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Paul Sturrock


Cricketphilly

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Sturrock was a drinker. No ifs, no buts.

 

I don't think that helped his cause with Lowe or the players. Fact is you can do well at interview, on paper he'd had a good lower league track record - but he wasn't first choice (that was Hoddle) so was always on rocky ground.

 

Completely true he missed a couple of Plymouth games because he was too ****ed to attend.He slept in one of our training huts because his missus had kicked him out. He then woke up and attempted to do one of our training sessions.

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Either way, it puts Luggy in a more positive light then a man who has managed Spurs in the Champions' League and the current England u21 assistant manager.

 

The question was why the players didnt respond to Wigley or redknapp with an "impress the new manager" reaction in the same way they did with sturrock, who was entirely new to the club. I tend to agree with Jamie on this one.

 

Unrelated, but very interesting comment from manji above, as well.

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I am glad that this issue is back on the table.

 

People say it is history now, true, but it is important that we understand our history if we are not to make similar mistakes.

 

I'll remember this for the next time I'm the chairman of a premier league football club.

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The thing that intrigues me, and is to be fully explained, is to the extent the vocal minority had on Lowe pulling out of the appointment of Hoddle.

 

I think there were a number of strands, the board taking fright, Lowe showing an uncharacteristic lack of determination and Glenn Hoddle himself showing concern.

 

The tragedy was, that the vast majority of fans were all set to welcome Glenn back as they rather sensibly put the fortunes of the club before a personal vendetta.

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The thing that intrigues me, and is to be fully explained, is to the extent the vocal minority had on Lowe pulling out of the appointment of Hoddle.

 

I think there were a number of strands, the board taking fright, Lowe showing an uncharacteristic lack of determination and Glenn Hoddle himself showing concern.

 

The tragedy was, that the vast majority of fans were all set to welcome Glenn back as they rather sensibly put the fortunes of the club before a personal vendetta.

 

Have you spoken to 100% of our fans in order to be able to determine this?

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The thing that intrigues me, and is to be fully explained, is to the extent the vocal minority had on Lowe pulling out of the appointment of Hoddle.

 

I think there were a number of strands, the board taking fright, Lowe showing an uncharacteristic lack of determination and Glenn Hoddle himself showing concern.

 

The tragedy was, that the vast majority of fans were all set to welcome Glenn back as they rather sensibly put the fortunes of the club before a personal vendetta.

 

I think that maybe you have your minority's and majority's transposed

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Have you spoken to 100% of our fans in order to be able to determine this?

To be fair, he only needs to have spoken to 50%+1 of our fans.

 

Most fans were in favour of the return of Glenn Hoddle, yes.

 

But as the answer is yes, I must have had my mind erased because I haven't spoken to a dalek for about twenty years.

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PEDANT ALERT!!

 

First (and only) replay.

 

So we drew 0-0, then 2-2, and then lost 2-1, but there was no away goals rule and they decided to have a replay ? Or, seeing as we appear to have played them 3 times, was it a second replay ?

 

1996/1997

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP We 29Jan 1997

Southampton 1 - 2 Stockport

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP We 22Jan 1997

Stockport 2 - 2 Southampton

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP Tu 07Jan 1997

Stockport 0 - 0 Southampton

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Interesting that the view is that Sturrock presided over some good players. I'd suggest that he didn't, personally.

 

Everyone else around us strengthened and we didn't. We ended up with the likes of Mikael Nilsson.

 

Who was signed the same day we appointed Sturrock, which suggests he didn't sign him.

 

And we know very well Crouch was a Lowe signing, 11 days before Sturrock was appointed. Yahia and Jakobssen were Sturrock signings, he put Folly in the team and sold Fitz Hall to Palace (which basically relegated us as he scored against us in the penultimate match of the season and those extra 2 points would have kept us up).

 

This was the side that got rolled over at Villa, anyway :

A Niemi, J Dodd, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, G Le Saux, F Fernandes, D Prutton, Y Folly (A Svensson, 45), M Nilsson (R Delap, 45), K Phillips, B Ormerod (P Crouch, 68 )

 

At least he replaced the right players...

