hosting the Games in a largely temporary venue that would have remained an athletics stadium afterwards.

* - If you were to argue that Colin Barlow definitely wasn't the calibre of CEO that City needed even in those days, you'd definitely find an ally in me.
** - It was a really windy day, and older readers might remember the stiff breeze lifting Howard Bernstein's combover vertically upwards as he signed.

 

[OB1]

I’d go a little earlier and suggest that, given the benefit of hindsight, the writing was on the wall, from the day that Howard Kendall returned to Everton, just as City were beginning to emerge as possible title contenders.

Under Reid we finished a flattering 5th, but there was too much short termism, allied to huge overspending, unlucky injuries, dreadful long ball tactics, the underwhelming Platt Lane, whilst other clubs were starting to expand, and a general sense of accelerated downturn, just as United were beating Sheffield Wednesday in the 115th minute.

I’d write more, but I’m getting depressed just thinking about it…..

Cheer up: all's well...

 

[OB1]

They were negotiating for it from quite early on, and Lee was always very keen for City to make the move. I worked for a law firm in town in 1995/6 and we acted for a couple of the board members at City at the time. Colin Barlow* was definitely in talks with the Council at that point. IIRC, they showed an interest even at the initial stage before Manchester was confirmed as host of the Commonwealth Games - at that point, they were trying to have it named national stadium, ahead of Wembley (which was never seriously going to happen).

It was in September 1998 that the Council and Sport England agreed in principle for City to occupy the stadium, but the lease was signed in August 1999 (on the pitch**, before the opening home game of the season against Wolves). Gary James has written that Sport England would probably have cancelled the plans had we lost the play-off final to Gillingham, hosting the Games in a largely temporary venue that would have remained an athletics stadium afterwards.

* - If you were to argue that Colin Barlow definitely wasn't the calibre of CEO that City needed even in those days, you'd definitely find an ally in me.
** - It was a really windy day, and older readers might remember the stiff breeze lifting Howard Bernstein's combover vertically upwards as he signed.

IIRC, City were going to be the anchor tenant if MCR got the Olympics.

 

[Wilmslow Road]

The

They were negotiating for it from quite early on, and Lee was always very keen for City to make the move. I worked for a law firm in town in 1995/6 and we acted for a couple of the board members at City at the time. Colin Barlow* was definitely in talks with the Council at that point. IIRC, they showed an interest even at the initial stage before Manchester was confirmed as host of the Commonwealth Games - at that point, they were trying to have it named national stadium, ahead of Wembley (which was never seriously going to happen).

It was in September 1998 that the Council and Sport England agreed in principle for City to occupy the stadium, but the lease was signed in August 1999 (on the pitch**, before the opening home game of the season against Wolves). Gary James has written that Sport England would probably have cancelled the plans had we lost the play-off final to Gillingham, hosting the Games in a largely temporary venue that would have remained an athletics stadium afterwards.

* - If you were to argue that Colin Barlow definitely wasn't the calibre of CEO that City needed even in those days, you'd definitely find an ally in me.
** - It was a really windy day, and older readers might remember the stiff breeze lifting Howard Bernstein's combover vertically upwards as he signed.

The rumour was that CB was known as Mr. 10% in Maine Rd.

 

[dublinblue12]

The real question is was Alan Ball giving Paul Walsh And cash for Gerry Creaney the worst deal in history