'Pleat Out'

[davieG]

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If you started going down to Filbert Street at the tail end of 1990 and start of 1991, it would have been one of the first chants you learned.

Pleat Out: the angry, insistent demand of a furious, but dwindling band Leicester City fans who'd had their fill of a midfield-crammed but ineffectual football which had left the club on the edge of oblivion. Well, the old third division.

The mood had been sharply different on Christmas Eve, 1987, when Leicester City announced David Pleat would become the club’s 27th manager.

Pleat had been the manager at Tottenham Hotspur, finishing the previous season third in the league and runners-up in the FA Cup, impressing critics and casual observers with his side’s free-flowing, attractive football.

 

And then, you may recall, his days in the Spurs hot seat all came to a crashing halt. In October 1987, Pleat left amid a tabloid storm.

One hundred miles up the M1, with, it has to be said, much less newspaper interest, City sacked Bryan Hamilton and had begun the search for a new boss.

More than 40 people applied for the City job. Pleat’s name surfaced slowly, floated tentatively in the press as if to first gauge the reaction of supporters.

Former Manchester City and Norwich boss John Bond and retired Nottingham Forest midfielder Archie Gemmill were seen as the early favourites.

The big question was: ‘Would the fans take to Pleat?’ It seemed that they would.

Pleat was appointed on Christmas Eve and told a press conference: “I was forced to resign at Spurs after an alleged incident in which I was a totally innocent party, and I considered court action.”

The controversy that had surrounded Pleat seemed to matter less to the fans than his reputation for playing attractive football.

For supporters who had not witnessed a City goal in their previous seven games, David Pleat seemed like the ideal Christmas gift. He'd even watched football here as a boy.

A Nottingham lad, Pleat was brought over to Filbert Street by his dad when he was a mere schoolboy.

“I was brought up watching the likes of Derek Hines, Arthur Rowley, Derek Hogg and the like.”

“It was where I kindled my great passion for football.

“We used to sit in the Double Decker stand behind the goal and I remember seeing the great John Charles playing there, too.

“I carried on watching at Filbert Street in the ’60s, seeing the likes of Ken Keyworth, Davie Gibson and Graham Cross.”

Pleat took charge after the festive break and surveyed a dismal scene.

Much work needs to be done, he announced gravely in the early New Year. “This squad requires major surgery,” he said.

That is all fine, nodded then-chairman Terry Shipman.

But Pleat feels he did not get the funds he was promised. He said nothing at the time – “You go back through your archive,” he told the Mercury in 2008, “you won’t find anything from me complaining about the financial situation at Leicester”.

“My time at Leicester,” he said, “can be summed up quite simply: a good first year, not bad second year, not so great third year.”

A simple summary. You would not have to search far, it has to be said, to find City fans who would describe his three-year reign quite differently.

“When I left, Terry Shipman said to me, ‘Well, you got us lots of money, David – but not enough points.’ And he was right.”

And yet that first season – from January 1, 1988, until the final game against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park, a game which City won 2-1 and a match that for some reason still seems to make Pleat bristle with indignation – was a revelation.

City lost only four games in the second half of the 1987/88 season, gaining 23 points – more, in the latter half of that season, than champions Millwall.

“From a dispirited shiftless outfit, flirting with relegation, City have been transformed into the strongest team in the Second Division,” the Mercury concluded at the end of the season.

Pleat remembers this part of his City tenure clearly; the honeymoon period before the bitter divorce, the happy days when the Filbert Street faithful loved him, before he was serenaded with a chorus of ‘Pleat Out’ every Saturday afternoon.

The secret of this early turnaround, he told us in 2008, were the players he signed; specifically, bargain-basement striker Nicky Cross, a £65,000 signing from Walsall who struck up a natural understanding with City striker Mike Newell and Scottish left-sided winger Peter Weir, who slotted straight into left midfield next to Gary McAllister.

City had a new-found purpose. It all came together, says Pleat, in that last match of the season against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park.

“I remember sitting the players down before that game and telling them how well they’d done,” he said.

“‘We’ll be favourites for promotion next season,’ I said to them. ‘So we need to stick together. Unity. It’s very important. This could be the start of something very special’.”

It was, he says, a speech aimed at just one man: centre-half, captain and Escape to Victory film star Russell Osman, who was eyeing up a move to First Division Southampton.

“Osman was pivotal to us,” recalled Pleat.

“But he wanted to move. I didn’t want him to go. I fought like crazy at the tribunal and it seemed like we got a good deal; £350,000 for a boy of his age, not bad at all...”

The directors were pleased. But it was not a great deal, says Pleat. It was, instead, The Beginning Of The End.