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Who was signed the same day we appointed Sturrock, which suggests he didn't sign him.

 

And we know very well Crouch was a Lowe signing, 11 days before Sturrock was appointed. Yahia and Jakobssen were Sturrock signings, he put Folly in the team and sold Fitz Hall to Palace (which basically relegated us as he scored against us in the penultimate match of the season and those extra 2 points would have kept us up).

 

This was the side that got rolled over at Villa, anyway :

A Niemi, J Dodd, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, G Le Saux, F Fernandes, D Prutton, Y Folly (A Svensson, 45), M Nilsson (R Delap, 45), K Phillips, B Ormerod (P Crouch, 68 )

 

At least he replaced the right players...

 

From memory, Fitz Hall was desperately wanting to rejoin his ex Oldham boss Ian Dowie at Palace. The player engineered his move away as he would have been unhappy staying. It was a very disappointing transfer and a sign all wasn't right.

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From memory, Fitz Hall was desperately wanting to rejoin his ex Oldham boss Ian Dowie at Palace. The player engineered his move away as he would have been unhappy staying. It was a very disappointing transfer and a sign all wasn't right.

 

Didn't do him a lot of good that season either.

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Sturrock was a bit of a victim of everything: himself, the club, presumably some players and most importantly Lowe's terribly cured 02-04 success hangover.

 

He maybe lacked a bit of the smart looks the Premier League requires nowadays, but that's something that a little talk for 2 minutes after the press conference can change. However, Lowe was so absorbed into his own success that he believed he had to be offered gold every time he moved his arse. Sturrock knew a lot about football and refreshed a team that was showing insecurity after loosing it's big leader for 2 successful years. I guess pre-season preparations may have been seen by the club as amateurish, but the truth is that there was little factual evidence to prove that he was going to be a failure in the new season. Maybe the players weren't happy, then again the solution would've been getting them together at SMS and clear the air. It probably didn't help that he wasn't the first option and that Lowe never got over this and just expected success to keep coming automatically, so he took the easy option to go for another (apparently) easy one: Saggy. I mean, what could go wrong??

We also don't know if Sturrock's signings were due to lack of funds or just poor judgement. Knowing Strachan's departure also had to do with him feeling the club was refusing to pay a single bus fare to leave the dead end, maybe Lowe's lack of real belief in Sturrock only made things worse in this aspect, and he was scouting on a sixpence.

 

In the end, he never really got the full approval and backing of the directors and this probably made it very difficult for him to come and do things. Big mistake to go for him in the first place given such circumstances IMO, and more so not to have let him go once the season was over if the support wasn't still there. That preseason cost us dearly.

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So we drew 0-0, then 2-2, and then lost 2-1, but there was no away goals rule and they decided to have a replay ? Or, seeing as we appear to have played them 3 times, was it a second replay ?

 

1996/1997

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP We 29Jan 1997

Southampton 1 - 2 Stockport

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP We 22Jan 1997

Stockport 2 - 2 Southampton

ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP Tu 07Jan 1997

Stockport 0 - 0 Southampton

 

Dont know where you got the 0-0 from. It never took place. If it had the first replay would have been at The Dell on 22 Jan. Not at Edgeley Park.

 

I went to both games and in the original tie we equalized in the last few minutes. There was no extra 30 mins.

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Dont know where you got the 0-0 from. It never took place. If it had the first replay would have been at The Dell on 22 Jan. Not at Edgeley Park.

 

I went to both games and in the original tie we equalized in the last few minutes. There was no extra 30 mins.

 

Yes, that does look wrong. Didnt we equalise late on at home, then MLT looked for all the world like he'd scored a last- gasp winner? And the Stockport captain, Brian something, somehow made a fantastic saving header to keep it out?

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Who was signed the same day we appointed Sturrock, which suggests he didn't sign him.

