Posts Tagged ‘Bramall Lane’

Season of the long knives leaves managers watching their backs

Posted: February 19, 2013 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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When Swindon boss Paolo Di Canio fell on his sword, he brought the number of managerial changes in the top four divisions in England to 41 for the season. Given that we’ve still another two and half months of the season to run, it looks inevitable that over half of the 92 league will have changed their manager by May. 

Mark Robins tries to remember which club he's at this week

Whilst we’re all caught up following our own clubs, we can perhaps miss the scale of the carnage across the wider football landscape. And when you start looking in to it, the rate of managerial attrition is staggering.

A quick study of the League Manager’s Association website shows that barely half – 48 – of current managers have been in their jobs for 12 months or less. Nigel Clough is currently the 10th longest serving manager just by making it through to his fourth season in charge of the Rams.

While the fact managers are being given less time is not a new observation, I would never have guessed the turnover would have been as high as this. Clearly, as the pressure for results has increased so the patience for them has declined.

But while you might assume that this demand would be most sharply felt in the Premier League – where the rewards for success and failure are so acute – it’s actually in the Football League who the bulk of the casualties have taken place. Of the 40 managerial changes this season, just 3 have been in the Premier League (QPR, Southampton and Chelsea).

That means if you support one of the remaining 72 football league clubs, there’s a 50% chance you’ve already changed your manager this season (even with the revolving doors at Blackburn and Blackpool partially skewing the average).

But the statistics tell us something interesting about the changing expectations in the Football League. Clubs no longer seem willing to accept their current status – whether that’s in League 1 or 2 – even if history tells us that is where many of them have spent the majority of their existence.

It now takes substantially less to push a chairman to remove their manager. The giant-killing of Liverpool wasn’t enough to save Paul Dickov, and Keith Curle was axed after a year in charge despite being safe and secure in mid-table. Chairmen are expecting more – and for it to be delivered quicker.

In this intensified climate you have to wonder whether certain managers would have survived in the past. Leicester fans were calling for Martin O’Neill to go only months his appointment – the board stuck with him and he went on to become one of their most successful managers. It took Neil Warnock 6 years at Bramall Lane to get Sheffield United promoted to the Premiership, during which there were numerous opportunities for him to be moved on.

Chairmen it seems want managers who can wave a magic wand and turn their ugly lower division frog into a handsome Premier League prince. And if they can’t cast that spell immediately they can start looking for another job. It’s an approach that’s unproductive and unsustainable and desperately needs to change.

Written by James Albion

1FITG mid-season review: Sheffield United

Posted: February 14, 2013 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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After last year’s catastrophic end to a season where they looked destined for promotion, Sheffield United have found this season  much tougher – @josephclift looks at what’s different at Bramall Lane this season, and their prospects for making it second time lucky.

With about a third of the season left to go, a handful of teams are running away with each division with one exception – League 1. After the games on Tuesday, four points are all that separate the top 7 clubs.

To the casual observer, that might suggest an unusually high quality to the division this year. Dedicated watchers though will know this view to be wholly inaccurate. League 1 is a visibly poorer division this year and Sheffield United have highlighted this fact well, in what has been an odd season at Bramall Lane.

While last season ended in the crushing disappointment of the playoff final, fans had at least enjoyed a revival of sorts in both the style we played and results we earned. Danny Wilson’s appointment saw a significant amount of fan anger – based on his past Wednesday connections and patchy managerial record. But he quickly got the team playing an attractive and successful style – and with supporters still licking their wounds from the bitter end to last season they’ve been prepared to give him a fair crack of the whip this year.

Expiring contracts and some notable sales though have forced Wilson to reshape the squad – leading to a more sluggish, more solid XI. Kevin McDonald, the key dictator of play last year, surprisingly remained, but the quality around him had vanished. Compounding matters is McDonald’s inconsistent form this term. But, while the football was poorer, it still yielded results earlier in the season.

However, there’s been a sense of unease at many of the games this season. Our previously water tight defence has become dangerously porous. Where games were comfortably won last season now they are nervy tense affairs. A less positive style has meant fewer chances and fewer goals and a greater danger that the odd goal conceded will be costly.

