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How hard is it to manage Pinky and Perky? It’s not if you’re three decent fellas.

21st January 2009 By Rick Waghorn Leave a Comment

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I've long suspected that given the simple game that football is, actually managing a football team can't be that hard either.

After all, how many different ways are there to send out a football team onto a pitch? Four? Five?

You don't have to be a 'Special One' to work out that this 4-4-2 thing appears pretty popular; people seem to do quite well with that little number. Let's give it a whirl…

So, that's the tactics sorted. After that can you just try and win most of the tackles, watch people at corners… and let's try and get the ball into the opposition box as often as we can. That way the law of averages says that we've got a better chance of scoring a goal.

And, er, well… Just play well… Pass to players in the same colour shirts. And, um, enjoy it…

Three paragraphs, two minutes and that's a UEFA 'Pro' licence sorted.

Because having watched some 12 City managers come and go in the course of 16 years pounding this particular beat, there's one abiding truth that I've come away with. And on a morning like this, one that is probably worth clinging to.

Boys, by and large, play for people they like.

And, almost without exception, everyone likes Bryan Gunn. In fairness, there's not too much to dislike.

And you could apply the same logic to both of his side-kicks.

Only in the real, darkest days of the dying Robert Chase regime could you find John Deehan without a smile on his face.

Likewise, Ian Crook. There are not too many people out there with a bad word to say about the one-time City playmaker.

And if he can prove the Pied Piper to all manner of six-foot Aussie kids using Carrow Road as a spring-board for their teenage football ambitions, then his arrival – Quantas flight times permitting – could have an impact way beyond what he adds to the training field.

And, for me, that's a big, big point to bear in mind.

For if Harry Redknapp made a career – albeit via the 'colourful' Willie Mackay – out of making first West Ham and then Portsmouth the first UK stopping point for a conveyor belt of West African footballing talent that would arrive in Europe first in the French clearing houses of Lens, Rennes and Auxerre, then there is no reason why City can't showcase the best of what the Sydney suburbia has to offer.

And sell them on to Norwich's huge, financial advantage.

Because, there's your edge. What made Gunn's decision to pick up the phone to Crook so astute… access to big, strong, athletic players that an Ince, a Boothroyd or a Dowie will never have heard of. Out in Australia, every aspiring Tim Cahill will have heard of a Crooky; and if the call comes, they'll cash in their grandparents' Italian passports and follow him onto the doorstep of the Premiership.

Whether you can ship the first of those in within the next ten days is doubtful; that may be for the summer.

In the meanwhile, you cash in on the fact that Norwich now feel smiles better with the Gunner at the helm.

Because go back to what it takes to manage a couple of dozen footballers and it's not much different to what it takes to manage a dozen junior accountants in a Norwich Union office, a dozen teachers at Sprowston High, a dozen exhaust fitters at SMS… give them a working environment that is heavy on the smiles, big on the encouraging arms round the shoulders and they will – in every probability – respond.

For Roeder was right in some of the things he said – that this generation of young footballers are soft. Too soft, perhaps.

But is that not true of teenagers, in general? That the era of addressing them in the same, withering way that a Sergeant-Major would on their first day on an Aldershot parade ground is long gone; the big stick doesn't work.

We are in the hands of the 'Whatever…' generation; 'Bovvered… do they look bovvered?'

And that demands far more careful handling; far more by way of man management skills than coaching badges and qualifications.

Given the riches that are already likely to await the Bertrands and Omosuzis of this world, is the big stick going to work? Or is it carrot, carrot and more carrot these days?

That they'll play for you because they like you. He's 'decent', in the parlance of the dressing room.

And, for me, that's what this morning's announcement is probably all about – that Norwich have installed three decent fellas to get the best out of a Chrissy Martin and a Micky Spillane; that rather than throwing 'Pinky and Perky' out into the cold – doing a season-long punishment drill out of the back of Kenilworth Road, the likes of such typical, teenage kids with a football contract to their name can be nurtured, encouraged and supported to do their best for their home city club.

Why? Because they like the Gunner; they don't want to let him down. Chippy's decent and Dixie's always smiling; he's always quick with the banter.

Flawed chemistry? A recipe for Costa del Colney again? Not sure; results will tell. I suspect all three men will have a little steel left beneath their velvet glove – and there's still a fourth musketeer to come.

Maybe it'll be Ian Butterworth's job not to take any fools lightly.

For now, however, feel the warmth, see the smiles and pray that both can find their way onto a football field.


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Filed Under: Column, Rick Waghorn

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