Football is not a game which regularly throws up deep thinkers. Even among managers, and even in the Premier League, than “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” brigade are still very well represented and in discussions about the game, there is still an undercurrent of mistrust for those, like tonight’s combatants, who go in for theorising about their sport. This is one walk of life where being called an intellectual is not necessarily meant as a compliment.
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It’s as if football is suspicious of anyone that tries to find anything more than just the most rudimentary patterns in events upon the turf. Little wonder then that one of the game’s foremost intellectuals – and that is meant, most definitely, as a compliment – turned his back upon the pressures, the mania and the unequal struggle that is the lot of the football manager.
The Throstles were fortunate indeed that Johnny Giles did give some of his footballing time to us before making that decision however, a spell where he helped Albion out of the mire after the experiment with Don Howe as boss failed to work and the club were festering in Division Two. Giles came in in the summer of 1975 after a glittering career at Manchester Unted and, more especially, Leeds United where the term “midfield general” might have been coined specifically for him as he pulled the strings in game after game for Don Revie’s team.
“Don Revie left for the job as England manager in 1974 then, after Brian Clough came in for a few weeks, I had a season with Jimmy Armfield as manager and I played in the European Cup Final with him. I think he thought the team was getting older and he decided to let me go, and I think Don recommended me to Bert Millichip through the connection at the FA, and that was how it came about. I was 34 at the time and it was time to move because I’d intended to go into management anyway.
“There’d been talk about me going to Spurs the year before to work with Danny Blanchflower – that was when Cloughie was at Leeds, and he didn’t want me either! I spoke to Bill Nicholson about it but it never got to the stage of talking to Danny or going any further. I think Bill assumed he could pick his successor and ended up embarrassed about it when the board went on and appointed Terry Neill.
“I enjoyed the first spell that I had with the Albion as a manager, perhaps because I was still a player as well, which let me get in the thick of it more out on the training pitch. They were two great years here as a player and manager as well. But management is very, very different from being a player, there’s far more involved in it and you have to take on a lot more responsibilities, for the rest of the players and for the club. I enjoyed the playing side of it but the rest of it wasn’t really for me.”
For all that Don Howe is much maligned in the Albion story, there’s little doubt that he did some good work while he was here, not least in terms of getting the disciplines right, albeit without offering a safety valve at the right times. Giles came in, picked up what was here and improved upon it no end.
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“When I arrived here the first time, there was a good set of players here already, Don Howe had put some foundations in. They were good pros, they worked hard, very good footballers, so I could see there was potential here. You look at people like Len Cantello, Willie Johnston, John Wile, Ally Rob, Tony Brown, young Bryan Robson coming through, you could see we had a chance to do something. Their attitude was terrific, they wanted to learn, to improve and to do whatever they had to do to get Albion promoted.
“We had a terrible start to things here. It was different for me, my first job and I think that that was my fault. I didn’t do a particularly good job early on, too many changes, but once we settled and got going, then we became a very good side. I wasn’t playing very well myself, but we picked up around Christmas. We got it together and started to play some decent football and it was a real pleasure to be a part of it. It looked like the end of the season would come too soon for us because it was only the last game of the season when we had it in our own hands to get promotion, and we took it. We came with a great run, Bolton slipped up, they were way ahead of us at one stage, and we got there. By the end of the season, although we finished in third spot, I thought we were the best team in the Second Division, and that was shown the following year in the First Division when we did better than Sunderland and Bristol City who were promoted with us.”
After Albion got promoted that year, Giles was initially ready to throw in the towel, already disenchanted with management, but he was persuaded to at least see the Throstles through that first year back in the top flight, the 1976/77 season which set the tone for the next few years to come as we came within a whisker of European qualification in days when that meant something other than a chance to send your reserves to Moscow.
“We adapted to the First Division straight away. We had only been down three years and back then, you could keep your players if you got relegated so we still had a core of players with a lot of experience of playing in the top division which was a big help. We had a couple of sticky patches as all teams do, but we finished seventh in the league which was a good return, we were solid, we got better as the year went on, we made some good additions like David Cross, Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis came in just before I left though he never played for me at that time.
“We were fortunate because along with the nucleus of players we had, there were some good youngsters coming through that set Albion up for the next five years, players like Derek Statham, John Trewick, Bryan, who had already had a few games under Don. They went on to be wonderful players, Bryan a captain of England. Bryan was a great all round footballer, could play anywhere, we used him at left-back, centre-back, up front as well as in the middle, just a natural for the game. If Derek was playing today, he would have been an England regular as well, not a doubt. He was so quick, exceptionally good going forward, he would take people on like a winger would, a real talent.
“I have to admit, it was easier to go from Second Division to First and compete back then because it wasn’t as it is now with the big four with all their money, miles ahead of everybody else. It was much more of a level playing field whereas now it’s whoever has the big money has the big players, and that just feeds of itself because they’re more likely to qualify for the Champions League which gives them more money and on it goes.
