This first appeared a couple of days ago, but deserves a bump back to the top because of the quality of the ensuing debate.

Phil Brown is a Mackem, he’s passionate and he led Hull City to heights few of their fans can realistically have expected to see. He has done questionable things – the dressing down for his team on the field at Eastlands was amateurish, Sloop John B on the pitch embarrassing, not talking to local radio absurd – but overall he can hold his head high. Jeremy Robson, a Sunderland fan exiled in Canada, puts in a few words for the man who must now choose between becoming events and entertainments manager of the local WI or using his gardening leave to profitable horticultural effect …

There’s a certain irony, isn’t there, with clubs (and the associated manager) overachieving. Chairmen are rarely happy with a single miracle and want a second (or in Hull’s case a third following promotion and then avoiding the drop). Football managers really ought to be careful what they wish for.

Phil Brown got Hull City somewhere they’ve spent their entire existence dreaming about (see nicksarebi’s Flickr photo of that grand day at Wembley). Now he’s got the sack.

No Jock Stein, or Brian Clough is Phil, but he’s effectively become a victim of his own success.

Personally I think he got dead lucky when they went up. (Our own) Fraizer Campbell looked the business down there on loan.

Allied to Michael Turner and an ageing Barmby and Windass who gave everything for him he managed to get them up against all odds. There’s an argument of course which says that regardless of who the manager may be, come the end of the season there will be three teams go down and three go up.

That’s just the way it is, and the line between success and failure is very thin indeed. The play offs to all intents and purposes mean that line is removed altogether. The ultimate spin of the wheel that turns losers into winners.

Maybe the Hull board should have been grateful and been content with a swashbuckling adventure of a season in the top flight and accepted that they will eventually drop to their normal level sooner rather than later, but no the miracle maker is deposed to tending his allotment while the likes of Brian Horton (previously not considered good enough to manage Hull any longer, together with Steve Parkin; (who was sacked at Rochdale not so long ago) are handed the reins.

I quite like Phil Brown. He’s one of us. If they were going to sack him it should probably have been earlier in the season or in the summer for my money. I’m not saying that he has done a particularly good job at Hull City during his time in the Premier League, but what exactly did the board expect other than a battle against the drop?

The only players that were prepared to sign for him were those drinking in the PL’s last chance saloon, (McShane, Kilbane, Boateng and the permanently injured Bullard) who weren’t wanted by other top flight clubs or who were comparatively larger fish in other very small ponds such as Cousin and Vennegoor of Hesselink.

The teams that Brown put out were as good as could reasonably be expected.

Bigger names were unlikely to want to sign for a club of Hull’s stature when the statistics against them remaining in the top flight for more than two seasons makes grim reading, not just for Hull City, but any newly promoted club. It’s even worse for the club that gets up via the play offs.

There’s a long list of managers who were considered to be the best thing since sliced bread at the post promotion party. Billy Davies, Owen Coyle, Tony Mowbray, Nigel Worthington, Alan Pardew, Danny Wilson, George Burley, to name a few that ultimately became the victims of their own success in getting unfancied, less wealthy teams promoted against the odds.

Their various moments of glory were fleeting and most of them were relieved of duty when results started to falter. Phil Brown is just the latest name on that list. All of these managers were rather like Icarus. They flew too high and too fast. Owen Coyle’s real mettle will be tested during the run in to the end of the season. In three seasons he will be the manager at Old Trafford if you believe some observers. He’s equally likely to be driving a milk float; truth be told.

There are those who point to Phil’s half time rant at Eastlands and attribute this to Hull’s fall down the table. Results after the Man City game and even in the second half were no worse and no better than those which went before. The depth of Hull City’s problems are yet to be revealed and they have not departed with Phil Brown.

Hull City are in what appears to be a particularly unenviable financial position if various media reports are to be believed.

Maybe sacking him and saving his salary is the long and the short of it. It really doesn’t seem like footballing sense to me.

If I were a Hull fan, I’d be seriously concerned at having Messrs Horton and Parkin in charge as no long term successor appears to have been scouted ahead of time. A kneejerk reaction is one thing, To have little idea why your knee is jerking is a completely different matter.

I will personally miss Phil Brown’s sun tan, microphone and the fact that he always seems to say just what he thinks. That’s what you get with a Mackem.

Are the suits intent on chipping away at the soul of football until nothing’s left, as I suggested elsewhere in response to SAFC’s new Big Idea, hawking the name of the Stadium of Light? Or does it not matter a jot what the place is called as long as we are given something to appreciate once inside? Colin Randall thought he was sure of the answer …

So there I was, driving through France and feeling happy with life. I’ve just about persuaded myself (perhaps prematurely) that we’re not going down. I love France and shouted as much when I saw the first road sign – Aix-en-Provence/Toulon/Nice – that told me I was on the last leg (Toulon being little more than a Jonny Wilkinson drop kick from where I live).

Then came a succession of noises from the mobile, enough to give me the idea there might be a hot new debate on the Blackcats e-mail loop.
(more…)

… only in a spot of fun offered by the Sunderland Echo, which produced this mock-up image to show how the Mags’ hero might look if he were prepared to wear the SAFC shirt.

He was asked to do it for charity – Sport Relief – and refused point blank. It is not that he’s an especially tight sod who’d never dream of digging into his pockets for a good cause; in fact, he even offered to shower Adrian Chiles, presenter of BBC’s One Show, with cash.
(more…)