The Managers: Dave Bassett, 2001-2002

[davieG]

Dave Bassett, whose 980-game career in management up until that point had spanned a quarter of a century, arrived at Leicester City as manager in October 2001 with a very successful record of achievement.

Dave, often known as ‘Harry’, spent 15 years playing as a defensive midfielder for non-league Hayes, Wycombe Wanderers, St Albans City, Walton and Hersham, with whom he won the Amateur Cup at Wembley in 1973, and Wimbledon.

He moved to Southern League side Wimbledon in 1974, winning three successive Southern league titles prior to the club entering the Football League in 1977.

Bassett played in the famous 1975 FA Cup run which saw the Dons defeat top-flight Burnley and draw with Leeds United at Elland Road before his own goal in the replay ended the run.

After playing in Wimbledon’s inaugural season in the Football League, Bassett became the club’s coach as Dario Gradi’s assistant.

Appointed manager in January 1981, he led Wimbledon from the Fourth Division to sixth place in the old First Division in just seven seasons on a shoestring budget.

During Bassett's tenure, the King Power Stadium was being built.

His shrewd signings included Lawrie Sanchez, Justin Fashanu, Nigel Winterburn, Dave Beasant, Andy Thorn and Brian Gayle.

 

Following a difficult seven-month spell as manager in 1987 at Elton John’s Watford, Bassett’s managerial success continued at Sheffield United, when he took them from the Third Division to the top flight in 1990 with back-to-back promotions.

Tony Agana and Brian Deane were inspired signings. Relegated from the Premier League in the last few minutes of the 1993/194 season, Bassett resigned 18 months later in December 1996.

He then led Crystal Place from 16th position, when he was appointed in February, to a Wembley Play-Off Final for a place in the Premier League three months later, only to be defeated by Martin O’Neill’s Leicester City.

Two seasons later, helped by Micky Adams, he led Nottingham Forest to the Premier League and, two years after that, took Barnsley to a Wembley Play-Off Final.

 

Bassett’s record of success, combined with his reputation as a motivator led to his appointment in October 2001 as manager of Leicester City, who were bottom of the Premier League.

Micky Adams was appointed as his assistant with a view to becoming the manager in the future. Despite signing Paul Dickov to partner his old Sheffield United striker Deane, Bassett was only able to manage three Premier League wins in six months.

When relegation was confirmed with four games to go, Adams took over as manager with Bassett becoming director of football.

 

As a postscript, following Adams’ resignation in October 2004, Bassett, helped by Howard Wilkinson, took temporary charge again, until the appointment of Craig Levein four games later.

This was Bassett’s last spell as manager apart from a three-match period as caretaker at Southampton in 2005, although he had spells in assistant or consultant capacities at Watford, Leeds United and Sheffield United.

 

https://www.lcfc.com/news/1109752/the-managers-dave-bassett-20012002

[Paninistickers]

Bassett had an underrated summer as DoF after Micky Adams' promotion.

 

All the TV money went on settling debts agreed with creditors in our administration - so we had to build a premier team on free transfers.

 

Bassett did a marvellous effort of wheeling & dealing, highlights being the excellent signings of Ferdinand and Bent.

 

He took gambles (what choice did he have?) On decent but unmanageable troublemakers Gillespie & Howey from Newcastle.

 

All in all, what followed remains amongst the bitterest of relegations....a high scoring team but catastrophic late goals conceded in around 8 matches.  Bolton, wolves, Middlesbrough & Newcastle - are all amongst the most sickening draws/defeats I can remember

Edited 19 March 2019 by Paninistickers

[murphy]

I remember when his appointment was being rumoured and the fans were singing "You can stick your Dave Basset up your a*se."

 

Plus ça change.

[davieG]

My abiding memory of his management was his panic when we were playing Sheffield United I think on TV and we’d just gone down to 9 men when he was shown turning to Adams and shouting in a panic what should we do, what should we do?

Adams then calmly set about making some decisions.

[bovril]

24 minutes ago, davieG said:

My abiding memory of his management was his panic when we were playing Sheffield United I think on TV and we’d just gone down to 9 men when he was shown turning to Adams and shouting in a panic what should we do, what should we do?

Adams then calmly set about making some decisions.

It was Bolton, and I was about to post the same thing. His "where's Jonesy?" and "what do we do now?" are the stuff of legends. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Can we not just fast forward to NP in 2008 now?

[Corky]

We intermittently threatened to leave the relegation battle, twice getting up to 17th before Christmas, but never managed a sustained run. Awful results included 4-0 and 3-0 home defeats to Southampton and Derby who were both mediocre to crap.

 

Team was gone early in the New Year, although he brought in ultimately good signings in Deane and Dickov during his tenure.

[Paninistickers]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

It was Bolton, and I was about to post the same thing. His "where's Jonesy?" and "what do we do now?" are the stuff of legends. 

That game sickens me to this day. Inside the opening 10 mins, Bolton had scored an own goal, conceded another to a goalkeeping howler and had two men sent off. IN THE FIRST TEN MINUTES.

 

Yet we still conspired to draw courtesy of an equaliser 6 mins into added time ,(a win would've took us out the bottom three)

 

I think every resident of Thorpe astley could hear my cries of agony

 

 

 

 

[bovril]

2 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

That game sickens me to this day. Inside the opening 10 mins, Bolton had scored an own goal, conceded another to a goalkeeping howler and had two men sent off. IN THE FIRST TEN MINUTES.

