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Sentiment has left the building; Gunn was chewed up and spat out by the football machine…

14th August 2009 By Latest News Leave a Comment

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As much as none of us like to talk about them down the road, I think Norwich City Football Club and Ipswich Town Football Club have rather more in common than some might suspect.

One has Simon Clegg. The other has David McNally.

Clegg spared Jim Magilton few blushes when he dug him out of the Blues job with little more a fortnight of last season left; leaving most of the more good-natured folk south of the border to wonder why Magilton wasn't spared a few indignities and ushered out come the summer.

Much the same can be said regarding today's events.

For while the great majority of the good natured folk that gather on the banks of the Wensum every other Saturday in such astonishing numbers might have had some big, serious doubts at five o'clock last Saturday, most – I suspect – would have given 'The Gunner' a few more games on the back of the 4-0 win at Yeovil at mid-week.

It would be 'the Norfolk thing to do…' Just as giving Magilton till the summer would have been 'the Suffolk thing to do…'

Certainly it would have been under the patrician rule of a Cobbold or a Sheepshanks; as – till now – it has been under the Smiths.

And while there may be many other factors at work behind this afternoon's shock turn of events, I think the changing nature of the two, respective football clubs needs to be remembered; that neither Clegg nor McNally come from the sentimental end of management.

They don't do 'Good ol, Bryan…' That's not the way they operate.

Remember in the case of McNally, he's had four years working under Mohamed al Fayed at Fulham. Not one to muck around, you suspect.

So, in many senses, Gunn's timing has been unfortunate; he slammed straight into a new breed of boardroom operator; the likelihood is that neither new chairman Alan Bowkett nor new director Stephan Phillips would have wanted their hands tarred with someone else's appointment.

Or re-appointment in the case of Gunn's second bite at the managerial cherry this summer.

And with Michael Foulger having dipped into the family coffers for this summer's arrival of a new No9, so forgiveness for last Saturday's events might have been in short supply; sentimental attachment to a club legend cutting little or no ice.

Do it. This week. Bang. Job done.

Whether professional football management was Gunn's natural habitat is a moot point. Bits of the managerial game he was made for; other aspects of the job didn't sit quite so comfortably, would be my best guess.

Without a top coaching qualification to his name, he was reliant on that big personality taking him a long way; of players playing for him; because he was The Gunner, The Gaffer.

Whether in the summer shake-up of the Colney boot-room, Ian Crook's return to reserve team duties signalled the fact that too many cooks were in danger of spoiling the broth is a possibility; Crook wasn't due to travel to first team away games this season. He may yet be on his way to St James' Park overnight lest Ian Butterworth be left all on his lonesome.

So clearly something, on occasion, didn't click. It didn't all quite gel as well as was intended.

The fact that McNally is far more football-minded than his predecessor Neil Doncaster won't have helped either; he might have smelled a Colney rat rather earlier than under the previous regime. Either that or he comes to the table without a card marked 'sentiment' in his hand.

 
Who knows? Perhaps he already has a managerial ace up his sleeve. Norwich's ninth in 11 years.

 
There will be one further suggestion that – inevitably – will do the rounds tonight.

That Gunn should have never accepted the challenge; that he should have recognised his own limitations; not tried to be something – apparently – he was not.

That certainly after The Valley debacle, he should have walked away; not come back out fighting; pride hurt; determined to prove his detractors wrong.

I'm biased. And the wrong person to ask.

But I have every respect for Bryan Gunn in the way that he didn't stick to his 'comfort zone'; didn't think: 'You know what, I can't do that…'

That's the easy option. Shying away from a challenge.

Yes, we all have our limits; on occasion we can all find ourselves out of our depth; frozen with fear and indecision – as may well have been the case at Carrow Road last Saturday.

But in that basic act of testing himself – as a man and as a personality – I'll give him every credit. He could easily have settled for just being the guy on the end of the transfer phone; the lad with the mints and the long journeys scouting for players.

But he didn't. He had a dream of managing the football club in the county of his home.

And to deny anyone the chance to chase their dream on the basis that 'He's a nice guy, but…' is wrong. Who really knows what any of us can achieve if we're never given the chance?

He put himself up there to be shot down. And he was. And will be on the messageboards tonight.

But stepping up to the plate, not once, but twice – that takes bollo*ks.

Particularly if, in your heart of hearts, you're not wholly sure that you know all the answers to the questions that you're about to pose yourself.

How will I react out there, on my own, on the touchline with 11 professional football players and 25,000 paying punters hanging on my every word and gesture?

Ask Nigel Worthington and he'll tell you… being stood out there, on your own, can be the loneliest place in the world when that same world has turned against you. It can be a bear pit; an unforgiving beast of a place to be as good, decent men are left at the mercy of the footballing Fates.

For what it's worth, I suspect history will show that Bryan Gunn bought very wisely this summer; there might be the odd exception. But if he gets two wrong out of this summer's dozen, that's no managerial mean feat. A better return than many of his supposed betters.

And in giving the likes of a Tom Adeyemi an early chance and not going cap in hand to his pal Arsene for some ill-prepared Premiership starlet, Gunn might also have done the club a big favour; the kid might be gone by January; snapped up by Spurs Reserves, but the Canaries might at least be so much the richer.

Simply for someone giving the Norwich kids a chance.

He also has Grant Holt on a contract; Owain Tudur Jones on a deal. He dug Cody McDonald out of nowhere. And these boys can make you money in a way that Ched Evans never will.

So, even now, I wouldn't belittle Bryan Gunn's 21-game reign and the summer that lay in-between.

I think he may yet have a more lasting impact on the fortunes of Norwich City Football Club than some will ever give him credit for.

Hopefully, that's the case. As a decent fella who has borne more tragedy more nobly than most, history deserves to treat him kindly.


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