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http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/11/06/the_joy_of_six_terrible_manage.html
1) Jim Fallon, Dumbarton 1995-96
Dumbarton started the 1995-96 Scottish First Division season well,
winning their first two matches. An hour before their third fixture,
against Dunfermline, they appointed Fallon as manager (strangely his
assistant, Alastair McLeod, was the brother of his predecessor, Murdo).
They lost that game 4-0, and it was downhill from there. In fact,
though Fallon was in charge for 34 of the 36 games that season, his
team won more points from the other two. They finished with 11, 25
fewer than the next worst team. As any reasonable person would expect,
the board acted immediately - offering Fallon a new contract. "I feel
that it was an unfair playing field for us as we were up against it
financially," he moped of the dismal season. "The aim now will be to
stabilise the club and make a determined effort to get back up."
Fallon's determined effort the following season amounted to one win
from 12 games, eight of which - including his last five - were lost. He
left in November. In all, Boghead enjoyed only one home win in Fallon's
14 months in charge and his overall league record reads: Played: 46.
Won: 2. Drawn: 5. Lost: 39. Simon Burnton
2) Johnny Cochrane, Reading 1939
A decidedly average player, Cochrane is fondly remembered as a
manager at St Mirren, where he spent 12 years and won the Scottish Cup
in 1926. He then moved to Sunderland where he spent 11 years, winning
the league in 1936 and the FA Cup a year later, and remains perhaps the
club's greatest ever tactician. So when he applied for the Reading job
in March 1939, the board couldn't believe their luck. He arrived on
March 31, signing a three-year-contract on a jaw-dropping £1,000-a-year
salary, and the club prepared for certain success. But they reckoned
without Cochrane's alarmingly relaxed ways. One player described life
under the maverick boss thus: "Just before a game this man wearing a
bowler hat, smoking a cigar and drinking a whisky would pop his head
round the dressing-room door and ask: 'Who are we playing today?'" He
was sacked after just 14 days, having won one and lost one of four
games in charge - though he missed one of those, allegedly with a bout
of influenza. The same influenza that meant he missed several training
sessions and was by all accounts largely restricted, the poor lamb, to
the bar at Reading's Great Western Hotel. That September war broke out,
and Cochrane never worked in football again. SB
3) Hristo Stoichkov, Bulgaria 2004-07
Representing the managerial sub-genre of
great-players-terrible-coaches (see also Bryan Robson, Lothar Matthäus
et al) is the former Ballon d'Or winner. "I do not believe in tactics,"
he says, encouragingly for a coach. Even so, a 1-1 draw against Malta
apart, his off-field antics were more calamitous than his team's
performances. He got a four-match touchline ban for reacting to defeat
against Sweden by screaming abuse at everyone from the referee to the
then Uefa president Lennart Johansson. His man management was so bad
that he lost two captains to sudden international retirement after
arguments. He also fell out with the whole of Romania, accusing them of
fixing a game against the Netherlands and calling them a nation of
"mamaliga lovers", (mamaliga
being a dish made from cornmeal, similar to polenta). A Romanian TV
channel promptly dispatched a reporter, carrying a plate of the
delicacy, to follow Stoichkov around until he tried some. In April this
year he abruptly quit to take over at La Liga side Celta Vigo,
prompting outrage among Bulgarian fans who felt he had abused his
position to advertise his services to Europe's top clubs. He left the
Spanish side in October, by which time they were 11th in the Segunda,
claiming that he was struggling to live without his parents. SB
4) David Platt, Sampdoria 1998-99
Azeglio Vicini, president of the Italian Coaches' Association,
threatened to resign upon hearing of Platt's appointment on a
three-year, £20,000-a-week contract which he described as "an insult to
all Italian coaches", adding: "He's not even qualified to coach the
reserve side." Indeed, Platt's lack of coaching qualifications and
Italy's love of random regulations meant he could never even sit on his
team's bench and was forced to work under the title of "supervisor"
while Giorgio Veneri, who had no experience above Serie C level, was
named manager. "To all intents and purposes, he is our coach," insisted
the club president, Enrico Mantovani. Some people welcomed the
appointment, Gianluca Vialli hailing "a visionary decision" and calling
Platt "the future of football coaching". Perhaps, but it was a very
short-term future. Platt resigned after 48 days and six games, having
dropped the team's one good player, the Argentinian Ariel Ortega,
signed Lee Sharpe on loan, earned three points and taken his team from
13th (mid-table) to 17th (second bottom). By the end of that season
Samp were in Serie B for the first time since 1982. SB
5) Franck Sauzée, Hibernian December 2001-February 2002
Alex McLeish's Hibernian had been beginning to splutter, so when he
grabbed the Rangers job with both hands, it was clear his successor
would be left with a rebuilding job on his hands. Perhaps not the
greatest time to ask your best player to hang up his boots and embark
on a rookie managerial career, then, and even the man himself -
much-loved French defender Franck Sauzée - had doubts: "Sometimes you
see players with great experience who aren't good managers. I may be
the worst manager you've ever seen in Scotland, you know."
