Sunday, December 13, 2009
Kettering's Involved Chairman
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Observer/Paul Wilson
Dressing-room sackings are more Dog and Duck than FA Cup
Interfering chairman made Kettering look amateurish
The Kettering player-manager Lee Harper saw his assistant dismissed this week following the 5-1 FA Cup defeat at Leeds. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images.
One of the great things about football is its almost endless capacity to surprise. Another is that despite all the money around these days the game at the top level continues to be recognisable as the game we have all played on park pitches or school fields.
These thoughts were initially prompted by the Hackney Marshes aspect of Steve Sidwell's part in the goal Aston Villa's James Milner scored against Hull City last week, when the non-playing substitute turned ball-boy to allow a throw-in quick enough to catch the opposing goalkeeper out of his ground. They were reinforced by what happened at Elland Road on Tuesday night when Kettering were knocked out of the FA Cup, a sequence of events straight from the Dog and Duck end of the football spectrum.
In case you haven't heard the tale, here is a brief precis of what happened. The score after 90 minutes of the second-round replay was 1-1. Leeds United were not having everything their own way and home players were beginning to argue among themselves, so with the prize of a trip to Manchester United on offer, the Poppies were entitled to feel they might get lucky on penalties if they could survive the next half hour. Trouble was, they couldn't. With some of his outfield players exhausted and begging to come off, assistant manager John Deehan sent on substitutes, Kettering conceded four goals in extra-time and at the final whistle Deehan was sacked by an irate and bitterly disappointed chairman, Imraan Ladak. Lee Harper, the Kettering goalkeeper and player-manager, told reporters he was "gutted by the result but shell-shocked and flabbergasted by what had happened in the dressing room afterwards", and said he was considering his own position after such unjust treatment of his assistant. He has since made his peace with Ladak and pledged to carry on, though the latter acknowledges there was a substantial difference of opinion.
Football has seen countless trigger-happy chairmen, though dismissing a manager during a game – Ladak admits he was angry with the substitutions and the possibility exists he would have acted even sooner had it been feasible – is something new. Especially as, by Kettering standards, this was the biggest game of the season. The highlight, their Cup final. Old Trafford would have been better, for sure, yet by all accounts the Conference side did their fans proud at Elland Road and were only exposed by their fitness levels late in the game.
Ladak is no stranger to dismissing managers. He was the chairman who brought in Paul Gascoigne a few years ago then shipped him out a matter of weeks later on discovering he was not quite what was needed, and Harper and Deehan had only been in charge since last month. Deehan, who has a decent managerial CV after spells at Norwich, Wigan and Aston Villa, was the experienced head Harper brought in to help him take his first steps as player-manager. "He's a football man, he knows what he's doing," Harper said. "The lads gave it everything on the night and when you bring football people in they need to be left to run the team."
If that sounds like a thinly veiled accusation of interference, it is only what Kettering fans have been saying all week. When Ladak is not being charged with sticking his nose into team selection he is usually being branded an attention-seeker or egotist. Yet the chairman gave a detailed interview with the club's website the following day that lasted over an hour, and while stopping short of apologising, offered an explanation and an expression of regret that his actions had overshadowed an otherwise memorable evening. "I have taken some of the positive spotlight away from the club and that is not normally something I would choose to do," he said.
It turns out that Ladak was irked to see one particular player take the field. A player who will remain nameless here, but whose identity Ladak is not at all concerned to protect. A player, according to Ladak, who cannot be bothered travelling to all the club's training sessions, who was not involved in the preparations for the Leeds game, who has been actively seeking to leave and whom the chairman never wanted to see play for Kettering again. A player, in short, who Ladak said "was only on the bench at Elland Road to make up the numbers".
Not the best plan, perhaps, but needs must, and it might have worked without Kettering's original 11 dropping like flies in extra-time. Deehan sent on the only fresh legs he had and paid the penalty. It is hard to know who is right and wrong in this sorry tale, though it is just possible that rather than being a pompous publicity seeker, Ladak is a man with principles who cares too much about his club. Perhaps he needs to be even firmer in future, and insist that bad influences and bad attitudes are kept well away from the team. Put them on the subs' bench, even as decoration, and sod's law will come into play. Ladak probably ought to try counting to 10 occasionally too, and leaving big decisions until the following day. "Lots of things go on within football clubs, and it is not right to put every single reason why you might be unhappy into the public domain," he said. There is an obvious lesson to be learned here. Sacking a member of the coaching staff in the dressing room at the final whistle puts all your problems into the public domain. As well as making you look a bit Dog and Duck.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/....up-leeds-united
Observer
Observer/Paul Wilson
Dressing-room sackings are more Dog and Duck than FA Cup
Interfering chairman made Kettering look amateurish
The Kettering player-manager Lee Harper saw his assistant dismissed this week following the 5-1 FA Cup defeat at Leeds. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images.
