We owe this guy a huge debt of gratitude for getting us back to where we belong.
I give you Sir Gary Megson
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/fo...rs-8803260
Sixteen years ago today, West Bromwich Albion recruited a manager by the name Gary Megson. The rest is history.
Former Birmingham Mail football writer Bill Howell reflects upon the remarkable impact of Meggo the Messiah, a man who played such a significant part in the Baggies’ modern day rise.
A League and Cup defeat to Villa in the space of a week are as bitter as being asked to chew on a bag of large lemons.
But Albion wouldn’t be playing local derbies at Villa Park had it not been for a managerial appointment 15 years ago today that shaped the club’s destiny from that day forward.
They’d more likely be heading to the Banks’ Stadium for their rivalry.
Jeremy Peace may want to look away now.
The Baggies are still reaping the benefits of then chairman Paul Thompson’s decision to bring Gary Megson to the club on 9th March 2000.
And there are real echoes of what Tony Pulis is doing now to a dressing room that was used to doing just enough and nothing more.
It is 15 years since the Messiah arrived to turn Albion from no hopers slipping towards the third tier on £30,000 a week debts.
Brian Little had been sacked following a 3-0 home defeat to Blues that pushed the Club into the relegation zone for the first time in three years.
Megson met his new players in a hotel in Manchester, just 90 minutes before he took charge of his first game.
“I had two players who weren’t available to play,” he recalled some years ago. “But I brought them up with us and said I’d like them to do 15 minutes’ running before the game.”
The players in question gave Megson a verbal volley.
“I’m stood there as their new manager. First time I’ve ever spoken to the players and I get that thrown at me in front of the rest of the players. But I thought, ‘No, I’ll duck it, I’ll crack on, I’ve got bad hearing.” Megson continued to address his players.
“It’ll just be a little bit of running. To keep your legs ticking over so that when you come back in the squad, you’re nice and fit.”
The second response was a slightly longer one, with the addition of the f-word.
“So, basically,” Megson said, “I’ve asked this really well-paid, well looked-after player to do 15 minutes’ running on a Saturday and that was the attitude.
“If I asked somebody whether they’d like to do 15 minutes’ work in seven days and be really paid for it, you’d say ‘where do I sign’?
“It just summed up the attitude prevalent among the squad. Not everybody but the attitude then was ‘can’t be bothered’.”
Megson’s first game saw him field this team at Stockport County: Jensen; McDermott, Potter, J Chambers, Carbon, Sigurdarson, Quinn, Townsend, Evans, Hughes, Van Blerk.
Only Lee Hughes’ name lifted that first XI above a level of mediocrity.
Hughes scored the only goal in that opening win at Stockport but Albion would lose at home to Huddersfield and away at Manchester City before Megson was able to stamp his mark on the squad in terms of reinforcements.
Megson brought in four players on deadline day to add to the signing of full-back Des Lyttle he hadmade days earlier.
In came Neil Clement from Chelsea, Georges Santos for £25,000 from Tranmere, Tony Butler for £140,000 from Port Vale and SuperBob Taylor, back for a second stint.
Albion stayed up by the skin of their teeth following a last day win over already Champions Charlton.
Megson ripped apart a dressing room used to losing football matches. Alcohol was banned and training was brought forward an hour to 10am.
“The training needed changing, we needed a nutritionist and a fitness trainer, but the bottom line was we just had to stay up,” he recalled.
“The trouble is it was the laziest group of players I’d ever been involved with.
“If players put everything in, you can’t complain. They might be doing the best they can, but if it’s not good enough, you need to get better ones in. I felt what we had weren’t doing anywhere near enough for us.
“We had lazy players trying to combat Walsall who were playing flat out.
“This club started training at 11am in the morning. I hadn’t known that in the whole of my professional career. To me, that’s a pop star’s lifestyle.
“You can go out, have a skinful, get in at 3.30am, still get a good night’s sleep, get up at 9.30am, saunter into work and come and toss it off at 11. I was told it was the traffic, so I rang John Gregory over at Villa . . . 10.30.
“I rang Ray Graydon . . . 8.30, 9.30, any time, but always before ten.
“I rang Wolves . . . the same. We were the only team who started at 11am, which just goes to show how easy it was.
“There was no accountability and the spirit wasn’t there either. No togetherness. Certainly no pulling in the same direction.
“Some would come into training at a minute before and rush off a minute after.
“There was no real interest in doing a good job for themselves or their employers.”
That summer Megson brought in Derek McIness, Jordao, Ruel Fox and Jason Roberts.
“I’d rather have better-paid players and higher quality in the club than a high wage bill with lots of pros,” recalled Megson.
Nine players were released: Graham Potter to York, Mark Angel to Darlington, Andy Townsend retired, Fabien DeFreitas moved on, Sean Flynn went to to Tranmere, Andy McDermott to Notts County, Paul Raven to Grimsby, Mickey Evans to Bristol Rovers, and Daniel Gabbidon to Cardiff.
“We needed to try and pull together, to get to a situation where, if we lose, we all hurt,” said Megson.
Igor Balis, Michael Appleton, Phil Gilchrist and Russell Hoult joined midway through Megson’s first full campaign. The team were good but threw away a 2-0 lead to lose in the Play-Offs to Bolton.
Scott Dobie, Danny Dichio, Darren Moore and Andy Johnson joined the following season and the fierce rivals Wolves saw their 11-point lead overhauled with Balis netting a never-to-be forgotten penalty at Bradford and Moore and Taylor scoring against Crystal Palace on the final day.
The relationship between manager and board soured amid a ghastly fall-out of exactly how scouting should be carried out.
Albion may be hurting today but without Gary Megson and his class of 2003 this club would have long since lost its pulse.
