Alan Curbishley last year
Our beloved ex-manager is still with us in very many ways; the publication of his autobiography, which according to one of the blogging fraternity is disappointingly bland, has resulted in a spate of newspaper articles and radio interviews, and has culminated this morning in a report on the BBC that the great man will be ready to return to football management in October.
The media will be delighted, for, as I have stated on other occasions, whenever there is a management vacancy, the media immediately clamour that Curbs is 'set' or 'poised' (those magic verbs which are used to report on things which haven't happened, and which in fact frequently don't happen at all) to take over. In the past five years, while under contract to Charlton, where he did very well, he was 'linked' (another meaningless verb, in my view) with Tottenham; Liverpool; Middlesbrough (repeatedly and I cannot think why); Manchester City (for Christ's sake!); Aston Villa; West Ham (at least he played for these last two) and Newcastle, and there might well be others.
The premise behind all this is that Curbs is an effective manager, one of the best native English managers around, so why was he still managing little old Charlton, when there are all these wonderful 'big' clubs where he might do so well?
Leaving aside the fact that Manchester City and Newcastle aren't necessarily bigger than Charlton, anyway, though it might depend on your definition of 'big' of course (mine equates with 'consistently successful' rather than 'supported by a lot of people'), and Middlesbrough certainly aren't, it does raise the question of what a manager's job is. Iain Dowie is not Charlton's manager, but the head coach, a precise description of what he is supposed to do, and there seem to be other people in charge of performance management, man management, woman management, paper clip management, and so forth, much like in organisations everywhere else.
The media who constantly rush to associate Curbs with any Premiership job they perceive to be about to come up (and to be fair, they were doing exactly the same with Martin O'Neill) seem to be impelled by a view that if you give a manager who has proved his worth an unlimited budget, then you will get something quite wonderful.
Now while it is true that a good manager and an unlimited budget can produce the goods, it is not by any means automatic. Very often good managers prove their worth by performing miracles without much money; by using their player management skills to turn average boys into good footballers (both O'Neill and Curbs fall into this category); the real stuff of which managers are made; after all, cheque signing is a skill we all possess.
So it is most interesting to read this morning that Curbs, having been 'linked' with the recently vacant Villa job, and the possibly soon-to-be-vacant Middlesbrough job (again), or even the Newcastle job when they realise that Roeder is useless, insists that he was having a six-month holiday as he needed a rest. Though there is a rumour that his contract with Charlton stipulated a six-month hiatus before managing again, and there's another rumour that he is still on Charlton's books till the end of the month.
Be that as it may, Curbs has today announced that he is ready to manage again soon. So the media can get their Middlesbrough, Newcastle and maybe even Man City theories out again. But what is this we see? A few lines into the story, Curbs says he is not necessarily going to be interested in a Premiership job, as in the first place there aren't any vacant, and he doesn't want to be the reason for one of his mates getting the shove, but also that it is a hard life, and that just football management might do.
He won't be short of a bob or two, anyway, and he has never struck me as the greedy type, so if it is pure bottom-line football management that he is looking for, I have the very thing. Regular readers of this blog may have looked at the bottom of the page and read the list of football teams and other outfits that I am keen on, and it just so happens that an organisation dear to my heart is in dire need of someone of the stature and ability of Alan Curbishley. Languishing very near the bottom of the Conference are Forest Green Rovers, who sacked their management team a few days ago. Now what a golden opportunity for Curbs (and Mervyn Day, who seems to be waiting for Curbs to get a job so that he can be nominated as his assistant) to show the world how to manage.
Get yourselves up to Gloucestershire lads, and see if Forest Green can't be gracing the Premiership by the autumn of 2010.
That really would be a managerial achievement with a vengeance, and who better to achieve it?