Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: N'ZMAV on November 27, 2019, 08:35:09 PM
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Which manager made you feel gutted when he left?
I've been going down B6 since 1994, I think it was Brian Little for me.... everyone else seemed to be a let down, or their time was clearly up.
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Only Graham Taylor, the first time. Everyone else was in decline when they left.
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Only Graham Taylor, the first time. Everyone else was in decline when they left.
Sadly, I was too young for that.... don't suppose anyone would have expected him to stay though - was there an air of inevitability about it once the England talk started?
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I was only young myself. I remember that he was leaving but I don't remember when it was announced. We definitely knew before his last game at Everton.
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Ron Saunders
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Either BFR or Sir Brian. Obviously BFRs team was in decline but so many great memories and he really did help the club attract a high profile in the media's coverage. Similar with Sir Brian although I think we weren't quite such media darlings.
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The only time I've been gutted about a manager was when it became clear that McLeish wasn't just people taking the piss. The next few days was like carrying a rock around in the pit of my stomach and then we he was actually unveiled it was both a kick in the bollocks and a relief (fuelled by an acceptance of a relegation battle) that we couldn't sink any lower. We clearly did in terms of performance but paying the Blues a fortune in compensation to take the manager that had just relegated them is still the worst decision the club has made that I can think of (although Sherwood pushes it very close).
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Ron Saunders
Me too. SGT comes a close second though.
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Ron Saunders
Me too. SGT comes a close second though.
Ditto
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Tommy Docherty; half a season to go from the promise of promotion to the near certainty of relegation.
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Super Ron, Tony Barton, SGT1 and Sir Brian. Even though it was time for Sir Brian to go he was my hero as a nipper so I was gutted when he went.
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Saunders was pure disbelief, and SGT was slightly more understandable (at the time), but very sad nonetheless. His farewell at Goodison remains the best send off I’ve ever been part of.
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Super Ron, Tony Barton, SGT1 and Sir Brian. Even though it was time for Sir Brian to go he was my hero as a nipper so I was gutted when he went.
This exactly. Thanks PWS.
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Saunders was pure disbelief, and SGT was slightly more understandable (at the time), but very sad nonetheless. His farewell at Goodison remains the best send off I’ve ever been part of.
Agree. I would add BFR as well.
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Ron Saunders for me too
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Barton and Little.
Saunders was weird but I don't remember being gutted at the time. Taylor went when being England manager was still the pinnacle of the game so it just felt like a no-brainer. Oh how times have changed. Atkinson had been declining for a while and there really wasn't much sign of turning the ship round.
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Saunders. As a kid he was the only manager I had known, we were league champions and it seemed to come out of the blue. The period of mourning and chanting that Ronnie Bendall had fucked it up changed as soon as he went to Blues.
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1 Ron Saunders
2 SGT
3 BFR
4 MON
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MON. Not so much the individual but it was a portent of doom that unfortunately came devastatingly true.
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I was gutted when SGT went but also when BFR went. We were 'big time' and punched our weight under Big Ron. Kevin Richardson had won the league with Everton and Arsenal, Garry Parker had won things at Forest, we fought off competition from Arsenal to bring in Earl Barrett, we broke our transfer record to bring in Dean Saunders, Andy Townsend was one of the best players in the top flight when we bought him from Chelsea. Even free transfers like Big Cyrille and Mad Les were big names and big characters.
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Gotta be Ron Saunders, that took a while to get over and then SGT 1st time round, even though it wasn't a surprise.
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Ron Saunders was an absolute shocker.
Sir Graham, gutted but it was inevitable
Sad that things went sour for Little and Gregory
MON throwing the toys out of the pram.
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I think we were in the bottom six and had just lost heavily away to Manchester United when Saunders left. Barton took over and guided us to a mid table place and the European Cup. It was however a massive shock when he left and an even bigger shock when he turned up at Small Heath. It was a real 'I remember where I was' moment when he quit. I was with my parents visiting an aunt in Tamworth and there was a Midweek Sport Special (I think it was a league cup semi final between Liverpool and Ipswich) on the telly and the news broke on that show.
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Vic Crowe.
Nearly saved us from relegation, brought us back up with seventy points, called in at Wembley for a League Cup final, beating Best, Law, Charlton et al along the way. Took us to third place in the second division before the board cut off his spending, then sacked him before the youth players coming through could develop.
As badly as Remi Garde was treated, Crowe was the first to get the backstabbing from his own board.
Shameful!!
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I think we were in the bottom six and had just lost heavily away to Manchester United when Saunders left. Barton took over and guided us to a mid table place and the European Cup. It was however a massive shock when he left and an even bigger shock when he turned up at Small Heath. It was a real 'I remember where I was' moment when he quit. I was with my parents visiting an aunt in Tamworth and there was a Midweek Sport Special (I think it was a league cup semi final between Liverpool and Ipswich) on the telly and the news broke on that show.
Not quite bottom six. Villa were 15th when Saunders left, but there were 22 teams in league then.