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229 pages

English

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In the 1980s Manchester United was the footballing byword for underachievement. The club had struggled to rediscover its identity after the shock dismissal of Tommy Docherty in 1977 and a four-year spell under Dave Sexton, a highly respected coach but the polar opposite of his predecessor. Ron Atkinson brought the thrills back to Old Trafford and won two FA Cups before being dismissed in November 1986. 'Big Ron' was the latest in a long line of managers who tried but failed to win the prize United wanted most - the First Division championship. Yet contrary to his reputation for glorious failure, Que Sera, Sera reveals how Atkinson's footballing ideals made him the perfect man to lead the biggest club in the country. Drawing on meticulous research and exclusive interviews, Wayne Barton shines a guiding light on a greatly neglected period of Manchester United history that was filled with big characters and big controversy. Here, for the first time, are the unbridled views of the players, chairman Martin Edwards and 'Big Ron' himself.

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Lancashire

Lancastre

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	09 mars 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785316593
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Wayne Barton, 2019
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978 178531 626 5 eBook ISBN 978 1 78531 659 3
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Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Style
Personality Clash
Five Minutes
In His Own Mould
Lucky Seven
Total Football
Old Hollywood
Que Sera, Sera
Challenges
Money, Money, Money
Money Spinner
Vision
Walk Through the Storm
Borrowed Time
On Good Terms
Hypothesising
Dedicated to Dave Murphy. This was your team.
Foreword
MANCHESTER UNITED always had the reputation of being the biggest club in the world. I had grown up as a young player seeing, and playing against, the Busby Babes. By the time I became manager of the club in 1981, that reputation was founded on historical success rather than their recent accomplishments. For the previous 13 years or so, results hadn t gone as well as hoped. Other clubs had surpassed them in the meantime, namely Liverpool.
Restoring that success, to me, meant re-establishing United as a top European club. United had this great tradition of playing in European competition, but since winning the European Cup it hadn t really happened that often. It was when I was managing Manchester United in ties abroad that I was given a greater appreciation of the size of the club and how they were loved worldwide. But we are talking about a special kind of reverence that might be difficult for today s younger supporters to fully appreciate; today, the club could probably survive on revenue from the megastore, and back in the 1980s the club shop was owned by Sir Matt Busby and only opened sporadically. When I took the job at Old Trafford, one of the first things I spoke to Martin Edwards about was my ambition to make United a major force on the Continent again.
I intended to do that playing good football. I never considered this to be the Manchester United way. I had my own ideas and belief about the way the game should be played, and I think my track record at clubs like Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday would vindicate that. Supporters of those clubs are always quick to tell me that my teams played the best football they saw in years. Even at Oxford, I remember that I was bemoaning the lack of a top-quality winger and I was chided by a reporter who reminded me that we were the top-scoring team in the country without one! So people talk about the Manchester United way, but nobody took me to one side and said this is the way you need to play I always tried to have my teams playing the same way. Fast, progressive, aggressive football with flair. I would always like to have one or two players who could produce the unexpected.
That was a philosophy of football taught to me at Aston Villa by the great Jimmy Hogan. I hadn t realised the influence Jimmy s ideas had already had at United; in this book, Wayne Barton has finally brought that to light. As I ve said, my role in this was coincidental, but I wholeheartedly believed in Jimmy s maxim. Different circumstances might come into play, depending on the game and the opposition, but one of his fundamental philosophies was: When we have the ball, wherever we are on the pitch, we re attacking. When they have the ball, anywhere on the field, we re defending.
Jimmy emphasised the importance of taking care with the ball and accuracy of your passing. Those ideas have helped influence some of the more popular and prominent styles of football you see today. But Jimmy wasn t only about short passing, he wasn t against the odd long pass (as opposed to walloping the ball!). He could mix it up. A long pass could be considered just as important. He would stress that we had to look after the ball. The wing-half, he would say, is like a waiter in a restaurant serving the ball to the forwards. There was a commitment to hard work and entertainment.