Final-day relegation battles, too many games frittered away, points lost and fan protests – you can trace it all back to the departure of Russell Osman, reckoned Pleat.

“We never replaced him,” he said. “That was my Achilles heel at Leicester City. It’s easy to see that with hindsight. It cost us dear.”

The next year – with Osman gone but City still the bookies favourites for promotion – Pleat’s optimistic forecasts seemed woefully off target as City limped to a mid-table finish.

As good players left and largely mediocre players were brought in to replace them, the following season followed a similar pattern. City finished 13th in the 1989/90 season. Optimism, remembered Pleat, had been replaced by pessimism. On the terraces, there were the first rumblings of disquiet.

And yet as City began to crumble, other clubs were sniffing around, asking the board for permission to talk to our manager. Pleat was still highly regarded.

Aston Villa and Hearts both wanted him to be their boss. Instead, Pleat was persuaded to sign a new, and improved – “although only slightly improved,” he says – City contract.

So where, why and how did it all go wrong for David Pleat?

City bible Of Fossils & Foxes concludes there was “more posturing than poise” during Pleat’s regime, and that although the City boss talked a good game, this was not always reflected week in, week out, with the rubbish the fans were paying to watch on the pitch.

Is that a fair assessment? Pleat said not. But, 20 years on, he admitted he was not entirely blameless for City’s demise. Some of the players he bought, he said, were simply not up to the job.

There were some good buys; former Nottingham Forest European Cup winner Gary Mills, winger ‘Oooh’ Tommy Wright, centre-half Tony James, striker-cum-midfielder David Oldfield and striker Kevin ‘Rooster’ Russell all arrived and did a decent job and won over a crowd which was quickly losing its patience.

But the list ends there.

Ultimately, as good players left and not-so-good players were signed to replace them, it left decent professionals like Gary McAllister looking around and thinking: ‘What the hell is going on? I can do better elsewhere’.

After turning down a good offer from Brian Clough’s Forest, Gary Mac – the creative lynchpin of City’s midfield – joined Leeds.

With Mike Newell signing for Everton, the City manager was left trying to fit square pegs into round holes at Filbert Street. It did not work.

“My team was dissolving,” he said. “I was hoping the young players – I remember Paul Kitson, Des Linton, Ian Baraclough coming through – could do a job. But it wasn’t enough.

“I also had a couple of players who were past their best.”

Who do you mean, we asked?

“Well, Paul Ramsey and Ali Mauchlen,” he said. “I think their better days were behind them.”

On January 26, 1991, City played Blackburn Rovers at home in front of a gate of just 8,167, a sizeable portion of whom seemed to be chanting for Pleat to leave.

City had won once in the previous seven games and were floating precariously above the bottom three.

“I remember saying to the chairman, Terry Shipman – who was a decent man, and a true Leicester City fan – that I hoped this game would not be my last. He told me afterwards there had been a board meeting and that the game would be my last – and it would be his last game, too.

“Look, I’m not stupid. The fans wanted results. I know that. But there was a hard core of fans who were shouting and chanting and abusing the players and the manager. Does that help? Does it? I don’t think it does.”

"I was disappointed to leave Leicester City. But managers are forced to leave football clubs. It happens. Managers are not surprised when that happens.”

Of Fossils & Foxes takes issue with Pleat’s version of events.

“As the manager became better known for his media-friendly punditry,” the book argues, “it became intensely frustrating for the fans to observe such an obvious mismatch between tactics spoken about and those expressed on the pitch.”

In an interview with The Fox fanzine shortly after Pleat’s departure, Tommy Wright remembered a training session after an unusual away-day win. The players arrived the next day and there was a blackboard with the mantra: ‘One swallow does not make a summer.’ The players looked at each other, bemused.

Other observers say the club’s demise was due largely to Pleat’s inability to communicate his over-elaborate ideas and tactics.

By February, Gordon Lee – Pleat’s No.2 – had been given the unenviable task of saving City from relegation to the old Third Division.

Pleat walked off into the sunset with his contract paid up, wondering what lay in store, leaving Lee with a Herculean task of saving City.

“I felt empty,” recalled Pleat. “It’s a strange feeling when you’ve been involved at every level of a football club and then, suddenly, you’re not.”

On May 11, 1991 – in front of one of City’s biggest home gates of the previous five seasons – Gordon Lee’s side beat Oxford United 1-0 to escape the drop, with centre-half Tony James, a Pleat acquisition from lowly Lincoln City, scoring the decisive goal.

“I rang Gordon before the game. He was a terrific man, a good manager and I wished him well. I was glad the club stayed up.

“But it went to the final game. It just goes to show,” concluded Pleat, “that even with Gordon, they couldn’t do that much better.”

Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Picture-day-Pleat-protest-Leicester-City-fans/story-20631105-detail/story.html#ixzz2tNs5JM2Y

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

The wilderness years for me, I only saw them under Pleat on a handful of occasions, plenty under Jock and Milne, but not Hamilton and Pleat. Strangely a work mate loved the Pleat period as there were plenty of goals and always something happening (his words)

The Oxford game was one of the two occasions I went on the pitch at the end of the game, the other being Burnley when we won promotion under Milne.

I will always love Tony James for his goal against Oxford.

[Kilworthfox]

I was just a kid but, PLEAT OUT!

[davieG]

The wilderness years for me, I only saw them under Pleat on a handful of occasions, plenty under Jock and Milne, but not Hamilton and Pleat. Strangely a work mate loved the Pleat period as there were plenty of goals and always something happening (his words)

The Oxford game was one of the two occasions I went on the pitch at the end of the game, the other being Burnley when we won promotion under Milne.

I will always love Tony James for his goal against Oxford.

I went to every home game that season apart from the Oxford one where I was too ill to go I think I deserved to be better treated by life having endured the rest of the season.

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

I went to every home game that season apart from the Oxford one where I was too ill to go I think I deserved to be better treated by life having endured the rest of the season.

Supporting City can be an endurance test! I always thought it strange my work mate loving the Pleat years, can you shed any light on where he is coming from?

[Webbo]

I remember being so excited when Pleat was appointed. As the article says wasn't a bad first season but it just didn't work out for him here.

[Bayfox]

My 1st game was 89.

So my 1st regular seasons were under pleat.

I don't think I really understood the game as such at that point. But felt we had some ok players. But looking back for whatever reason we served up some real dross.

But that game v oxford well actually I cant remember that much about the game. But tony james scoring was mental and realising we had stayed up was a feeling that lives with me today.

Sure having witnessed that made the pain of stoke worse.

[Bourne Blue& White]

I was at the Blackburn game, and remember a quite few fans running on to the pitch while the game was on, to demonstrate in front of the dug out. Also remember the heated demonstration outside the main stand after the game.

[Deucalion]

My first game was when Pleat was manager.

 

We lost 4-2 to Sheffield Wednesday and their fans were all over the ground.

 

I don't know why I went again !!  

 

Also, I was away for the Oxford game.  I was on a ferry going to Ireland to tour around on my RD350.

 

I joined a few blokes watching the results come in, including a West Brom fan.  The Irish TV channel read out all the First Division scores and then...

 

stopped !!    

 

This is the days before internet and mobile phones and we were staying in the middle of nowhere.  I didn't find out we had stayed up until the middle of the next day when my mate phoned his mum from a payphone.

 

I don't know when the West Brom fan found out they had gone down !!

[Kitchandro]

'striker-cum-midfielder David Oldfield'

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

That group in the photo look like EDL members.

[Vlad the Fox]

'striker-cum-midfielder David Oldfield'

Think the reporter spends too much time in Internet chat rooms.

[sylofox]

We have never had such a shite period as under pleat.

The bit I now laugh about the most was his away post match comments and the mockery reports.

 

No wonder we were so bad the mockery and pleat did not attend our away games they went somewhere different.

We could get battered 6-0 and beaten to a pulp (on the pitch)

Pleat would make out we was very unlucky and if our first shot on goal had gone in the game would have been different (That would have made it 4-1 you tw@ )

 

The man was a total joke and made our club an even bigger joke.

[Karljohn]

Was at the Blackburn game,he was a truly awful manager.

I remember reading somewhere after we won a home game 3-0 he wrote on the board in the dressing room 'one swallow doesn't make a summer' he was an arsehole.

[dayday]

My 1st game was 89.

So my 1st regular seasons were under pleat.

I don't think I really understood the game as such at that point. But felt we had some ok players. But looking back for whatever reason we served up some real dross.

But that game v oxford well actually I cant remember that much about the game. But tony james scoring was mental and realising we had stayed up was a feeling that lives with me today.

Sure having witnessed that made the pain of stoke worse.

Poor old Tony James scores and all the players ran to David Kelly if my memory is right.

The only good thing about the Pleat era was the signing of Kevin Campbell and Paul Moran,instantly got a partnership going and it was gut wrenching to see Kevin Campbell go back to Arsenal.

[dayday]

We have never had such a shite period as under pleat.

The bit I now laugh about the most was his away post match comments and the mockery reports.

No wonder we were so bad the mockery and pleat did not attend our away games they went somewhere different.

We could get battered 6-0 and beaten to a pulp (on the pitch)

Pleat would make out we was very unlucky and if our first shot on goal had gone in the game would have been different (That would have made it 4-1 you tw@ )

The man was a total joke and made our club an even bigger joke.