One of the great things about football is its almost endless capacity to surprise. Another is that despite all the money around these days the game at the top level continues to be recognisable as the game we have all played on park pitches or school fields.
These thoughts were initially prompted by the Hackney Marshes aspect of Steve Sidwell's part in the goal Aston Villa's James Milner scored against Hull City last week, when the non-playing substitute turned ball-boy to allow a throw-in quick enough to catch the opposing goalkeeper out of his ground. They were reinforced by what happened at Elland Road on Tuesday night when Kettering were knocked out of the FA Cup, a sequence of events straight from the Dog and Duck end of the football spectrum.
In case you haven't heard the tale, here is a brief precis of what happened. The score after 90 minutes of the second-round replay was 1-1. Leeds United were not having everything their own way and home players were beginning to argue among themselves, so with the prize of a trip to Manchester United on offer, the Poppies were entitled to feel they might get lucky on penalties if they could survive the next half hour. Trouble was, they couldn't. With some of his outfield players exhausted and begging to come off, assistant manager John Deehan sent on substitutes, Kettering conceded four goals in extra-time and at the final whistle Deehan was sacked by an irate and bitterly disappointed chairman, Imraan Ladak. Lee Harper, the Kettering goalkeeper and player-manager, told reporters he was "gutted by the result but shell-shocked and flabbergasted by what had happened in the dressing room afterwards", and said he was considering his own position after such unjust treatment of his assistant. He has since made his peace with Ladak and pledged to carry on, though the latter acknowledges there was a substantial difference of opinion.
Football has seen countless trigger-happy chairmen, though dismissing a manager during a game – Ladak admits he was angry with the substitutions and the possibility exists he would have acted even sooner had it been feasible – is something new. Especially as, by Kettering standards, this was the biggest game of the season. The highlight, their Cup final. Old Trafford would have been better, for sure, yet by all accounts the Conference side did their fans proud at Elland Road and were only exposed by their fitness levels late in the game.
Ladak is no stranger to dismissing managers. He was the chairman who brought in Paul Gascoigne a few years ago then shipped him out a matter of weeks later on discovering he was not quite what was needed, and Harper and Deehan had only been in charge since last month. Deehan, who has a decent managerial CV after spells at Norwich, Wigan and Aston Villa, was the experienced head Harper brought in to help him take his first steps as player-manager. "He's a football man, he knows what he's doing," Harper said. "The lads gave it everything on the night and when you bring football people in they need to be left to run the team."
If that sounds like a thinly veiled accusation of interference, it is only what Kettering fans have been saying all week. When Ladak is not being charged with sticking his nose into team selection he is usually being branded an attention-seeker or egotist. Yet the chairman gave a detailed interview with the club's website the following day that lasted over an hour, and while stopping short of apologising, offered an explanation and an expression of regret that his actions had overshadowed an otherwise memorable evening. "I have taken some of the positive spotlight away from the club and that is not normally something I would choose to do," he said.
It turns out that Ladak was irked to see one particular player take the field. A player who will remain nameless here, but whose identity Ladak is not at all concerned to protect. A player, according to Ladak, who cannot be bothered travelling to all the club's training sessions, who was not involved in the preparations for the Leeds game, who has been actively seeking to leave and whom the chairman never wanted to see play for Kettering again. A player, in short, who Ladak said "was only on the bench at Elland Road to make up the numbers".
Not the best plan, perhaps, but needs must, and it might have worked without Kettering's original 11 dropping like flies in extra-time. Deehan sent on the only fresh legs he had and paid the penalty. It is hard to know who is right and wrong in this sorry tale, though it is just possible that rather than being a pompous publicity seeker, Ladak is a man with principles who cares too much about his club. Perhaps he needs to be even firmer in future, and insist that bad influences and bad attitudes are kept well away from the team. Put them on the subs' bench, even as decoration, and sod's law will come into play. Ladak probably ought to try counting to 10 occasionally too, and leaving big decisions until the following day. "Lots of things go on within football clubs, and it is not right to put every single reason why you might be unhappy into the public domain," he said. There is an obvious lesson to be learned here. Sacking a member of the coaching staff in the dressing room at the final whistle puts all your problems into the public domain. As well as making you look a bit Dog and Duck.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/....up-leeds-united
Observer
