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Alan Waddle
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sunday january 24 2021
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FOOTBALL | ROD LIDDLE
So Mick McCarthy is not good enough for Cardiff fans. Who did they want — Pep Guardiola?
Rod Liddle
Sunday January 24 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
When the second division fixtures were published in June 1981, the chief sports reporter on the newspaper for which I worked, The South Wales Echo, began his story with the words: “Cardiff City begin their battle against relegation next season with a trip to Oldham Athletic.” A wonderful intro that led to him being banned from the ground for the year, but well worth it.
Cardiff were indeed relegated that season, having survived the previous campaign by virtue of goal difference. They were pretty awful. Exiled from my home country I would occasionally wander along to Ninian Park and cheer on the opposition, whoever they were, unless it was Swansea City, and then I wouldn’t go at all. The Bluebirds had one half-decent player, a bloke called Tarki Micallef. Same thing these days, except it’s not Tarki but Kieffer Sutherland, or something.
I mention this to put Cardiff in a bit of context, seeing as the fans are moaning that the board have appointed the “dinosaur” Mick McCarthy as manager. I think they expected Eddie Howe, or maybe Pep. Cardiff may have been in the top tier recently but they have spent most of their existence clambering about in the bottom divisions, especially the third tier. They last won anything of note (unless you count the Welsh Cup, which I don’t) in 1927 — the FA Cup, beating Arsenal, the only time the trophy has left England. The roaring Twenties were their heyday.
Since then it has been peripatetic mediocrity, like it is for most clubs. But fans of Championship sides, and a good few in League One, are often afflicted with Big Club Syndrome: the notion that their rightful place is in the top division, and challenging for Europe. Some 40 clubs seem to think this of themselves and the Premier League has places for only 20. These enhanced expectations can lead to financial ruin and ignominy, bitterness and a sense of futility.
Cardiff are in mid-table having endured a six-match losing run under the now departed Neil Harris. Chopper took them to the play-offs last season, but that wasn’t good enough for the fans, who wished to win the play-offs while playing vibrant, free-flowing, attacking football. The, erm, sometimes erratic Malaysian owner, Vincent Tan, examined the options in front of him, caught the whiff of relegation on the breeze, axed Chopper and very quickly brought in Big Mick from his clement sojourn in Cyprus, where he was managing the country’s biggest club, APOEL (and not making a terribly good fist of it, if we’re honest. They’re below mid-table).
I have happy memories of McCarthy as a manager. In his first managerial stint he took my club, Millwall, into the play-offs while playing the brand of entertaining football that those Cardiff fans so yearn for. Hell, we even played the diamond formation under Mick. His finest moment, though, was in response to a journalist inquiring if it was true that Millwall had bought the goalkeeper Kasey Keller. “Kasey Keller? Don’t know about that. There’s a case of Stella . . .”
His record since then has been pretty remarkable — a kind of Neil Warnock on methadone. He hoisted Sunderland and those formerly slumbering giants Wolves into the Premier League and, in the case of Wolves, kept them there, somewhat against the odds. He is probably the second most successful manager of Ireland in history, after the sainted Jack Charlton (whom Big Mick reveres). In the 2002 World Cup the Irish missed out on a quarter-final place only after losing a penalty shoot-out against Spain.
McCarthy has been appointed Cardiff manager until the end of the season
McCarthy has been appointed Cardiff manager until the end of the season
JOHN SIBLEY/REUTERS
Arguments with that fractious little monkey, Roy Keane (you may remember Roy’s stunning riposte to his boss: “Up yer bollocks”) somewhat sullied Ireland’s participation in the tournament. But then it is difficult to imagine being Keane’s manager and everything going smoothly, isn’t it?
McCarthy’s stock fell a little at Ipswich, perhaps. He was there for the best part of six years — another “big” club whose fans thought themselves more deserving than they were. Money was non-existent, while in the stands there were plenty of fans who remembered Bobby Robson and thought Ipswich should be somewhere around second place in the Premier League.
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The club were on a downward trajectory, which Mick could not quite halt. But, somehow, he got them into the play-offs and then seventh place before a kind of irreversible rot set in. He felt hounded out of Ipswich by the fans who, like Tan, could sniff relegation on the breeze.
He got the hell out of Portman Road after an obdurate 1-0 win over Barnsley, consoling himself that he would no longer have to take the relentless abuse from the stands. He had no sympathy with the supporters when, the following season, Ipswich finally succumbed to the inevitable. Ipswich are still in the third tier and showing no great inclination to get themselves out.
Managers are, in general, overrated. You want your club to do better than they are ? Get a new owner. But there are a few managers kicking around who have a certain knack. Warnock, Pulis, Big Sam — and Big Mick. Just get behind the bloke
sunday january 24 2021
author-image
FOOTBALL | ROD LIDDLE
So Mick McCarthy is not good enough for Cardiff fans. Who did they want — Pep Guardiola?
