Neil Allen @pn_neil_allen
Have just finished reading the book version of ‘I Am The Secret Footballer’. Why does the name Dave Kitson keep nagging at me? #Pompey
Neil Allen @pn_neil_allen
@luvvielighter I recognise lots of things, including annecdotes. Kitson previously told me he was going to write travel book under an alias!
Secret Footballer Rumours that travel in football circles are often based on inside knowledge, but can equally often equate to another example of Chinese whispers going amiss. Therefore the story I've heard that Danny Guthrie turns up for training when he feels like it could be either. But what isn't up for debate is that Guthrie refused to travel to the Stadium of Light for Reading's match with Sunderland on Tuesday night.
What isn't known yet is the facts. But that hasn't stopped people jumping on Guthrie's back. When I read the story online late last night, I was amazed at how many posters mentioned money in the comments section. Clearly, something is troubling Guthrie, and anybody wading in with their opinion using money as their core argument is missing the point.
To claim that he is a disgrace because he earns £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000 a week is completely ridiculous. That argument implies that there is a lower amount of money whereby he would cease to be a disgrace and, conversely, if he earned a higher level of wages, then he'd have travelled with the team regardless of his problems. Absolute rubbish.
If a player has something serious on his mind then, I'm sorry, money isn't going to un-ring that bell. We've all been there. And what harm has he done really? If anything, he has issued a little cry for help - a 'gesture', I think they call it - and now that Reading are aware there is a problem, hopefully they can deal with it and get him back on the pitch again and in the right frame of mind.
That is the main point to remember here. OK, maybe he could have gone about making his problems known in a less public way. But when things get on top of you, it's sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees, isn't it?
Deep down, I think that we all secretly prefer the pantomime villain. Aside from being a crude barometer for right and wrong, we are fully aware that he isn't ever really going to hurt us.
Alan Partridge Just reading abit of the book someone posted earlier, bit in there where he said to a player 'you look familiar, didn't you used to be somebody' Kitson said exactly that to Teddy Sheringham during the West Ham game after Teddy called him a ginger so and so.
reading_fan When I read the story online late last night, I was amazed at how many posters mentioned money in the comments section.
Alexander Litvinenko Just FTR, Hills the market on "Who is TSF?" on Hills has now expired, so bets have been refunded.
Ian Royal Is it just me that finds the idea of Shorey (he was corner taker wasn't he...) calling someone a little shit funny?
NTRoyalIan Royal Is it just me that finds the idea of Shorey (he was corner taker wasn't he...) calling someone a little shit funny?
Glen Little took them too.
TSF our corner-taker would be sprinting over to whip it into the centre halves who were hurtling into the area.
Never forget where you’ve come from
Remember the date … Monday, March 11, 2013. The day the music died for followers of that nice little old club in Berkshire some 50 miles down the road from London. It was the day that Reading FC sacked their manager, Brian McDermott, and joined an illustrious list of clubs who have done the same thing, with little success.
Yes, Reading have dropped among the dead men in the Premier League in recent weeks and are now, along with Queens Park Rangers, four points adrift from the safety net. But with only nine games left, the club should have surely stuck with their manager at least until the summer. Either survive or drop, perhaps collect the parachute payment and go again.
I mean, what did they expect? A top-ten finish … come on. With all the will in the world, Reading were doomed from the first fixture, when they decided in their wisdom to stick mostly with the players who stormed to promotion back in May. This is all well and good if you were climbing from League 1 to the Championship, creditable even. But when you reach the Premier, you have to give yourselves a chance to compete with the teams who you think are going to be around you – anyone from 12th place down.
In this league, you have to compete. And, invariably, this means spending some money on players who you think will help you to stay up. Reading haven’t done this. They spent £10 million in the summer and then, in the January transfer window, they played pretty much dumb again.
Which brings me on to their owner … Anton Zingarevich, a Russian. He ain’t no Roman Abramovich. In fact, you have to ask: does he even have any wealth? If so, where is it?
McDermott was and is an honorable man. He had spent 13 years at the Royals in various guises and yet, at the first sign of trouble, the powers that be sacked him. Loyalty in football? Yeah, right.
The former Arsenal midfielder won’t be out of work for long. He has the knowledge and the nous to help teams bridge the gap from the Championship to the Promised Land. What he needed at Reading was a helping hand, on and off the field. Sadly, he didn’t receive what he desired and deserved.
If I had my way, I would tell John Delaney, the chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland, to get a wriggle on and get McDermott installed as Ireland’s long-term successor to Giovanni Trapattoni. I understand that Brian has flown to Ireland to get over the hurt and consider his future. Stay there, Brian. I beg you.
Life of Brian hits rock bottom
At 5.31pm on Monday, Reading announced in a brief statement that Brian McDermott, their manager, had been dismissed. In four brief paragraphs, with a cursory acknowledgement of thanks, the Premier League’s Manager of the Month for January was deemed surplus to requirements in March. Such is the brutality of football management.
