| EVERYTHING COMES TO HE WHO WAITS |
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| Written by davethomas | |
| Friday, 07 November 2008 | |
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Anyway it was whilst watching him during an England game, admittedly many months ago, that something struck me – he wasn’t scribbling notes – no pad, no back of an envelope, no clipboard, ticklist… nowt. Lots of things always seemed odd about him – his appeal to women for a start. It was baffling. Me? I’m suave, sophisticated, elegant, witty, quite a handsome cove, 62 but still got all my own teeth, AND a Burnley fan. What more could a woman want I sometimes ask Mrs Thomas. The reply is more often than not just a snigger. But Sven; his teeth are odd, his face is odd, his team selections were odd and it was more than odd that he had persuaded the world that he could manage actually anything at all. But by not taking notes during a game he bucked a trend. Why? Did he have no opinions? Could he not keep up with the play? Not write fast enough? Had he no lead in his pencil… though perhaps we should ask Ulrika that one. Had he not got any kind of pencil? Or if he made notes would he have known what to do with them anyway? It’s a puzzle. I never saw Jimmy Adamson making notes. Harry Potts never made notes. He could watch a game and then on Sunday morning write reams about it all from memory. But Stevie Cotts writes notes. He belongs to the modern legion of managers who write notes. Curbishley, Pardew, they’re all at it. And I’ve often wondered what’s on them by the end of a game. If it’s the number of players we get into the box it won’t be many, if it’s shots we have on target it won’t be many. If it’s the number of goals we score from corners it won’t be many. If it’s penalties, blank, for the last year. Is it a shopping list… lottery numbers… the recipe for a Lancashire Hotpot? The names of his players in case he forgets? How to get back home again after the game? Who knows? Or is it all to do with the mania for paperwork that now swamps the Blair’s new world, be it teaching, doctors, police filling in forms when they could be out nabbing criminals and saying “you’re nicked.” All of them with targets, visions, policies and short term, medium term and long term planning. Steve got caught up in the latter one day when he told the media that he couldn’t have long term plans without short term plans or something like that. I sometimes wonder when I see him with his sheets of paper on the halfway line, if it’s the list of questions I sent him way back in September when I had fond hopes that he would meet for an interview and contribute something to this book. I gave up after the third request. One was through the Press officer’s office, one was by email direct and the third was by letter with a stamp that cost me money, which included all the questions. I know he got the letter, I know he read it, and read the questions, because I did get a response – but it was only to say he didn’t like some of the questions. Here they are: What or who has been the biggest influence on you in football? Who are the figures outside football you found inspirational? Your time at Wimbledon and significant memories, the characters? Good memories of Bournemouth? What was the bad injury you had? How did the Sligo job come up? How did the Cheltenham job come up? Stoke and Sunderland… if you want to comment… bad times there… wrong decisions to go there… difficult circumstances… glad to get away? Anyone today that you turn to for help or support when things get tough? Who are the people on the end of a phone when you need them? Closest friends in the game? Any one particular manager you respect? What things upset you in the game? And Burnley… what thoughts were in your head the night before the first Press conference… then the morning when you woke up? How much did you know about Burnley, club, town, before coming? Did you know that there were so few players in the squad that you were really starting from scratch? What image of the town was in your head – for most people nationally it’s still cobbled streets and run down housing? Are you comfortable now here int north… are there still things you are not used to? What are the greatest satisfactions and pleasures the job brings? And the biggest frustrations? Best moments at BFC so far – Liverpool Cup game… maintaining place in Championship… or are those just superficial questions and is it more to do with assembling a squad, stabilising things, introducing new ideas, hearing the reception the crowd gave you at the beginning at the opening game? Is the family still in Bournemouth… if so what’s the longest period you have spent with them whilst up here… and when do you get the chance to see them? What is the basic SC philosophy? The team ethic… the team is greater than the