Rod Liddle
Sunday January 24 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
When the second division fixtures were published in June 1981, the chief sports reporter on the newspaper for which I worked, The South Wales Echo, began his story with the words: “Cardiff City begin their battle against relegation next season with a trip to Oldham Athletic.” A wonderful intro that led to him being banned from the ground for the year, but well worth it.
Cardiff were indeed relegated that season, having survived the previous campaign by virtue of goal difference. They were pretty awful. Exiled from my home country I would occasionally wander along to Ninian Park and cheer on the opposition, whoever they were, unless it was Swansea City, and then I wouldn’t go at all. The Bluebirds had one half-decent player, a bloke called Tarki Micallef. Same thing these days, except it’s not Tarki but Kieffer Sutherland, or something.
I mention this to put Cardiff in a bit of context, seeing as the fans are moaning that the board have appointed the “dinosaur” Mick McCarthy as manager. I think they expected Eddie Howe, or maybe Pep. Cardiff may have been in the top tier recently but they have spent most of their existence clambering about in the bottom divisions, especially the third tier. They last won anything of note (unless you count the Welsh Cup, which I don’t) in 1927 — the FA Cup, beating Arsenal, the only time the trophy has left England. The roaring Twenties were their heyday.
Since then it has been peripatetic mediocrity, like it is for most clubs. But fans of Championship sides, and a good few in League One, are often afflicted with Big Club Syndrome: the notion that their rightful place is in the top division, and challenging for Europe. Some 40 clubs seem to think this of themselves and the Premier League has places for only 20. These enhanced expectations can lead to financial ruin and ignominy, bitterness and a sense of futility.
Cardiff are in mid-table having endured a six-match losing run under the now departed Neil Harris. Chopper took them to the play-offs last season, but that wasn’t good enough for the fans, who wished to win the play-offs while playing vibrant, free-flowing, attacking football. The, erm, sometimes erratic Malaysian owner, Vincent Tan, examined the options in front of him, caught the whiff of relegation on the breeze, axed Chopper and very quickly brought in Big Mick from his clement sojourn in Cyprus, where he was managing the country’s biggest club, APOEL (and not making a terribly good fist of it, if we’re honest. They’re below mid-table).
I have happy memories of McCarthy as a manager. In his first managerial stint he took my club, Millwall, into the play-offs while playing the brand of entertaining football that those Cardiff fans so yearn for. Hell, we even played the diamond formation under Mick. His finest moment, though, was in response to a journalist inquiring if it was true that Millwall had bought the goalkeeper Kasey Keller. “Kasey Keller? Don’t know about that. There’s a case of Stella . . .”
His record since then has been pretty remarkable — a kind of Neil Warnock on methadone. He hoisted Sunderland and those formerly slumbering giants Wolves into the Premier League and, in the case of Wolves, kept them there, somewhat against the odds. He is probably the second most successful manager of Ireland in history, after the sainted Jack Charlton (whom Big Mick reveres). In the 2002 World Cup the Irish missed out on a quarter-final place only after losing a penalty shoot-out against Spain.
McCarthy has been appointed Cardiff manager until the end of the season
McCarthy has been appointed Cardiff manager until the end of the season
JOHN SIBLEY/REUTERS
Arguments with that fractious little monkey, Roy Keane (you may remember Roy’s stunning riposte to his boss: “Up yer bollocks”) somewhat sullied Ireland’s participation in the tournament. But then it is difficult to imagine being Keane’s manager and everything going smoothly, isn’t it?
McCarthy’s stock fell a little at Ipswich, perhaps. He was there for the best part of six years — another “big” club whose fans thought themselves more deserving than they were. Money was non-existent, while in the stands there were plenty of fans who remembered Bobby Robson and thought Ipswich should be somewhere around second place in the Premier League.
SPONSORED
The club were on a downward trajectory, which Mick could not quite halt. But, somehow, he got them into the play-offs and then seventh place before a kind of irreversible rot set in. He felt hounded out of Ipswich by the fans who, like Tan, could sniff relegation on the breeze.
He got the hell out of Portman Road after an obdurate 1-0 win over Barnsley, consoling himself that he would no longer have to take the relentless abuse from the stands. He had no sympathy with the supporters when, the following season, Ipswich finally succumbed to the inevitable. Ipswich are still in the third tier and showing no great inclination to get themselves out.
Managers are, in general, overrated. You want your club to do better than they are ? Get a new owner. But there are a few managers kicking around who have a certain knack. Warnock, Pulis, Big Sam — and Big Mick. Just get behind the bloke
