The Managers: Martin Allen, 2007

[davieG]

https://www.lcfc.com/news/1194284/the-managers-martin-allen-2007

 

 

John Hutchinson's long-running feature on Leicester City's managers continues with a reflection on Martin Allen's brief spell at the Club.

 

In May 2007, Leicester City narrowly escaped relegation from the Championship, and the Club’s owner, Milan Mandarić, decided not to extend Nigel Worthington’s contract as manager.

He appointed MK Dons manager Allen in his place, giving him a three-year contract.

This set in motion a series of events which resulted in what was arguably the most difficult season in Leicester City’s long history.

Over the next 12 months, the Club had three permanent managers, played a record number of 40 players in the first team and was relegated for the first time to the third tier of English football.

Allen's appointment led to a very brief spell as the Club's manager. 

After only 96 days and five games - one of which was abandoned at half-time - Allen had left the Club.

Allen's decision to replant the flower beds at the training ground with blue and white flowers made headlines and he also posted unedited blogs on the Club’s website.

There was a flurry of new signings: Bruno N’Gotty, Jimmy Neilson, Ricky Sappleton, Carl Cort, Sergio Hellings, Radostin Kishishev, James Chambers, Jonathan Hayes, Hossein Kaebi, Shaun Newton, Stephen Clemence and DJ Campbell. Very few were successful.

Allen’s first game was a home defeat to Simon Grayson’s newly-promoted Blackpool. The following week two loan players arrived from Sunderland.

These were goalkeeper Márton Fülöp and full-back Clive Clarke. The Blackpool defeat was followed by a 1-0 League Cup victory at Accrington Stanley and a 2-2 draw at Crystal Palace.

Allen’s final home game was an impressive 4-1 win over Watford, with goals from Iain Hume, DJ Campbell, Alan Sheehan and Mark de Vries.

His final game at home was his most memorable, a 4-1 win over Watford. 

However, behind the scenes, tensions continued to develop. When Allen waved to the crowd after the victory over Watford, some thought it might be a farewell wave.

Nevertheless, he was still in charge of the side which went to Nottingham Forest for a League Cup tie three days later.

This was Allen’s last game as Leicester City’s manager. At half-time, Clarke had a heart attack in the dressing room.

The first moment the crowd became aware that something might be wrong was when Allen emerged with the players from the tunnel to conduct his half-time talk pitchside.

Clarke was fighting for his life in the dressing room. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and four attempts at using a defibrillator was followed by Clarke being rushed to the Queens Medical Centre, which saved his life.

The game was abandoned. The next day, Allen left the Club by mutual consent. The instability and turmoil which was to characterise the reminder of the season had only just begun.

[Wymsey]

Will always remember the incident where Martin Allen denied, whilst talking to Sky Sports News, that a deal (arranged by Mandaric without Allen's approval) had been agreed to sign Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink and he angered Mandaric by refusing to sign him..

 

Remember watching it in a pub in Accrington before our cup gane with them and after some silence between Allen and the Sky Sports presenter, everyone burst out laughing.

 

Like Holloway, was a joker but was a disastrous appointment for the club.

 

[Koke]

Right Back United. 

[Fox92]

We made so many bad signings that summer.

 

I'll always remember going to the Forest games and the that got abandoned was awful.... The second was superb. That Clemence goal!

edit: Just realised they were both under Megson.

[Corky]

We had the best flowerbeds in the league.

[whetstonefox]

And next came Gary Megson! Wasn't his first game message to the fans 'I was forest get over it' the ginger morinho! Sheffield Weds away one of the few highlights of that season

[Trav Le Bleu]

The start of the great slide.

 

Also, he was the knob who started us playing Hey Jude before kick off to get players up for the game... you know, by playing a slow dirge written by one of the most over-rated bands in history, over forty years ago.

 

And then I thought the season couldn't get worse...

 

[Aus Fox]

5 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The start of the great slide.

 

Also, he was the knob who started us playing Hey Jude before kick off to get players up for the game... you know, by playing a slow dirge written by one of the most over-rated bands in history, over forty years ago.

 

And then I thought the season couldn't get worse...

 

I think by the time he got here we were definitely well and truely on the slide.

he was well out of his depth and a bizarre appointment in the first place.

You could say classic Manderic

[PAULCFC]

1 hour ago, Fox92 said:

We made so many bad signings that summer.

 

I'll always remember going to the Forest games and the that got abandoned was awful.... The second was superb. That Clemence goal!

edit: Just realised they were both under Megson.

The first one at the city ground was under Allen

 

1 hour ago, Fox92 said:

We made so many bad signings that summer.

 

I'll always remember going to the Forest games and the that got abandoned was awful.... The second was superb. That Clemence goal!

edit: Just realised they were both under Megson.

The one at the city ground was defiantly under Allen,as I can remember him coming over(and the forest manager(scotch....played for spurs...can't remember his name) and trying to explain things.Also the Allen clapping the fans was at the start of the Watford game which we all thought was odd.Would be interested to know what happened while he was here,ok since then he has not done much and needs to stay away from nightclubs.

[Ross-Kemp]

I quite liked him. Remember going to a Q&A shortly after, he walked because of Mandaric’s desire to sign Hasselbank.

 

 

[Nod.E]

Remember hearing that a lot of his leaving was centred around Kaebi.