 

And we know very well Crouch was a Lowe signing, 11 days before Sturrock was appointed. Yahia and Jakobssen were Sturrock signings, he put Folly in the team and sold Fitz Hall to Palace (which basically relegated us as he scored against us in the penultimate match of the season and those extra 2 points would have kept us up).

 

This was the side that got rolled over at Villa, anyway :

A Niemi, J Dodd, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, G Le Saux, F Fernandes, D Prutton, Y Folly (A Svensson, 45), M Nilsson (R Delap, 45), K Phillips, B Ormerod (P Crouch, 68 )

 

At least he replaced the right players...

 

Sturrock was appointed on 4/3/04. 3 months before we signed Nilsson and Crouch. Where are you getting your info from?

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Sturrock was appointed on 4/3/04. 3 months before we signed Nilsson and Crouch. Where are you getting your info from?

 

 

 

Looks like The9 is joining in with the "making up facts about Sturrock" epidemic he was so critical of merely days ago. Great stuff.

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Who was signed the same day we appointed Sturrock, which suggests he didn't sign him.

 

And we know very well Crouch was a Lowe signing, 11 days before Sturrock was appointed. Yahia and Jakobssen were Sturrock signings, he put Folly in the team and sold Fitz Hall to Palace (which basically relegated us as he scored against us in the penultimate match of the season and those extra 2 points would have kept us up).

 

This was the side that got rolled over at Villa, anyway :

A Niemi, J Dodd, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, G Le Saux, F Fernandes, D Prutton, Y Folly (A Svensson, 45), M Nilsson (R Delap, 45), K Phillips, B Ormerod (P Crouch, 68 )

 

At least he replaced the right players...

 

That's true, so again it reinforces what I was saying - he presided over a poor squad.

 

Dodd, Lundekvam, Le Saux and Ormerod were past it, I would argue. Nilsson, Higginbotham and Folly were not good enough, the rest weren't world beaters either.

 

Yahia was a Steve Wigley signing, so that tells you all you need to know. I think Jakobsson was too.

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Sturrock was appointed on 4/3/04. 3 months before we signed Nilsson and Crouch. Where are you getting your info from?

 

I think we paid a few hundred grand to get him released to us early, if memory serves, so he would have agreed to join before Sturrock was appointed but we actually got him after.

 

Crouch was a player we had looked at for some time after scouting.

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Dont know where you got the 0-0 from. It never took place. If it had the first replay would have been at The Dell on 22 Jan. Not at Edgeley Park.

 

I went to both games and in the original tie we equalized in the last few minutes. There was no extra 30 mins.

 

Blame Soccerbase ! I wasn't sure about it either, in an era when clubs wanted Cup games scaled back, having second replays for League cup games does seem a bit bonkers and incongruous. Though we did beat Peterboro over 2 legs and take 2 matches to beat Oxford and Lincoln prior to the Stockport tie.

 

Extremely suspiciously though there is absolutely no team or match info for the Jan 7 "match", so it does appear to be a red herring.

Edited by The9
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Looks like The9 is joining in with the "making up facts about Sturrock" epidemic he was so critical of merely days ago. Great stuff.

 

Soccerbase says "4/3/04", so I think in this case I must have read his departure date as his arrival - have already been discussing matches from early/mid 2004 as part of his reign so just a maths fail I think !

 

http://www.soccerbase.com/managers/manager.sd?manager_id=1545

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I think we paid a few hundred grand to get him released to us early, if memory serves, so he would have agreed to join before Sturrock was appointed but we actually got him after.

 

Crouch was a player we had looked at for some time after scouting.

 

Dont think so. It appears "Soccerbase" was to blame. Nilsson agreed to sign just prior to Euro 2004 and I saw him playwell for Sweden whilst I was out in Portugal that summer. He looked a completely different player when he turned out for us.

 

Perhaps he was. :suspicious:

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Dont think so. It appears "Soccerbase" was to blame. Nilsson agreed to sign just prior to Euro 2004 and I saw him playwell for Sweden whilst I was out in Portugal that summer. He looked a completely different player when he turned out for us.

