Martin Allen

[Unabomber]

1 minute ago, Collymore said:

Allen was just an awful manager. Holloway runs him a close second in the awful stakes. Truly dark days those, best forgotten. 

Holloway was worse 

[Collymore]

2 minutes ago, Unabomber said:

Holloway was worse 

Yeah I won't argue.

 

 

[Unabomber]

1 minute ago, Collymore said:

Yeah I won't argue.

 

 

Mental how far we’ve come

[Corky]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

One of the funniest bits of that era was Megson being the absolute pits here and the fans wishing he was sacked and Bolton in the PL at the time came and actually paid compensation for him.

 

We were all going nuts as Mandaric was digging his heels in and refusing to let him go.

 

 

His style of football would've driven thousands away. Collectively the worst and least enjoyable home matches we've ever played under a manager.

[Koke]

17 minutes ago, Collymore said:

Allen was just an awful manager. Holloway runs him a close second in the awful stakes. Truly dark days those, best forgotten. 

 

16 minutes ago, Unabomber said:

Holloway was worse 

 

Holloway was worse for us (Allen only had 4 games anyway) but as a manager Holloway is a million times better than Allen. Holloway proved himself to be a decent manager at Championship level. Allen was lower league garbage.  

[Unabomber]

They are both shit

[Koke]

2 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

One of the funniest bits of that era was Megson being the absolute pits here and the fans wishing he was sacked and Bolton in the PL at the time came and actually paid compensation for him.

 

We were all going nuts as Mandaric was digging his heels in and refusing to let him go.

 

 

 

The Kop chanting "Megson for Bolton" at a home game we were winning was the weirdest and funniest thing I've seen at a match.

[sacreblueits442]

28 minutes ago, Collymore said:

Allen was just an awful manager. Holloway runs him a close second in the awful stakes. Truly dark days those, best forgotten. 

...both of them could not believe their luck, getting the Leicester job!!!

If the reaction of Allen to his salary was the same then they were more than likely on a disproportionate amount of money for the role. Even the bad days with Levein was tolerable, because he was doing his best, Holloway and Allen were just waiting to be found out.

[HybridFox]

From what I've heard, he was quite rude to staff at the club as well. Generally wasn't liked.

[HybridFox]

2 hours ago, Koke said:

 

The Kop chanting "Megson for Bolton" at a home game we were winning was the weirdest and funniest thing I've seen at a match.

Ironically I went with a Villa supporting mate to watch them play Bolton that season. MON at Villa and Megson at Bolton. The class couldn't be further apart 

 

And the scoreline reflected it. 4-0

[Lambert09]

I don’t think the time Holloway spent here should have any real reflection on him as a manager. 
 

it was a shite job at a shite time. He did badly, but I bet most would have failed. Our squad was gross and the attitudes worse.  Genuinely staying up would have been the worst thing we could have done as a club. All just a footnote in history for me. 

 

I think people struggle to see what a poisoned chalice we really were 

[dayday]

On 30/04/2021 at 15:41, dmayne7 said:

I'll PM you

And me 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

14 hours ago, PAULCFC said:

Remember him coming out before kick off at the last home game he managed(Watford),standing in the centre circle and waving,which i thought at the time was a bit strange.

First and last wasn’t it?

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

The best thing Holloway did was make that joke on the news about Gabor Bori and the other Hungarian lad making the “most marvellous goulash” as a response to a question about what they would bring to the team.

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

Been thinking about Holloway - he’s clearly not worse or even par with Mad Dog the gardener. He inherited an absolute shambles (I’d forgotten about Megson…) and at least he tried to restructure things and bought players who would form the beginnings of our recovery - Steve Howard and Matt Oakley for example.

[sacreblueits442]

12 hours ago, Lambert09 said:

I don’t think the time Holloway spent here should have any real reflection on him as a manager. 
 

it was a shite job at a shite time. He did badly, but I bet most would have failed. Our squad was gross and the attitudes worse.  Genuinely staying up would have been the worst thing we could have done as a club. All just a footnote in history for me. 

 

I think people struggle to see what a poisoned chalice we really were 

..Pearson turned it around!!!

It needed someone with a backbone and some vision, not someone who was happy to be here and couldn't believe their luck.

[RGFox]

I recall him getting the away changing room made smaller to make a psychological difference!

[Andrew]

On 01/05/2021 at 21:19, turkish14 said:

I did like Martin Allen’s write ups on the website, anyone remember those?

Yes I remember after the Blackpool defeat at home (His first game in charge) on the first game of the season. His disappointment at losing was overcome by his Sunday morning at home climbing a few trees with his son at home. Strange statement.