He had that damn straight, though he didn't start too badly;
while two losses and two draws weren't great, the second point came
after a last-minute equaliser in the Edinburgh derby. But the wheels
really came off at the turn of the year: Hibs drew three and lost four
in the league, including four-goal shellackings by Aberdeen and
Motherwell; needed a replay to get past Second Division Stranraer in
the Scottish Cup only to then ship another four in the next round at
Ibrox; and lost the semi-final of the League Cup to First Division Ayr.
After a tedious 1-1 draw at home to Dunfermline left Hibs second bottom
with only a terrible St Johnstone side saving their utter
embarrassment, the die was cast: after failing to win any of his 12
league games in charge, Sauzée was replaced by Bobby Williamson, who
immediately posted back-to-back 3-0 victories. Hibs eased away from
relegation bother, but nobody remembers the workaday Williamson with
much affection at Easter Road - unlike Sauzée, who is still a legend at
the club despite this utter debacle. Scott Murray
6) Tommy Docherty, Manchester United 1973-77
While Docherty led to relegation a team who six years previously had
been champions of Europe - a feat incidentally bettered in spectacular
fashion in 1987 by another Scottish managerial disaster zone, Billy
McNeill, who took 1982 European champions Aston Villa and
Manchester City down in the same season - he did take them immediately
back up after a romp of a Second Division campaign. And two seasons
later won Manchester United's first FA Cup for 14 years. So why is he
on our list? Simply because he sued Willie Morgan for libel after the
former United captain claimed on Granada TV that the United boss was
the "worst manager there has ever been" - and lost. (Docherty was
alleged to have demanded a £1,000 bribe to play George Best in a
friendly, had duplicitously placed Denis Law on the transfer list
despite promising not to and was eventually sacked for cuckolding the
physio.) Anyone who has a problem with this selection can tell it to
the judge. SM
1) Jim Fallon, Dumbarton 1995-96
Dumbarton started the 1995-96 Scottish First Division season well,
winning their first two matches. An hour before their third fixture,
against Dunfermline, they appointed Fallon as manager (strangely his
assistant, Alastair McLeod, was the brother of his predecessor, Murdo).
They lost that game 4-0, and it was downhill from there. In fact,
though Fallon was in charge for 34 of the 36 games that season, his
team won more points from the other two. They finished with 11, 25
fewer than the next worst team. As any reasonable person would expect,
the board acted immediately - offering Fallon a new contract. "I feel
that it was an unfair playing field for us as we were up against it
financially," he moped of the dismal season. "The aim now will be to
stabilise the club and make a determined effort to get back up."
Fallon's determined effort the following season amounted to one win
from 12 games, eight of which - including his last five - were lost. He
left in November. In all, Boghead enjoyed only one home win in Fallon's
14 months in charge and his overall league record reads: Played: 46.