 

Perhaps he was. :suspicious:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/3858407.stm

 

"Swedish midfielder Mikael Nilsson will sign for Southampton next week, three months earlier than anticipated.

 

The 26-year-old had signed a pre-contract agreement to join on a free transfer when his contract with Swedish club Halmstad expires in November.

 

But Southampton have persuaded Halmstad to release Nilsson in time for the start of the new Premiership season."

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I think Lowe may well have decided to give him the boot after pair of skinheads niemi and prutton had a little spat on the pitch up at villa park. No control over the players.The decision had clearly been made prior to Blackburn as we won that.

 

That was the only highlight of that game. Pity Niemi didnt hit the tw at harder.

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Dont think so. It appears "Soccerbase" was to blame. Nilsson agreed to sign just prior to Euro 2004 and I saw him playwell for Sweden whilst I was out in Portugal that summer. He looked a completely different player when he turned out for us.

 

Perhaps he was. :suspicious:

 

Oh hang on, I do beg your pardon, Sturrock was appointed wayyy before Nilsson signed. Sorry, bit of a lapse there!

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Sturrock was a bit of a victim of everything: himself, the club, presumably some players and most importantly Lowe's terribly cured 02-04 success hangover.

 

He maybe lacked a bit of the smart looks the Premier League requires nowadays, but that's something that a little talk for 2 minutes after the press conference can change. However, Lowe was so absorbed into his own success that he believed he had to be offered gold every time he moved his arse. Sturrock knew a lot about football and refreshed a team that was showing insecurity after loosing it's big leader for 2 successful years. I guess pre-season preparations may have been seen by the club as amateurish, but the truth is that there was little factual evidence to prove that he was going to be a failure in the new season. Maybe the players weren't happy, then again the solution would've been getting them together at SMS and clear the air. It probably didn't help that he wasn't the first option and that Lowe never got over this and just expected success to keep coming automatically, so he took the easy option to go for another (apparently) easy one: Saggy. I mean, what could go wrong??

We also don't know if Sturrock's signings were due to lack of funds or just poor judgement. Knowing Strachan's departure also had to do with him feeling the club was refusing to pay a single bus fare to leave the dead end, maybe Lowe's lack of real belief in Sturrock only made things worse in this aspect, and he was scouting on a sixpence.

 

In the end, he never really got the full approval and backing of the directors and this probably made it very difficult for him to come and do things. Big mistake to go for him in the first place given such circumstances IMO, and more so not to have let him go once the season was over if the support wasn't still there. That preseason cost us dearly.

 

A very good and measured summary. There is a lot of truth in this. Hoddle was Lowe's first choice and also the players. Sturrock was a poor second and Lowe could never find it in him, to fully support Sturrock.

So, was Lowe at fault for not sticking to his guns and appointing Hoddle ? Was he really thrown off course by the vocal minority or was it because of the split in the board ?

Whatever, Lowe should have waited after the failure to re-appoint Hoddle and at least appointed a more suitable manager than Sturrock.

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A very good and measured summary. There is a lot of truth in this. Hoddle was Lowe's first choice and also the players. Sturrock was a poor second and Lowe could never find it in him, to fully support Sturrock.

So, was Lowe at fault for not sticking to his guns and appointing Hoddle ? Was he really thrown off course by the vocal minority or was it because of the split in the board ?

Whatever, Lowe should have waited after the failure to re-appoint Hoddle and at least appointed a more suitable manager than Sturrock.

 

Was Lowe the kind of person to give two ****s about what we or his fellow board members thought though? If he really wanted Hoddle again, I dare say he would have been appointed.

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Was Lowe the kind of person to give two ****s about what we or his fellow board members thought though? If he really wanted Hoddle again, I dare say he would have been appointed.

 

I agree with what you say, but something made Lowe change his mind and the protest by the vocal few figures highly as it did split the board.

 

Remarkably, 9 years later this murky part of SFC history is still to be revealed.

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