That was what Manchester United fans wanted to see, and I suppose I was hired because I d brought that to West Brom, along with European football.
At United I succeeded Dave Sexton. Allow me to go on record, as I have many times before, to state that Dave was the best coach I have ever seen. I ve been on coaching courses around the world, I ve observed the top international coaches at work in World Cups, and I ve never seen anyone more inventive than Dave Sexton was. The sessions he put on were as good as any I ve ever seen; I witnessed him actually on the courses, delivering better sessions than the ones the instructors were putting on.
Dave was the victim of many misconceptions. I ve often seen his personality described as dour. I worked with him at Aston Villa, when he came to Villa Park as a youth coach when I was manager, and at the dinners at the end of the season he would get up and do a few renditions of one or two old London songs. I always found him great company.
Dave believed in good football as much as I did. The difference between us, as is astutely observed in this book, was that I believed in allowing and trusting players to play off the cuff, whereas Dave was a big believer in repetitive drills. At Villa, I had him working with every player at the club who was 21 or under, even if they were in the first team. One of those players was Dwight Yorke, a player who would go on to be renowned as one of the great natural instinctive forwards. And he was. He had a lot of natural flair. But so much of his movement, so much of the intelligence of his play, was a result of Dave s work with him. I can t say why it didn t work out for him at United. If I didn t have such respect for him, I would have wanted him at Old Trafford with me, working to bring through those young lads. Of course, he would probably have been offended by that; but when I went to Villa, I had no hesitation in getting in touch with Dave. I hope that readers of this book will have a greater appreciation for his footballing ideals.
My primary intention wasn t for my teams to turn up just to entertain. I didn t go in to training every morning and say that on Saturday we wanted everyone to go home pleased because they d seen good football. I wanted to win. I played to win. I happened to think that the things I believed in would help us to win. On most occasions, it did. Yes, I thought winning football and entertaining football could go hand in hand, but given the choice, I d always go for the victory.
It is tremendously difficult to pick out a single highlight from my tenure at Old Trafford, but it is no surprise given what I ve said above, that all of the ones which spring to mind had entertaining aspects but also that certain amount of tension which comes from the high stakes of managing at the highest level.
That game against Barcelona at Old Trafford in March 1984 was incredible for the atmosphere above anything else. It was unbelievable. That was also the case in the 1985 FA Cup semi-final replay against Liverpool, which was a great night. Coming from behind to beat them at Maine Road was truly memorable.
The FA Cup was the highlight of every season. Again, this is something that perhaps has a different perspective in the modern age, but in my mind, it is the greatest domestic cup competition anywhere, and that was certainly how it was viewed in the 80s. It was watched all over the world. So coming up against Everton, who had just won the First Division and European Cup Winners Cup, and defeating them, and then doing it in the circumstances we did, has to rank as number one.
When you look at the great club teams and I m talking right the way through from the Honv d team of the 50s to the modern era, most if not all of them play some variation or format of their game based on Jimmy Hogan s principles. Naturally, as so much of my footballing education came from Jimmy, so did mine. It s for others to comment on how well it went; I can only say I managed United according to the beliefs I had of how football should be played. Winning football games mattered the most; if we could entertain our fans along the way, then all the better.
Ron Atkinson, 2019
Acknowledgements
I AM immensely grateful for the assistance of a number of people; this book simply would not have existed without them. To Ron Atkinson and Martin Edwards, I am so thankful for your time and contributions. Thanks to Gary Bailey, Mick Duxbury, Norman Whiteside, Clayton Blackmore, Sammy McIlroy, Martin Buchan, Graeme Hogg, Alex Stepney, Paul Parker, Gordon Jago, Alan Brazil, Bryan Robson and Gordon Hill. Thanks also to Tommy Docherty. To Brian Greenhoff, still sorely missed.
As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Eifion Evans and Dan Burdett. A big thank you to Paddy Barclay and Rob Smyth for their advice, guidance and eye for detail. To Barney Chilton and RedNews. Thanks to Stan Chow.
To Jane Camillin, Duncan Olner, Michelle Grainger and all at Pitch for their sterling work and dedication to this book.
A big thanks to my friends and family, including anyone I miss out from the following ! Kim Burdett, Caroline Murphy, the Winstons, the Roberts , Mike Pieri, Stel Stylianou, Matt Galea, Oyvind Enger, Tyler Dunne, Ben McManus, Nipun Chopra. Charlie and the family. Special thanks to Dave Murphy. To mum, for your support. To Freddy