I can’t reveal my source, because he told me in confidence, as you would tell an ordinary fan with no particular reason to know. But he told me that, almost definitely, it would be Ronnie Moore.
Or Steve Cotterill. Or Brian Flynn. Or Eric Black, John Ward, or any of the other associated names. Someone else told me it would certainly be Steve McMahon, or failing that, Phil Brown.
In fact, what nobody realised when Barry Kilby indicated he intended to restructure the club, was that our progressive new coaching regime was to be so intense the job would be shared by the12 different applicants who are guaranteed to get the job.
But what it does, definitely, mean, is that as I write we do not yet know who the new man is to be. By the time you read this, we may do so, since an appointment would appear to be imminent. It seems safe to assume that those sorts of names are under the consideration of the Turf Moor board, but there may yet be others of which we are unaware.
It has been interesting, as the saga has developed, to study the reactions of people to the names in the frame. Barry Kilby has declared himself ‘delighted’ with the standard of applicant, and indeed some of those names mentioned above are acknowledged within the game as truly excellent coaches.
Yet not one enjoys the unanimous backing of the Claret and Blue faithful. The reasons for this lack of consensus are many and, sometimes, contradictory.
Brian Flynn, for example, has seen his stock fall since the last time this decision stood to be made. Whereas then he was widely admired for the job he had quietly done in consolidating Wrexham as a division two club, now he appears to have been pigeon-holed as a lower division manager - despite relative success both at the Racecourse Ground and at Swansea – whose long stint in North Wales marks him out as lacking in ambition.
Steve Cotterill, by contrast, stands accused of being too ambitious. His crime is to leave
The common black mark among all those linked with the club is that they are not big names, a curious complaint in the circumstances when you take into account the fact that at this moment in time
In any event, this has always struck me as a curious complaint. Managers always tend to do better when their reputation is smaller than the club they arrive to manage: it gives them something to prove. Alex Ferguson was not a ‘big name’ when he joined Manchester United; Arsene Wenger certainly wasn’t when he arrived at Arsenal.
This thought struck me when the list of candidates for the
In many ways, I’d be disappointed if a bigger name was linked with the
Somewhere amongst those names and many others in the lower divisions – almost unmentioned in this saga is the name of Dave Penney, the man who has dragged
Big names are not necessarily beautiful. But whoever it is to be, the waiting is almost over. I’m nearly sure of it – I was told so in the pub last night.