Shepherd is as Shepherd does
Posted by Roland Deschain in Freddy Shepherd, Newcastle | 14 November 2006
Whilst us Northern folk can sit here on our high horse pointing out every flaw (and there are many to choose from) during Shepherds reign as chairman, perhaps we should take a more balanced approach during this most important of periods in the clubs (NUFC) history. Not one of us ‘fans’ can sit happily knowing what has gone on in the history of the club and so instead we have to sit and vent anger somewhere. But maybe the time has come to simply accept our direction and try to positively influence it rather than focussing on a past that at one time resembled a bright future!
As far as the continual ropey management selections, surely we have to try and detach ourselves from the here and now, the post-Souness depression, and look at it entirely objectively. Sir John Hall came in with his millions and brought in his favourite player of all time. That was it - fantasy stuff – a mentality that soon translated onto the pitch and brought us, the fans, up into the fantasy world with it. Sustaining such miraculous levels was always going to be, shall we say, a smidge difficult? But I am still interested in understanding what Shepherd's criteria are/were for selecting managers as there are two clear schools of thought - one is he selected those that appeared to be the right manager at the time, and the other is that he made a pigs ear of the whole thing. But do we honestly know enough facts? I am going to get lambasted for this, but perhaps, when we think about it seriously, he did as well as he could with each appointment and really and truly it was the turn of the century that Shepherd can be vilified for and no more.
I don't think Kenny was the people's choice in the same way Roeder is propositioned - I think he would have been top choice for an awful lot of people. I daresay he was interviewed and promised an end to shipping 3 goals a match, but I can guarantee what he did not tell Shepherd was that he was going to destroy the attacking machine, sell the best players and use whatever cash he could to buy a load of crap. Think about it – if you were Shepherd and the thrice-League winning legend Dalglish tells you he’s going to improve on what is already an incredible team, what would you do? You’d bleedin’ well appoint the bloke. Sorry, ladies and gents – there’s no Geordie Nostradamus forewarning us of the disaster that is brewing. The fact that Shepherd gave him free reign of transfers is certainly a bad decision from the chairman, but we’ll come to that ‘burning’ in a minute, as next up was Ruud Gullit.
Personally speaking, that was the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on GM:TV. Better than Andrea McLean doing the weather from a beach in a bikini, better than the cleavage on Fiona Phillips – that was the single-most jaw-dropping piece of TV I’ve seen – why? Because it was brilliant, that’s why. Gullit’s Chelsea (pre-Abramovic, I remind you) had been wowing fans almost to the point of Keegan’s Newcastle – but not quite, of course. His open spirit, his youthful exuberance, all of it was just what the doctor ordered after the horror-show thrown up by Dalglish. The timing of the appointment was abysmal, and we all know Shepherd was playing us for fool there, as there was little or no time for Gullit to bring in any players to really affect the previous years mediocrity. Fiddling the figures is Shepherd’s biggest problem, but his choice of manager, which again came without lobbying fans, was an exceptional one. Gullit came without the “been there, done it” of Dalglish, which seemed the biggest problem of Kenny’s reign and again the cheque book was left open. In came young talent, experience players and a re-focus on attacking football. Too little too late, for Gullit’s indomitable ego clashed with everyone else’s and it seemed that the millionaire culture football was evolving into was never going to be under Gullit’s jurisdiction – he was the boss, no-one else.
Sir Bobby came in, great appointment, took us back where we felt we belonged. Then it all went up the spout for Shepherd. He had his issues – his share dealings were ‘interesting’, his media comments inappropriate, his general PR somewhat typical of a man out of his depth. But the turn of the century has seen Shepherd reach his absolute limit. The dealings with Sir Bobby, the timing, the subsequent appointment – all awful, all rubbish, all inexcusable. The constant “I support managers” line, the lines we’ve been fed over transfers, next managers, what is success and what is failure – all ill-informed, ill-timed and ultimately awful. But why has it come to this? It is because Shepherd himself is no longer equipped to deal with what football has become. He is not a media-friendly person, and this is the key reason why:
He is truly little more than a one-trick pony. Whereas he took over a club 2nd in the Premiership with the clout to appoint a Dalglish, appoint a Gullit and bring in a Shearer, a Ginola, a Ferdinand, through some or perhaps (generously) little fault of his own the club waned and became a place with little or no clout, little ability to attract the players we need and certainly NO ability to attract the managers we need. Shepherd doesn’t have the know-how – he runs this club thinking that what we need are big name players, big name managers – Souness was the worst decision of all time, but he was probably the biggest ‘name’ who would work for the now-notorious Shepherd – not the best man, not the one who could deliver, not the one who fits the model. His skill does not rest in building the club, investing, future planning – all he has EVER done, all the good he was ever capable of doing, came by him riding the coat-tails of success. All he could do was distribute wealth that came in through league success, media, tv sales, ticket sales. All he could do was tell the world how wonderful the club is and simply point to the pitch, the stands, and be proven right. Now those coat-tails are trailing off into the distance, he has to find another way of building momentum, and he can’t. He can’t get the fans back in the ground, he can’t tempt O’Neill, Hitzfeld, Hiddink to the job. He can’t tell us where the club is going, how it’s going to get there and how long it’s going to take. Bottom line is that although there are umpteen behind the scenes issues with Freddy Shepherd, some of his footballing decisions are justifiable. What I am suggesting is that pre-2000 he’s absconded from blame, but by the same token cannot claim credit for simply positioning NUFC as an attractive club.
“M’lud, let all success/failure be stricken from the record – yes, Bobby was good, but calling our ladies dogs was bad – you’ve had your time, Mr. Shepherd, you’ve done whatever you’ve done, but now the chips are down, you are nothing at all. You give us no hope, you have no clue.”
The anti-Shepherd feeling is entirely justified, as he is only able to balance the books of a winning club, only able to bring players when there is success at hand – what happens when he doesn’t have this is the cheque-book comes out and £17m is spent on a player worth less than £10m, £10m on players worth £4m and lies are spun in the abject hope that he will stumble across a recipe for success. He won’t, because he can’t, and that is why we must, must have a change of leadership. Don’t listen to his historical ramblings, pay no heed to anything pre-Robson – it is the here and now that we need a leader and, simply put, we don’t have one.
