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davieG

The Managers: Frank McLintock, 1977-1978 (Not for the feint hearted)

By davieG, in Leicester City Forum

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davieG

davieG

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https://www.lcfc.com/news/793708/the-managers-frank-mclintock-19771978

 

Frank McLintock’s appointment as manager at Filbert Street in June 1977 was warmly recieced by Leicester City fans.
One of only five Leicester City players to be inducted into the English Football’s Hall of Fame, (along with Don Revie, Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton and Gary Lineker) his record at the Club included playing in  the 1961 and 1963 FA Cup Finals, winning the League Cup in 1964 and being capped by Scotland. He moved to Arsenal in October 1964, captaining the Gunners, amongst other achievements, to the League and Cup Double in 1971.

His appointment came one month after retiring as a player at Queens Park Rangers, a team he had captained to the runners-up spot in the League in 1976.

He had no formal qualifications as a coach and by his own admission he lacked the experience to be a top flight manager, but he felt that his know-how as a captain would equip him for the job.

When he took over, Leicester City had finished the previous season in 11th place. When he left Filbert Street the following April, the Club were all but relegated.


The circumstances at Filbert Street was not ideal.  His initial transfer kitty was only £100,000  even though the Club needed  four of five new players. Pre-season fitness levels were low, and a defeat by newly relegated Tottenham Hotspur in a pre-season friendly indicated the scale of the job in hand. Keith Weller had a chronic knee problem. McLintock was also pressured into selling Frank Worthington who was having personal financial problems.

He started off by trying to get the team to play like Arsenal but didn’t have the right type of players. By the New Year, Leicester City were bottom of the table.

During the season, Frank brought his ex- team mates Eddie Kelly, David Webb and George Armstrong to Filbert Street as well as Alan Waddle, Geoff Salmons and Lammie Robertson.

He then paid a club record £250,000 to Bruges for Roger Davies the ex-Derby County goalscoring star from their title winning side, but he hadn’t researched this well enough and as Davies himself admitted to the Matchday Magazine in 2016, he wasn’t a success at Leicester.

 

With relegation all but confirmed by April the Directors wanted Frank to move to Leicester permanently instead of living in London, where he owned a pub, but he was reluctant to uproot his family without an extension to his  current one-year contract. When this was refused, he walked out of the Club.

In an interview with the Matchday Magazine in 2012, Frank told us that the biggest regret of career was not having the same impact as a manager at Leicester as he had as a player. He said, “I was heartbroken. I put my heart and soul into that job. I loved Leicester dearly. I really mean that”.

 

One of Frank’s legacies though was that his youth team included players like Trevor Christie, Larry May and Tommy Williams, who did so well for the club after his departure.

 

Arguably our worst ever manager what ever the circumstances stated.

 

Frank McLintock Scotland.png 1977-78 P40 W5 D12 L23 12.5%
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davieG

davieG

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2 minutes ago, weller54 said:

5 wins from 40 games! 

Slightly better than Puel? 

You can't leave it alone can you Puel has a 36.11% win ration somewhat better than Franks and whatever you feel about Puel's tactics it's light years ahead of the dross McLintock's team churned out. 

 

Bait duly taken from your regular trolling.

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Stan

Stan

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In an interview with the Matchday Magazine in 2012, Frank told us that the biggest regret of career was not having the same impact as a manager at Leicester as he had as a player. He said, “I was heartbroken. I put my heart and soul into that job. I loved Leicester dearly. I really mean that”.

 

It was a horrible time to be a fan, but it’s hard to hold grudges against McClintock. He ushered in the Jock Wallace and Gordon Milne era, which were great times.

 

cropstonfox

cropstonfox

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The worst season ever home and away as a teenager it just became a day out.

Things got better once Jock took over and we got a bit of pride back.

 

The next worse Manager had to be Peter the Taylor.

Frank MC and P Taylor Both  tried to phase out fairly successful teams and put their own players and ideas in place- in quite an wholesale fashion.

Lets hope we don't get a manager who tries this approach again??(Breaking up a good team?)

Little and O'neil and Pearson did this also- but they all took over poor /average teams

Edited by cropstonfox
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Rob1742

Rob1742

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For a kid it was an horrendous time. My heroes were Worthington and Weller and I was introduced to LCFC as a top flight team.

 

Relegation was a completely new feature for me, and something I just didn’t understand about as it hadn’t happened before.

 

I remember being about 11 at the time, we had been officially relegated and I made my way into school on the Monday.

 

A lad in our class, a real hard nut and glory hunting Liverpool fan was on my back laughing from the second I got there. Total humiliation which continued into the clsssroom and during registration.

 

The teacher (also a Liverpool fan) was reading the register and this lad was laughing at me still, and I just couldn’t hack it anymore.

 

As the names were being read out I just got up ran over and launched myself at this lad and was windmilling the life out of him as everyone wondered what was going on. It was totally out of character for me, it just wasn’t what I would do. The lad could do nothing but just defend himself at this sudden onslaught. 

 

The teacher got hold of me,  pulled us both to one side and sent everyone out to assembly while me and this lad awaited our punishment.

 

He got hold of the lad, pulled him around, slapped him around the head (as they did in those days). The teacher was fuming and I started panicking about what would happen to me.

 

The disheveled opponent was booted out of the classroom and he wasn’t in a good place as he made his way to assembly.

 

The teacher came up to me and said “don’t worry Rob, Leicester will make a great Division 2 team, you’ll be back in no time, I’m sorry you have gone down I know what it means to you”

 

Even though I was the instigator, I didn’t get a slap, no boot either, no bollocking, just a teacher that new what my team meant to me.

 

Relegation was awful, but then Jock Wallace came and as bad as McLintock was, Jock was every bit as good and more. 

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enmac

enmac

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1 hour ago, Isle of Wight Fox said:

I remember that season for the lack of goals. Only 16 scored in 21 games at home and only 10 away.

 

Awful season.

Actually saw Alan Waddle score! Birmingham City away. 

Terrible game. ( Nov. 1977) Awful season.

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boots60

boots60

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Dreadful season. After watching qualty entertainers playing attacking football under Jimmy Bloomfield, 77-78 was a massive shock to the system & as previously mentioned something that was new to many fans.

Nobody knew what was going on behind the scenes back then with Mc Lintock & the board as nothing was revealed at the time.

Peter Taylor & to a lesser extent Holloway carried on the McLintock tradition. 

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