 

His signing had nothing to do with Allen, he didn't speak a word of English and Mandaric was telling Allen that he had to play him.

 

When Allen refused, Mandaric didn't take well to that and the rest is history.

[Heathrow fox]

He was actually a manager on the up when he came to us. He had a great spell as manager at Brentford during a spell when I regularly watched them.Did ok at MK Dons then came here.Out of that long list of players, only the Brum trio and Sappleton +one or two I’m guessing were his signings.At least there was an air of positivity during that summer.

 

He went on to be hit and miss wherever he went next.A couple of promotions.Hero at Barnet for coming back about six times.Had a shocker at Chesterfield this season though.Usually has Carl Muggleton as his assistant.

[PhillippaT]

I barely remember anything about football from that time - it was just after I moved to Leeds, and I had other things to think/worry about   It probably wasn't until 09-10 season that I really started paying attention to LCFC and football again, a couple more seasons to realise this place existed, and then..........  To think I'd probably heard and knew more about LEEDS FC from that time  *shudder*

[Gamble92]

45 minutes ago, PhillippaT said:

I barely remember anything about football from that time - it was just after I moved to Leeds, and I had other things to think/worry about   It probably wasn't until 09-10 season that I really started paying attention to LCFC and football again, a couple more seasons to realise this place existed, and then..........  To think I'd probably heard and knew more about LEEDS FC from that time  *shudder*

Yeah, probably even enough to know they're called Leeds United 

[fleckneymike]

Nearly every signing was a Mandaric signing. We even signed players whilst we had no manager, Marco Ferreira anyone?

 

Milan is both the worst and best thing to ever happen to us. 

[Koke]

So I was just going through old games of that season and came across a 1-0 home win over Crystal Palace. A late Barry Hayles goal bounced off his arse and went in.

 

Then I see Neil Warnock hasn't changed one bit

 

[Footballwipe]

I started archiving stuff about Leicester from the telly around this time; here's a feature on the day after his sacking with three fans calling for him to be reinstated.

 

 

[Samilktray]

Probably the most exciting transfer window this club has ever seen. Absolutely tropical 

[PhillippaT]

10 hours ago, Gamble92 said:

Yeah, probably even enough to know they're called Leeds United 

That shows how much I've been doing my best to forget about it, doesn't it?    *headdesk*

[SouthStandUpperTier]

11 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

I started archiving stuff about Leicester from the telly around this time; here's a feature on the day after his sacking with three fans calling for him to be reinstated.

 

 

We were going through a rough spell in this club's history. But look to the right - Derby were just embarking on the worst season in Premier League history. Every cloud and all that.

[RoboFox]

I actually recall being quite excited that summer. The players just kept on arriving. 

 

Then they started playing...

[Guest Electric Yetis]

2 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

I actually recall being quite excited that summer. The players just kept on arriving. 

 

Then they started playing...

The start wasn't too bad. Granted we lost to Blackpool opening day. I went to Palace the next week and we deserved more than the 2-2 draw and then we smashed Watford 4-1 with a Pele-esque display from De Vries. 

[Guest Cujek]

45 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

I started archiving stuff about Leicester from the telly around this time; here's a feature on the day after his sacking with three fans calling for him to be reinstated.

 

 

was that the year Derby got 11 points?

[Paninistickers]

17 hours ago, PAULCFC said:

The first one at the city ground was under Allen

 

The one at the city ground was defiantly under Allen,as I can remember him coming over(and the forest manager(scotch....played for spurs...can't remember his name) and trying to explain things.Also the Allen clapping the fans was at the start of the Watford game which we all thought was odd.Would be interested to know what happened while he was here,ok since then he has not done much and needs to stay away from nightclubs.

The 'scotch' was Colin Calderwood.

 

Not that either you, nor I, care. I instead just wanted to remark on the little used but excellent use of scotch to describe a jock.

 

A far more subtle and withering put down. Well done sir.

[Mike the Metal Ed]

Such a false dawn. We were unlucky to lose to Blackpool on the opening day, followed by a strong performance at Crystal Palace and we trounced Watford 4-1 at home. He turned Mark de Vries into a machine, somehow and we genuinely, for a month, looked like we'd stopped the rot of the previous three seasons. 45 minutes of shocking football at Forest before Clive Clarke fell ill was the first time we hadn't looked great under him and then it was over. I'd love to know what went on between him and Mandy behind closed doors. In the long term, I think he's shown that we wouldn't have done great under him, but the same could be said of Nigel Pearson had he been in charge for just two months.

 

His rambling blogs on LCFC.com are long lost, but I have to post this summary of one example from the Mirror.

Quote

LEICESTER manager Martin Allen claims he landed striker DJ Campbell - by pretending to be Sir Alex Ferguson.

Allen phoned Birmingham boss Steve Bruce to iron out a hitch in the £2million deal only to be told he was unavailable. So Allen put on a Scottish voice to get Bruce on the other end of the line.

"I replied in my best Scottish accent that it was Sir Alex Ferguson," said Allen.

"Steve Bruce came to the phone and said 'Good morning, Alex' and I replied: 'Good morning Steve, it's Martin Allen'.

"He laughed and laughed and laughed, and called me a few names.

"But I got the answer out of him that I wanted and we got a deal."

 

 

Take care,

 

Martin.