 

Yet we still conspired to draw courtesy of an equaliser 6 mins into added time ,(a win would've took us out the bottom three)

 

I think every resident of Thorpe astley could hear my cries of agony

 

 

 

 

I remember it well. It wasn't as painful as Wolves two years later but it was just an inept. The Basset / Adams era saw some appalling collapses. I remember Dickov saying that Adams taught them to go for the 3rd goal as "2-0 is a dangerous scoreline", which is extremely naive. 

[Paninistickers]

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

I remember it well. It wasn't as painful as Wolves two years later but it was just an inept. The Basset / Adams era saw some appalling collapses. I remember Dickov saying that Adams taught them to go for the 3rd goal as "2-0 is a dangerous scoreline", which is extremely naive. 

Wolves was horrifying. Equally so was Middlesbrough'....3-1 in injury time. 

 

I actually curled up foetal style on the living room floor /howling as the horrific news came through on R5

[Corky]

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

I remember it well. It wasn't as painful as Wolves two years later but it was just an inept. The Basset / Adams era saw some appalling collapses. I remember Dickov saying that Adams taught them to go for the 3rd goal as "2-0 is a dangerous scoreline", which is extremely naive. 

I can think of at least 8 instances in three years where we were two goals up and failed to win. Bolton, Southampton and Everton in 2001/02, Notts Forest and Millwall in 2002/03, Southampton, Wolves (3-0) and Middlesbrough (3-1 up in injury time!) in 2003/04 and QPR in 2004/05.

 

Those years were characterised by those collapses and a plethora of late goals in our net. I dread to think how many points we lost in the final 10 minutes of matches.

[bovril]

10 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Wolves was horrifying. Equally so was Middlesbrough'....3-1 in injury time. 

 

I actually curled up foetal style on the living room floor /howling as the horrific news came through on R5

The boro one was awful as it was later on in the season and just felt like we'd never get out of the relegation zone. It was painful, I felt sick. 

[Langston]

He never seemed to blink, that's my first thought when I hear the name.

I honestly can't remember a thing about his tenure apart from a press conference with Adams next to him. 

Edited 19 March 2019 by Langston

[Blue ROI]

Leave the 03/04 talk to when we get there lads.

 

Painful and all as it was.

[ThingsCouldGetMessi]

It was a disastrous season and it would be easy to say Bassett was a bad appointment. However, he took over a ship that was already sinking and the squad was full of players out of their depth. Peter Taylor spent a huge amount of money by our own standards at the time and practically destroyed our club doing so. I don't think he could have done any more damage if he tried and I still hate him to this very day. That defeat to Wycombe started a terrible run of results and showed Taylor couldn't turn things around when they were bad. We should have got rid at the end of 2000-01 but when we didn't, I knew we were in serious trouble. 

 

The Bolton game at the start of 2001-02 is almost as low as I've felt as a Leicester fan. Suspicions confirmed in the very first match of the season. Taylor was sacked after 8 games and replaced by Bassett but the problems were evident. Too many players not good enough, no firepower to win games, no confidence and Dennis Wise being at the club. No manager would have kept us up and if anything, Bassett deserves a bit of praise for helping us get a partly respectable 28 points. 

[rico]

12 hours ago, Corky said:

I can think of at least 8 instances in three years where we were two goals up and failed to win. Bolton, Southampton and Everton in 2001/02, Notts Forest and Millwall in 2002/03, Southampton, Wolves (3-0) and Middlesbrough (3-1 up in injury time!) in 2003/04 and QPR in 2004/05.

 

Those years were characterised by those collapses and a plethora of late goals in our net. I dread to think how many points we lost in the final 10 minutes of matches.

i think there was a stat that if we hadn't let in all those late goals that season we would have been in a Champions League spot ?

[Fox In The Box 90]

Had an impossible job trying to keep us up but made us respectable and crucially signed paul dickov who fired us to promotion under adams

[Leicesterpool]

He did what he could he came into a squad that doomed from early August onwards back in 2001, he had to pick up the mess that Taylor left behind and with the squad he had there was nothing he could do. As mentioned before the dressing became toxic under Taylor with the players he bought, Bassett's job was try to unite that squad again but I don't think that happened until Adams came. I refuse to say Bassett was the worst, it would be so unfair to say that maybe a year earlier when O'Neill departed and Bassett replaced him instead things would have been so different I think.

Edited 20 March 2019 by Leicesterpool

[inckley fox]

I have a very, very fanatical old friend - the sort with every programme, shirt, headline you can imagine stashed away - who treats ex-Leicester men as if they are all icons for having worn the blessed shirt. The only exception is Dennis Wise. Other than that, there's always something positive. Junior Lewis - his debut was excellent. He did his best. Ade Akinbiyi - well, if it wasn't for the price tag he wouldn't even make our worst 100, let alone our worst XI. Zjelko Kalac - okay, maybe he would, but he'd have won the 96 final for us if it'd gone to penos.

 

To him, former managers are kind of like monarchs, and he has a good word to say about literally all of them. Right down to McLintock, Taylor, Bassett. The defence of Bassett is more convincing than the defence of Taylor.

 

For me, he was a bit of a dinosaur by the time he wound up at Leicester, but his CV was much better than he got credit for. And, though he was the wrong man at the wrong time, he did his best in impossible circumstances.

[Gamble92]

"Bassett played in the famous 1975 FA Cup run which saw the Dons defeat top-flight Burnley and draw with Leeds United at Elland Road before his own goal in the replay ended the run."

 

Bet he's thrilled you included this line in a brief history of the whole mans career. 

[simpmeister]

I met Bassett last year and I asked him his thoughts on his spell with us and his response was quite interesting. He said the squad were a good, honest bunch of lads who worked hard, but the problem was that some of them were just sh*t and out of there depth, through no fault of there own. The players he mentioned were Akinbiyi and Trevor Benjamin.