That 6-0 defeat,was that at Middlesboro?and Walshie breaking a leg?.....also remember if that's the same game,being legged outside the ground,they were still gunning for us from stopping them getting promoted,a few seasons back.

[6ups 6downs 2 cups]

Remember losing 5-2 at Hull on a Friday night, being at the bottom but apparently being in with a chance of the play offs, bill Anderson blaming the fans, being 1-0 up at millwall in the cup and letting in 2 last minute goals, a 0 0 against Watford where 1000s of kids on a free offer or something were screaming 'what a load of rubbish' in high pitched voices!

The only highlights were a 2-1 win at Boro last day of the season to stop them getting promoted, a 3-3 draw at Blackburn, Kevin Campbell

Happy Days!

PLEAT OUT!

[crisp monster]

I was at Middlesbrough with a load of Boro supporting mates in the Hollgate end as they prepared for a big party.

We absolutely battered them that day and being outside after the game as their lot were trying to get at the Leicester fans was bloody awful.

I really thought we were going to be right up there the next season but it went so wrong.

Not a big fan of pleat but I feel he wasn't at all backed financially by the board.

Selling McAllister and replacing him with a very over the Ricky Hill was a prime example.

I went to all but 5 games that season but missed the Oxford game due to an end of season jolly down to Brighton where we had to play Seaford Town.

Regret missing that game to this day :-((

[Vlad the Fox]

I can remember joyfully re-enacting the goal in the goalmouth after the match. Shame that relegation to div 3 years later slightly tarnished the memories or importance of that day.

[OzFox]

Good read that. Pretty much sums up an awful period.

 

Pleat's press conferences were mystifying, so God only knows what the players made of his team talks.

 

One vivid memory is beating Chelsea at Filbert St, when they were unbeaten for months and going for promotion. There were fights all over the ground, Tony Spearing played a blinder and as we were leaving news started coming through about the Hillsborough disaster

[AnotherShitSeason]

That group in the photo look like EDL members.

 

Odd comment. In what way?

[Vacamion]

It was during the Pleat era that I realised why Bill Anderson was also known as Hans Christian Anderson.

 

[Vlad the Fox]

Good read that. Pretty much sums up an awful period.

 

Pleat's press conferences were mystifying, so God only knows what the players made of his team talks.

 

One vivid memory is beating Chelsea at Filbert St, when they were unbeaten for months and going for promotion. There were fights all over the ground, Tony Spearing played a blinder and as we were leaving news started coming through about the Hillsborough disaster

I think we stopped them equalling liverpools unbeaten record that day, could have been 3-0 if Gary Mac didn't miss a penalty. Some of my mates ran from Leicester with the Chelsea that day as they didn't want them to realise they were leicester as they cam running past. I can remember watching watching the hillsborough disaster through on tv screens through shop windows in the city center.

Another game that stands out for me that season was coming from 2-0 behind against Middlesbrough to win 3-2, a game lost which would have meant relegation if we didn't come back and win it in the second half.

[pleatout]

And yet that first season – from January 1, 1988, until the final game against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park, a game which City won 2-1 and a match that for some reason still seems to make Pleat bristle with indignation – was a revelation.

 

Yeah, I remember it well.  The only time I've ever wanted City to concede. have a look at the table, Villa and M'boro finished 2nd and 3rd level on points and goal diff.  Villa got automatic promotion on goals scored and Boro were in the playoffs.

 

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/division-two-old/1987-1988

 

We finished 13th and it made no difference at all. 27000 Boro nutters a bit upset at 400 of us laughing our *rses off.

 

Boro "Going up going up going up"

Us "No you're not, no you're not, no you're not"

 

We were all still in the ground at 5.30, the police didn't keep us back, we just didn't fancy it.

 

Anyway, my name says it all.  Rickity Hill springs to mind.  Was Tony Spearing one of his?  Dreadful football, poor players.  I may be wrong but I recall a 4-4 draw v Oxford, I think around that time.  8 goals, end to end stuff, very exciting - you might think.  Or the reality, two woeful sides that managed to string enough passes together to get near each others goals 8 times in 90 mins and were so inept at defending that 8 shots resultedin 8 goals.

 

The other comments about beating Chelsea, who I seem to remember were so far ahead that a win would have seem them promoted, summed us up.  Beat the big teams, on the big occasion and get thrashed by the supposed no-hopers.  Still, that day, with events elsewhere, didn't matter.  The week after, away a Watford, a spontaneous outbreak of "You'll never walk alone" sent shivers down the spine.

[Happy Fox]

I wasn't a City fan then, but wasn't the consensus that Pleat f**Ked us over because he was a Forest fan?, the board didn't realise that and we suffered!