It was not great timing. “I’m struggling with that,” Ady Williams, the former Reading captain and now local TV and radio pundit, said. “There’s only nine games left.” The timing was not great for the national newspaper journos, either. At 5.31, most would have been hopefully winding down for the day or busy with other assignments.
In the good old days, the timing would have been horrendous. Many papers would have had a first-edition deadline of about 6pm, meaning that the scribes had around 29 minutes to write, say, 450-500 words on McDermott’s demise. It would have been copy straight off the top of their heads; no room for manoeuvre or research.
And if you missed that 6pm cut off, not only would you miss the edition but you were also likely to receive a bollocking from the boss. However, for the later editions, you could wax lyrical at your leisure. Perhaps a sympathetic piece about McDermott’s decent win ratio of 45 per cent – 76 victories from 169 matches – and the dizzy success that he had brought the Berkshire club.
Not entirely dissimilar to the words written about Nigel Adkins, when he was sacked at Southampton in January. The pair share similar qualities – heady overachievement at lower-league clubs and a common courtesy with the Fourth Estate, a rare trait among their many conniving peers.
So, in the good old days, it would have been tough on the scribes. Very little time to compose thoughtfully. Nowadays, with updated printing presses and hi-tech production processes, first-edition deadlines have been put back to as late as 10pm. So the 5.31 bolt from the blue shouldn’t have been a great problem.
OK, it was not Fergie, Wenger or Benitez getting the chop. That would have been seismic, well off the Richter Scale on the sports desks on “Fleet Street”. But the Life of Brian, as a Premier League manager, received due attention. A factual piece on his departure, a comment piece here and there, maybe an analysis piece, too.
Many papers had it as their back-page “lead” story but led with the angle not so much that McDermott had gone but that Paolo Di Canio, the former Swindon Town manager, was favourite to succeed him. That McDermott had left would be old news by the time that they would hit the newsagents on Tuesday morning, mere chip paper. In these days of Twitter and the rabid social media, a new slant was needed.
And the fact that Di Canio had attended Reading’s 2-1 defeat against Aston Villa on Saturday – McDermott’s sad last stand, when he was jeered mercilessly – was enough to give the story fresh “legs” and push it forward. That Di Canio had recently managed Swindon, Reading’s traditional rivals, did not seem to enter the equation.
It is entirely possible that Anton Zingarevich, the trigger-happy Reading owner, is not even aware that the Robins and the Royals – and Oxford United, who complete the “Thames Valley Triangle” – do not enjoy the best of relations among their fans. Oh well … Di Canio is hot news and, whenever there is a sacking, every paper has to produce a list of the “runners and riders” in the frame to take over.
Zingarevich, he of the babe lingerie model wife, escaped a roasting. Not many hacks, if any, know enough about him to detail his shortcomings. Apart from those who remembered that prior to a home match in November, the Russian had requested the audience of two national newspaper journos in the plush Madejski Stadium boardroom.
He wanted to spread the word that McDermott’s tenure was secure. “He’s the man for the job,” he said, in his usual hushed tones. “I have total faith in him.” Unfortunately, it would appear that no journo did remember those emphatic utterings or even knew about that meeting; not enough to care, anyway.
Better to focus on Di Canio – the maverick Italian, the big news line, true or otherwise about his imminent arrival – and the harshness of the genial McDermott’s departure. And compare it to Adkins’ similarly ludicrous exit from Southampton or further concentrate on who will fill the “Mad Stad” hot seat. Adkins, naturally, was one of the immediate runners and riders.
By today, McDermott had been reduced to minor billing in the media. I reiterate, he is no Fergie, Wenger or Benitez. He has flown to Ireland to contemplate his future and I share the view of my colleague, The Secret Gallagher, that a place could await him when Giovanni Trapattoni steps down from managing the Republic’s national team. “Il Trap” is almost a busted flush.
Reading are as good as bust, too. Nine games to go is effectively seven games to go, with Reading facing Manchester United and Arsenal – both away – in their next two matches. How many points is a demoralised team going to pick up at Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium? Nought springs to mind.
I leave you with two anecdotes, verified by trusted members of the hack pack on Saturday. Players from Reading’s Simod Cup winning team of 1988 were invited back to celebrate the 25th anniversary and to parade at half time. Yet the club failed to put on food and refreshments for them and they had to socialise in a local pub.
A total lack of class from Reading FC.
As McDermott left the stadium at about 6.30pm, totally deflated after the defeat against Villa that would seal his fate less than 48 hours later, a woman of a certain age approached him and asked a searching question. He could have ignored her and strode on to the car park. But he spent two to three minutes politely explaining his thoughts.
Total class from Reading’s soon-to-be former manager.
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