Won: 2. Drawn: 5. Lost: 39. Simon Burnton
2) Johnny Cochrane, Reading 1939
A decidedly average player, Cochrane is fondly remembered as a
manager at St Mirren, where he spent 12 years and won the Scottish Cup
in 1926. He then moved to Sunderland where he spent 11 years, winning
the league in 1936 and the FA Cup a year later, and remains perhaps the
club's greatest ever tactician. So when he applied for the Reading job
in March 1939, the board couldn't believe their luck. He arrived on
March 31, signing a three-year-contract on a jaw-dropping £1,000-a-year
salary, and the club prepared for certain success. But they reckoned
without Cochrane's alarmingly relaxed ways. One player described life
under the maverick boss thus: "Just before a game this man wearing a
bowler hat, smoking a cigar and drinking a whisky would pop his head
round the dressing-room door and ask: 'Who are we playing today?'" He
was sacked after just 14 days, having won one and lost one of four
games in charge - though he missed one of those, allegedly with a bout
of influenza. The same influenza that meant he missed several training
sessions and was by all accounts largely restricted, the poor lamb, to
the bar at Reading's Great Western Hotel. That September war broke out,
and Cochrane never worked in football again. SB
3) Hristo Stoichkov, Bulgaria 2004-07
Representing the managerial sub-genre of
great-players-terrible-coaches (see also Bryan Robson, Lothar Matthäus
et al) is the former Ballon d'Or winner. "I do not believe in tactics,"
he says, encouragingly for a coach. Even so, a 1-1 draw against Malta
apart, his off-field antics were more calamitous than his team's
performances. He got a four-match touchline ban for reacting to defeat
against Sweden by screaming abuse at everyone from the referee to the
then Uefa president Lennart Johansson. His man management was so bad
that he lost two captains to sudden international retirement after
arguments. He also fell out with the whole of Romania, accusing them of
fixing a game against the Netherlands and calling them a nation of
"mamaliga lovers", (mamaliga
being a dish made from cornmeal, similar to polenta). A Romanian TV
channel promptly dispatched a reporter, carrying a plate of the
delicacy, to follow Stoichkov around until he tried some. In April this
year he abruptly quit to take over at La Liga side Celta Vigo,
prompting outrage among Bulgarian fans who felt he had abused his
position to advertise his services to Europe's top clubs. He left the
Spanish side in October, by which time they were 11th in the Segunda,
claiming that he was struggling to live without his parents. SB
4) David Platt, Sampdoria 1998-99
Azeglio Vicini, president of the Italian Coaches' Association,
threatened to resign upon hearing of Platt's appointment on a
three-year, £20,000-a-week contract which he described as "an insult to
all Italian coaches", adding: "He's not even qualified to coach the
reserve side." Indeed, Platt's lack of coaching qualifications and
Italy's love of random regulations meant he could never even sit on his
team's bench and was forced to work under the title of "supervisor"
while Giorgio Veneri, who had no experience above Serie C level, was
named manager. "To all intents and purposes, he is our coach," insisted
the club president, Enrico Mantovani. Some people welcomed the
appointment, Gianluca Vialli hailing "a visionary decision" and calling
Platt "the future of football coaching". Perhaps, but it was a very
short-term future. Platt resigned after 48 days and six games, having
dropped the team's one good player, the Argentinian Ariel Ortega,
signed Lee Sharpe on loan, earned three points and taken his team from
13th (mid-table) to 17th (second bottom). By the end of that season
Samp were in Serie B for the first time since 1982. SB
5) Franck Sauzée, Hibernian December 2001-February 2002
Alex McLeish's Hibernian had been beginning to splutter, so when he
grabbed the Rangers job with both hands, it was clear his successor
would be left with a rebuilding job on his hands. Perhaps not the
greatest time to ask your best player to hang up his boots and embark
on a rookie managerial career, then, and even the man himself -
much-loved French defender Franck Sauzée - had doubts: "Sometimes you
see players with great experience who aren't good managers. I may be
the worst manager you've ever seen in Scotland, you know."
He had that damn straight, though he didn't start too badly;
while two losses and two draws weren't great, the second point came
after a last-minute equaliser in the Edinburgh derby. But the wheels
really came off at the turn of the year: Hibs drew three and lost four
in the league, including four-goal shellackings by Aberdeen and
Motherwell; needed a replay to get past Second Division Stranraer in
the Scottish Cup only to then ship another four in the next round at
Ibrox; and lost the semi-final of the League Cup to First Division Ayr.
After a tedious 1-1 draw at home to Dunfermline left Hibs second bottom
with only a terrible St Johnstone side saving their utter
embarrassment, the die was cast: after failing to win any of his 12
league games in charge, Sauzée was replaced by Bobby Williamson, who
immediately posted back-to-back 3-0 victories. Hibs eased away from
relegation bother, but nobody remembers the workaday Williamson with
much affection at Easter Road - unlike Sauzée, who is still a legend at
the club despite this utter debacle. Scott Murray
6) Tommy Docherty, Manchester United 1973-77
While Docherty led to relegation a team who six years previously had
been champions of Europe - a feat incidentally bettered in spectacular
fashion in 1987 by another Scottish managerial disaster zone, Billy
McNeill, who took 1982 European champions Aston Villa and
Manchester City down in the same season - he did take them immediately
back up after a romp of a Second Division campaign. And two seasons
later won Manchester United's first FA Cup for 14 years. So why is he
on our list? Simply because he sued Willie Morgan for libel after the
former United captain claimed on Granada TV that the United boss was
the "worst manager there has ever been" - and lost. (Docherty was
alleged to have demanded a £1,000 bribe to play George Best in a
friendly, had duplicitously placed Denis Law on the transfer list
despite promising not to and was eventually sacked for cuckolding the
physio.) Anyone who has a problem with this selection can tell it to
the judge. SM
earned three points and taken his team from