individual… 100% effort… a bunch of stars is no good if they can’t play together… can you expand on that? Finally, if you could bring three world stars to BFC, who would they be? I remember trying to get some time with Stan Ternent in 2002/03 when I was doing Its Burnley. No luck. He was guarded by his PA with the protective skills of a lioness protecting her cub. It was the same PA who phoned me to tell me off for having the audacity to ring up a player. The player was quite happy for me to phone him but… gulp… I got my hands smacked. The eleventh commandment; thou (the people who pay their wages) shalt not speak to any player. I can understand it. Are there any managers who welcome the Press and writers with open arms? I suspect there’s an inbuilt suspicion that they are going to get stitched up, misquoted and hung out to dry as with Lafferty a while ago this season when Celtic were sniffing around. We are, sadly it seems to me, the lowest of the low. It’s a shame. And then I got the biggest surprise one morning not many days ago. Surprise – gobsmacked would be a better word. In fact I thought it was a wind-up. “Hello, Stan here (who, I thought, Stan who, I don’t know anybody called Stan. I knew a Fat Stan many years ago at school. If you read this, Hi Fat Stan)… Stan Ternent.” Who is this, having a laugh; I wondered and thought the only way to be sure is to listen for the Geordie accent. It was still there. “Hello Stan,” I answered and waited for my pal Chris to say GOTCHA. But no, it was indeed Stan ringing to say he’d just started reading It’s Burnley Not Barcelona the story of that weird and whacky 02/03 season when the goals cascaded in… usually at the wrong end. And yet it was still a season when at the beginning of March we stood on the threshold of the top six and a Cup semi final place. The first game of March was duly won with a Deano Westissimo thunderbolt, but then it all fell apart and none of us will forget that dire game at Watford and the end of Cup dreams, and then how the League season just faded away with the usual ritual defeat at the Sheffield ground of Stan’s nemesis... the dreaded Warnock. “I’m reading your book and really enjoying it,” he continued. “It’s really good.” Tell you what; I pulled a copy off the shelf pronto-quick and speed read through it that afternoon looking for anything that might induce Stan to drive over and give me a smack or go and see his solicitor. No there wasn’t, it isn’t a book that carps and moans and criticises or grumbles at individuals. Nor is Russians Don’t Land Here. And if it does poke gentle fun at things it’s only what fans do to keep themselves sane. “Blimey if only you knew how many times I tried to get past your PA to see you,” I said. “Well come and see me anytime now, I’m not working,” he continued and gave me his phone numbers. The chat lasted nearly half an hour, nothing earth-shattering to report I have to say. Just two blokes with nothing better to do having a chinwag. No secrets unveiled. And Stan, if I remember rightly, never took any notes, never had sheets of paper clutched tight during any game I ever saw. But tell you what; I’m miffed I can’t find the list of questions I had ready to ask him in ’03. I’ll need to think of more. Maybe these will be some of them: Who, over your career, were the truly great characters you met, played alongside, worked with and what made them so? My hunch is that you were one of the few players never to be too enamoured with Harry Potts… is that correct… and why? Is there any person or persons you have looked up to. What are the things, and who are the people, you look back on and crack you up into laughter? Who was the best manager you played for and why? You had success as a player at Carlisle, what memories remain? How did you cope with Bob Lord when you were negotiating to buy Burnley players when you were Blackpool manager? In times of stress, difficulty, where the hell do I go from here, who were the people in football that you turned to? You collaborated and produced one book, is there a part two to that book do you think? What would it include? I’m sure there are more but you think of them, and then realise you can probably find the answers in his book Stan the Man. It’s from that book that you get the feeling that he maybe thinks Potts gave him a raw deal. And I’d like to ask him about that book and how he feels now about the way it portrays him. Funny how I started thinking about the inscrutable, emotionless Sven and then end up with fiery Stan, and two greater opposites you could not hope to find. And funny how things work out; it looks like three years after the event I will get to see Stan after all. So who knows, maybe in 2010 I’ll get a call from Steve. Everything comes to he who waits. (Dave Thomas March 2007) |
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