 

Oddly enough I was driving along the A4 towards Reading a few weeks ago and,  passed a man on a bicycle which was him.  My wife, who got a long enough look at him told me that he was the chap who did the cycling proficiency at the village school she works at.😁

[BoyJones]

23 hours ago, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

Been thinking about Holloway - he’s clearly not worse or even par with Mad Dog the gardener. He inherited an absolute shambles (I’d forgotten about Megson…) and at least he tried to restructure things and bought players who would form the beginnings of our recovery - Steve Howard and Matt Oakley for example.

I never really had any beef with Holloway, I thought he did his best and going down with 52 points was pretty unusual.
 

We only let in 45 goals all season and until the two late horror shows against the Sheffield clubs did have a plus goal difference. We had some solid professionals, but also some carthorses like Barry Hayles and N’Gotty, but TBH can’t remember how often they played. 

Let’s be honest, a team comprising: Fulop, Mattock, McAuley, Kisnorbo, Stearman, Clemence, Oakley, Wesolowski, Hume, Howard and Fryatt should have had enough to stay up, if not challenging for the play off’s. At the time I blamed the forwards, particularly Hume (who did score some goals in the run in) but who also missed plenty of sitters in the final ten games. At least Fryatt and Howard stayed around to redeem themselves.

 

Holloway should have been able to galvanise that line up and clearly was not the right man, but I believe he did genuinely try to get us playing football, but couldn’t stop the recurring car crash performances. By contrast Allen in my opinion was just an arrogant charlatan out for the money and didn’t give a cuss about the club. I think the average football fan knew as much about football as he did. To my mind Allen ranks alongside McLintock and Taylor as our three worst appointments in my 58 years of following the City.

 

 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

13 minutes ago, BoyJones said:

I never really had any beef with Holloway, I thought he did his best and going down with 52 points was pretty unusual.
 

We only let in 45 goals all season and until the two late horror shows against the Sheffield clubs did have a plus goal difference. We had some solid professionals, but also some carthorses like Barry Hayles and N’Gotty, but TBH can’t remember how often they played. 

Let’s be honest, a team comprising: Fulop, Mattock, McAuley, Kisnorbo, Stearman, Clemence, Oakley, Wesolowski, Hume, Howard and Fryatt should have had enough to stay up, if not challenging for the play off’s. At the time I blamed the forwards, particularly Hume (who did score some goals in the run in) but who also missed plenty of sitters in the final ten games. At least Fryatt and Howard stayed around to redeem themselves.

 

Holloway should have been able to galvanise that line up and clearly was not the right man, but I believe he did genuinely try to get us playing football, but couldn’t stop the recurring car crash performances. By contrast Allen in my opinion was just an arrogant charlatan out for the money and didn’t give a cuss about the club. I think the average football fan knew as much about football as he did. To my mind Allen ranks alongside McLintock and Taylor as our three worst appointments in my 58 years of following the City.

 

 

Did we go down with 52 points? Wow. Currently in the Championship with 1 game left Forest, Cov and Brum are on 52 points (16-18th) and are looking up to mid table than at the back door 

 

[fox_favourite]

On 30/04/2021 at 14:52, Iran said:

 

Dark times. 

Dark times at the time. But is now the turning the point for the club. A dark day that needed to happen, I feel so we could press the reset button. 

[gerrytaggart]

He really enjoyed telling the heroic story of stealing a flag. And he seemed totally perplexed when the theft was mentioned as a point during his sacking.!!

 

Just comes across as a bit of a nob, very much out of his depth.

[Foxaholic ME]

On 01/05/2021 at 21:52, Unabomber said:

Holloway was worse 

He was manager for only 3 league games the last one a 4-1 thumping of Watford  so  you cant give an opinion or compare him with other dead beats . Pearson has failed every where bar here and Holloway got Blackpool into the Premier so perhaps it was other factors

[Vlad the Fox]

I remember when I saw on the news that we’d hired megson I just sat with my head in my hands and sunk into a depression. Usually when we’ve hired manages in the past, even those I’ve had my doubts about, I’ve had a little rush of optimism. But with megson it was misery.
 

When Bolton was interested I was struck with a mixture of raging excitement and helpless desperation as mandaric fought to keep him. 

[BoyJones]

4 hours ago, Wasyls Pec Deck said:

Did we go down with 52 points? Wow. Currently in the Championship with 1 game left Forest, Cov and Brum are on 52 points (16-18th) and are looking up to mid table than at the back door 

 

Yes, if McAuley’s header had gone in instead of hitting the post, Coventry City would have gone down on 53 points!