In January, pace and quality needed to be added. It had been clear that the squad has struggled to cope with injuries to key players like Neill Collins and Shaun Miller. Which was why the sale of top scorer Nick Blackman was met with a ‘WTF?’, ‘here-we-go-again’, and more than a few ‘McCabe-Out’s.

Chairman Kevin McCabe, in whom Sheffield United fans’ trust has steadily been falling since the Robson appointment, did little to provide reassurance. McCabe suggested he couldn’t stand in Blackman’s way (despite only signing him last summer) and regardless of selling him would be able to strengthen the squad (before still going ahead and selling him). This came in the middle of the worst run of the season, with 3 successive home defeats crumbling what had been an unbeaten home record till then. In a season where 39 managers have changed job, the manner of these defeats had fans for the first time seriously suggesting Wilson’s time was up. Wilson’s decision to bring former Academy product Jonathan Forte in on loan to fill Blackman’s shoes added fuel to this fire, despite his reasonable League 1 record.

He’s not quite Nick Blackman, but the early signs from Forte’s return to Bramall Lane have been positive

And yet, two comfortable away wins in the last week, alongside nearly all of the top 6 dropping points, leaves United still contesting League 1 which remains wide open at the top. Tranmere at last seem to be going through their bad spell, Donny don’t appear to have quite recovered from the shock of Saunders’s departure, Swindon seem in all sorts of trouble off the pitch, and I’ve lost track on how far MK Dons have fallen out of the equation. But despite Blackman’s sale, Wilson does seem to have added the depth he needed. Experience in the form of Danny Higginbotham and Barry Robson, a bit more pace on the wings through Jamie Murphy. And, of course, more strikers. Wilson said after tuesday’s game “we can’t rely on just one”. That’s not just a reference to the current need, as the Decreasingly-Secret Footballer Dave Kitson has become increasingly relied on for the goals, but also on last season. It’s no secret that the jailing of our, and arguably the league’s, top striker affected the run-in. In theory, Wilson had a Plan B in the form of loanee Will Hoskins. When he injured himself almost immediately, there was no Plan C to call on. With Forte already on board, Wilson’s capture of pacy striker/winger Dominic Poleon is a sign he’s wanting to avoid a repeat of last year where we were caught short at a critical moment.

Any team in the top 7 that can play consistently in the last few months of the season should end up in the top two. And while the spine of Sheffield United’s team has been about as reliable as Richard III’s for much of this year, they could end up there. Which, given how the team has performed, would be a perfect example of the mediocrity League 1 has seen this season.

150 years on from the first match report

Posted: December 28, 2012 by onefootinthegame in Uncategorized
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With today’s back-pages concentrating on the fall-out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest attempt to influence officials, you might be forgiven for missing the 150th anniversary this weekend of the first recorded match report in a newspaper.

As Bramall Lane tomorrow plays host to a top vs bottom League 1 encounter, on 29 December 1962 it hosted its very first football match between the world’s two oldest clubs – Sheffield FC and Hallam FC. While not their first encounter, which happened two years previously (reportedly the world’s oldest football match), it was the first match where there was a report in the paper. The proceeds of the gate receipts went to the Lancashire Distress Fund, which had been set up to respond to the fall in the cotton trade caused by the American civil war. Any critics of how far behind the MLS is compared to the UK should consider then that back when Britain was playing its first football matches, Lincoln was fighting to abolish slavery.

There’s seemingly no headline for the article that the British Newspaper Archive provides. Given that the game finished scoreless after three hours of play, arguably the world’s first football headline should have been “Bore Draw Raises Question Over Football’s Future”. But a quick read of the article suggests it was a bit feisty – dubbed “The Battle Of Bramall Lane” (no, not that one).

For starters, the game seemed to give birth to the passionate football fan baying for blood. Hallam apparently had “many partisans present”, who when the team “were successful in ‘downing’ a man, their ardent friends were more noisily jubilant”. This was apparently back in the days when Downing was met with a great reception.

Best of all though is the onfield fight that apparently broke out, following an “accidental” hit on a Hallam player by Sheffield’s Major Creswick. Frankly, anyone with the rank of Major wouldn’t have accidentally hit someone – their army training would have made this all tactical. In the same way that modern-day Midfield General, Paul Scholes, accidentally makes appallingly late challenges. Repeatedly.