“It’s probably got more complicated and even harder these days than it was with freedom of contract, Bosman, all of those things which are a huge benefit to the player, they make life very difficult for the manager.
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“Wages have gone spiralling away, transfer fees as well. Back when I was here, the maximum wage had long gone but there was nothing like the difference between the wages that teams paid, it was far more equal and the wealth was better spread, so it didn’t make a huge difference to you moneywise of you were playing for Albion or Everton. I do feel sorry for promoted teams. The only answer is to spend a lot of money and that then is a big gamble because if it doesn’t work out, the club is in trouble. It’s hard to see how the stranglehold will be broken, other than by teams that get bought out by Arabs or whoever, like Manchester City have been.”
Good as his word, John left The Hawthorns at the end of that season to be replaced initially by Ronnie Allen and then Ron Atkinson. Working back in Ireland with the national team and Shamrock Rovers, he was tempted back to have another crack at making management work, taking over from Ron Wylie in 1984. Seven years on, things were very different in every sense.
“When I the first time as player-manager, people who I knew in the game said they thought I was mad! Everybody said that I would end up killing myself, that it was impossible to do, you couldn’t do the both, that was the general feeling. But of course when we got promotion, people said it was a help to be out on the pitch! It was definitely a help – any manager will tell you that once the players cross the white line, you don’t have that much influence, but if you’re out there you can make a difference while it’s all happening. And I enjoyed playing with the lads we had, good players, good attitude. And the fans were terrific as well because they were very patient while we had that difficult start. At Leeds, if you weren’t winning after 20 minutes, they’d be on your backs, but here, when I needed them to be patient, they were. So when I came back, people were telling me, “You’re going to miss playing!” It went full circle, but they were right. I did miss playing and the way I could change things on the pitch.
“One of the regrets I have in football is coming back to Albion a second time because I didn’t do a good job for the football club, and that is something that still upsets me because the people and the supporters here were great to me in both spells. I would have loved to have done really well for them that second time, but it wasn’t to be.”
John is an infrequent visitor to The Hawthorns these days, but when he does come, his opinions are every bit as incisive and invaluable as they ever were. His last visit was for the recent Manchester United game, one which lives in infamy thanks to the performance of the referee.
“First of all, Albion were up against a very, very good side in United and playing somewhere near their best. It would have been a real struggle for them anyway, but once they were down to ten men, it’s not really a contest. It’s very hard to make any judgement about the Albion on the night because being down to ten against that opposition makes for an impossible task almost. I thought some of United’s football was terrific, their finishing was great though Albion will be upset at just how easily they got through on occasions. There was some poor defending, two goals from set pieces will upset them, but United took full advantage of everything that was put in front of them, and that’s why they’re European champions.
“The referee had a dreadful night, and it certainly didn’t help the cause with the sending off. That aside, some of the other decisions he made I thought were dreadful. He had a very poor night and unfortunately that pretty much meant the game was a foregone conclusion. The Robinson tackle, I accept he doesn’t have the benefit of TV replays and different angles, but even so, it was clearly not a red card. The game has gone ridiculous now where you can’t make a tackle.
“There’s a happy balance to be struck because in the ‘60s and ‘70s, you had stuff going on that shouldn’t have been, and I was involved in it as well because you had to protect yourself in those days rather than looking to the referee!
“That wasn’t right either, but the balance has gone completely the other way so that if you go into a tackle, it’s immediately a free-kick. There doesn’t appear to be any common sense applied and that doesn’t help the game overall, and it certainly doesn’t help tonight’s like this where a particular game is dramatically changed.”
As we’ve said, John was a vital cog in the Leeds machine of the late 1960s and 1970, a side that could go from the sublime to the sinister and back again inside 60 seconds, a side feared in England and all across Europe, all done on a squad which today would be looked upon as being wafer thin. The move to big squads is a change that he isn’t entirely thrilled by.
“The advantage those big clubs have is the big squads full of quality players, 25 footballers who are all very, very good. You never had that luxury 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you probably operated with 16 first team players at best. Alex Ferguson or Rafa Benitez will say they play a lot of games and they need those players which is probably right if you can afford them! What that does is it stops clubs below having a better quality of player and just increases the gap.
“At Leeds, we had a lot of success, we got to cup finals, we were in the running for the league, regularly we had around 60 games a season and nine or ten of us would play 50 or more. Sometimes you would get tired, you could have done with a rest. But what I find strange today is players wanting a rest in September. I used to feel it was October by the time you really got your match fitness and you were coming to your best, and that came from playing every week. I certainly don’t see how you can be tired in the early part of the season, and of course, there are four fewer league games now, cup ties can’t get on to three and four replays like they sometimes did, pitches are better. The game is faster but so is training, nutrition.
“As a player myself, I don’t know that I’d be very happy with squad rotation and being left on the bench. I wouldn’t want to be playing only 30 games a season. Ok, you’re getting paid but money isn’t everything. It’s a big change but it wouldn’t have suited me. If you’re a professional footballer, you want to be playing football.” Amen to that.
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