I give you Sir Gary Megson
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/fo...rs-8803260
Sixteen years ago today, West Bromwich Albion recruited a manager by the name Gary Megson. The rest is history.
Former Birmingham Mail football writer Bill Howell reflects upon the remarkable impact of Meggo the Messiah, a man who played such a significant part in the Baggies’ modern day rise.
A League and Cup defeat to Villa in the space of a week are as bitter as being asked to chew on a bag of large lemons.
But Albion wouldn’t be playing local derbies at Villa Park had it not been for a managerial appointment 15 years ago today that shaped the club’s destiny from that day forward.
They’d more likely be heading to the Banks’ Stadium for their rivalry.
Jeremy Peace may want to look away now.
The Baggies are still reaping the benefits of then chairman Paul Thompson’s decision to bring Gary Megson to the club on 9th March 2000.
And there are real echoes of what Tony Pulis is doing now to a dressing room that was used to doing just enough and nothing more.
It is 15 years since the Messiah arrived to turn Albion from no hopers slipping towards the third tier on £30,000 a week debts.
Brian Little had been sacked following a 3-0 home defeat to Blues that pushed the Club into the relegation zone for the first time in three years.
Megson met his new players in a hotel in Manchester, just 90 minutes before he took charge of his first game.
“I had two players who weren’t available to play,” he recalled some years ago. “But I brought them up with us and said I’d like them to do 15 minutes’ running before the game.”
The players in question gave Megson a verbal volley.
“I’m stood there as their new manager. First time I’ve ever spoken to the players and I get that thrown at me in front of the rest of the players. But I thought, ‘No, I’ll duck it, I’ll crack on, I’ve got bad hearing.” Megson continued to address his players.
“It’ll just be a little bit of running. To keep your legs ticking over so that when you come back in the squad, you’re nice and fit.”
The second response was a slightly longer one, with the addition of the f-word.
“So, basically,” Megson said, “I’ve asked this really well-paid, well looked-after player to do 15 minutes’ running on a Saturday and that was the attitude.
“If I asked somebody whether they’d like to do 15 minutes’ work in seven days and be really paid for it, you’d say ‘where do I sign’?
“It just summed up the attitude prevalent among the squad. Not everybody but the attitude then was ‘can’t be bothered’.”
Megson’s first game saw him field this team at Stockport County: Jensen; McDermott, Potter, J Chambers, Carbon, Sigurdarson, Quinn, Townsend, Evans, Hughes, Van Blerk.
Only Lee Hughes’ name lifted that first XI above a level of mediocrity.
Hughes scored the only goal in that opening win at Stockport but Albion would lose at home to Huddersfield and away at Manchester City before Megson was able to stamp his mark on the squad in terms of reinforcements.
Megson brought in four players on deadline day to add to the signing of full-back Des Lyttle he hadmade days earlier.
In came Neil Clement from Chelsea, Georges Santos for £25,000 from Tranmere, Tony Butler for £140,000 from Port Vale and SuperBob Taylor, back for a second stint.
Albion stayed up by the skin of their teeth following a last day win over already Champions Charlton.
Megson ripped apart a dressing room used to losing football matches. Alcohol was banned and training was brought forward an hour to 10am.
“The training needed changing, we needed a nutritionist and a fitness trainer, but the bottom line was we just had to stay up,” he recalled.
“The trouble is it was the laziest group of players I’d ever been involved with.
“If players put everything in, you can’t complain. They might be doing the best they can, but if it’s not good enough, you need to get better ones in. I felt what we had weren’t doing anywhere near enough for us.
“We had lazy players trying to combat Walsall who were playing flat out.
“This club started training at 11am in the morning. I hadn’t known that in the whole of my professional career. To me, that’s a pop star’s lifestyle.
“You can go out, have a skinful, get in at 3.30am, still get a good night’s sleep, get up at 9.30am, saunter into work and come and toss it off at 11. I was told it was the traffic, so I rang John Gregory over at Villa . . . 10.30.
“I rang Ray Graydon . . . 8.30, 9.30, any time, but always before ten.
“I rang Wolves . . . the same. We were the only team who started at 11am, which just goes to show how easy it was.
“There was no accountability and the spirit wasn’t there either. No togetherness. Certainly no pulling in the same direction.
“Some would come into training at a minute before and rush off a minute after.
“There was no real interest in doing a good job for themselves or their employers.”
That summer Megson brought in Derek McIness, Jordao, Ruel Fox and Jason Roberts.
“I’d rather have better-paid players and higher quality in the club than a high wage bill with lots of pros,” recalled Megson.
Nine players were released: Graham Potter to York, Mark Angel to Darlington, Andy Townsend retired, Fabien DeFreitas moved on, Sean Flynn went to to Tranmere, Andy McDermott to Notts County, Paul Raven to Grimsby, Mickey Evans to Bristol Rovers, and Daniel Gabbidon to Cardiff.
“We needed to try and pull together, to get to a situation where, if we lose, we all hurt,” said Megson.
Igor Balis, Michael Appleton, Phil Gilchrist and Russell Hoult joined midway through Megson’s first full campaign. The team were good but threw away a 2-0 lead to lose in the Play-Offs to Bolton.
Scott Dobie, Danny Dichio, Darren Moore and Andy Johnson joined the following season and the fierce rivals Wolves saw their 11-point lead overhauled with Balis netting a never-to-be forgotten penalty at Bradford and Moore and Taylor scoring against Crystal Palace on the final day.
The relationship between manager and board soured amid a ghastly fall-out of exactly how scouting should be carried out.
Albion may be hurting today but without Gary Megson and his class of 2003 this club would have long since lost its pulse.
2x Premier League Champ 1x Championship Winner and World cup Winner