Hallam’s player, Waterfall, appears to have agreed – confronting the Major in “a most irritable manner”, striking at him several times, and even “threw off his waistcoat”. He sounds like a slightly better dressed Joey Barton. This in turn led to a pitch invasion and a fight between the players and fans. Where were the stewards? Or the Major’s regiment chums? It sounded like chaos – presumably with someone yelling from a megaphone “Supporters are advised to please not encroach onto the pitch”. It makes the modern-day pitch invasion seem tame in comparison.

Artist’s impression of Major Creswick being helped from the field

Waterfall gets a bit of a rough deal in the report, which seems heavily biased towards Sheffield FC. Plenty of his team-mates are said to have rejoiced in the attack on the Major and “were just as ready to ‘Hallam it’ on the slightest provocation”. Rather than being sent off though (ref probably bottled it), Waterfall suffered the next worst punishment that could be offered up – playing in goal.

The report appeals for the Hallam players to apologise, “for it is not to be endured that healthful sports should degenerate into unseemly brawls”. Can you imagine The Times calling for a public apology from Sir Alex for haranging Mike Dean and his officials in the Newcastle game?

Given the fiery nature of the game, it’s a surprise that the reporter chooses to end the article with an attack levelled at the “long interval in the middle of the game, that was devoted to refreshments”, which the Sheffield players objected to. The interval, as stated earlier in the report, was 15 minutes. This seems a perfectly reasonable amount of time for fans to have a cup of tea and enjoy Britain’s latest new craze, the Garibaldi biscuit. The players could even change their sweaty waistcoats. So when you read this weekend’s reports on your club’s match, spare a thought for the man that had to report on three hours of football, watching presumably in a non-existent press box, without a goal, or even a “rouge”. Whatever the hell that was.

Written by @josephclift

The match report from the Sheffield Independent, courtesy of The British Newspaper Archive

The match report from the Sheffield Independent, courtesy of The British Newspaper Archive

A tribute to Gary Speed – from a Sheffield United & Wales fan

Posted: November 28, 2011 by onefootinthegame in International football
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Ryan Valentine scores the goal that keeps Wrex...

Image via Wikipedia

The outpouring of grief for Gary Speed in the past day is a testament to how widely respected he was in the game. 24 hours on, and I’m still in a state of shock. I learned of the news through Twitter, and naturally assumed there had been an accident. Then came the news that Speed had taken his own life, and the extent of this tragedy emerged.


So much of the reaction from the footballing world has included the words “I don’t understand it”. I think it’s hugely important that we try to understand why this happens. Speed had by all accounts a successful career, a current high-profile job going well, and a loving family. When you suffer from mental distress, these aspects of your life don’t necessarily factor into the equation. Depression can be highly visible and shared to others (as Stan Collymore recently revealed), or completely private and extremely difficult to spot. 

As a society, we could be much better at discussing mental health. Around one in four people are likely to experience a mental health problem every year, and in sport that will be no different. There are plenty of taboos football still needs to sort out – the tragic loss of Gary Speed highlights the need for greater awareness of mental health, and the support available to those that need it. More than anything else, the stigma attached to issues of mental health needs to be tackled. Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, commented yesterday:

“The macho culture of football means that we have seen very few professionals come forward to talk about mental health problems. But it is only by speaking out about mental health, whether through the media or privately, that we can increase understanding and awareness of these issues, and encourage people to be able to seek the help that they need.”


The lack of discussion on mental health is not a football-specific problem. But football is a particularly high-pressured environment, and we can forget that each person connected to the game is a human being like you or me. Think of the players at your clubs that often receive abuse from other fans, or indeed your own fans. An issue like depression is a serious one – one that too many dismiss as trivial. Football has such a strong influence on people that if more people in the game like can highlight their own experiences, it can really help people to get rid of this stigma and enable people to get the support they need. 

I saw Gary Speed on numerous occasions at Bramall Lane, and feel privileged to have seen him play, and manage both the club and country I support. He is a huge loss to the game, respected by so many fans at so many clubs – we owe it to him to not just mourn his death, but try and ensure that this sort of tragedy is avoided in the future.
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