Post by rjdgull on Aug 4, 2013 21:45:23 GMT
It's time to get this competition on the road again. Having a look through the existing voting it seems Felix just edged it with 7 votes to Register's six so unlucky Reg but well done Felix! Looking back through the various posts the following one about the change of managers seemed the logical one to choose....
To be fair, I don't think anyone is being patronising by saying that in the long run it may well be a good thing for Lingy not to have come back to the scene of his original collapse. Sadly, and I say this as someone with a history of depression myself (and on medication indefinitely) there is a difference between a mental illness and a physical one when it comes to a job as stressful as being a football club manager. I think Swanny struck exactly the right tone by wishing Martin well in the future but accepting that change was the correct decision.
It would not have been in Martin Ling's best interest to bring him back into the job that either caused or played a major part in his becoming ill in the first place and I think he is being a tad disingenuous in suggesting that someone who had cancer would have been treated differently. Managing a football club does not cause cancer, but it is certainly likely to be a factor in a stress-related illness. In fact mental stress finished the career of the great 1950s Tottenham manager, Arthur Rowe, as well as Man City's John Hart and, later, Steve Coppell.
On the other hand, from Torquay United's point of view, the decision makes perfect sense because Alan Knill saved the club from being relegated out of the League. I'll repeat that: Alan Knill saved the club from being relegated out of the League. He took a job very few would have been prepared to take on and under his management the team, at last, remembered how to win football matches. Having achieved what he came to do, it would hardly have been fair to him not to have given him the job permanently.
There are, indeed, footballing reasons for preferring Knill to Ling. He is the better bet of the two to achieve success for the club and to change the team from strugglers to contenders. Despite his gawkiness and strange squirrel-fixation, Alan Knill has more charisma about him and seems to have more idea of how to change things for the better when they aren't going well. I also trust him to deliver a kick up the arse to players when they need it.
In other words, we want the best for TUFC and we are more likely to get it under Alan Knill than we would have been under Martin Ling, and for that reason alone, in my opinion, the board did the right thing.
It would not have been in Martin Ling's best interest to bring him back into the job that either caused or played a major part in his becoming ill in the first place and I think he is being a tad disingenuous in suggesting that someone who had cancer would have been treated differently. Managing a football club does not cause cancer, but it is certainly likely to be a factor in a stress-related illness. In fact mental stress finished the career of the great 1950s Tottenham manager, Arthur Rowe, as well as Man City's John Hart and, later, Steve Coppell.
On the other hand, from Torquay United's point of view, the decision makes perfect sense because Alan Knill saved the club from being relegated out of the League. I'll repeat that: Alan Knill saved the club from being relegated out of the League. He took a job very few would have been prepared to take on and under his management the team, at last, remembered how to win football matches. Having achieved what he came to do, it would hardly have been fair to him not to have given him the job permanently.
There are, indeed, footballing reasons for preferring Knill to Ling. He is the better bet of the two to achieve success for the club and to change the team from strugglers to contenders. Despite his gawkiness and strange squirrel-fixation, Alan Knill has more charisma about him and seems to have more idea of how to change things for the better when they aren't going well. I also trust him to deliver a kick up the arse to players when they need it.
In other words, we want the best for TUFC and we are more likely to get it under Alan Knill than we would have been under Martin Ling, and for that reason alone, in my opinion, the board did the right thing.
