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The U’sual Ramblings #8 arrives following a significant development at Colchester United. After a dismal performance last Saturday, with the utterly ineffectual U’s losing 1-0 at home to a well-marshalled but otherwise distinctly average Grimsby Town, Robbie had seen enough. Often accused of acting too late, no one could accuse him of that this time, with Wayne Brown relieved of his duties the following day. I for one thought, after Brown turned things around second half of last season, that we’d push on from there. Sadly not, and despite several very positive looking signings over the summer, Brown’s tactics appeared to be throw as much spaghetti at the wall and see if any of it stuck. Very little did unfortunately, and whilst I thank Wayne Brown for his efforts whilst manager (for the 3rd time of asking), it was absolutely the right decision.
Unlike the spaghetti, the writing was on the wall…
The world outside U’s World Well, where to start in the world outside the U’s bubble? Why not begin with Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget yesterday, described by some commentators as ‘reckless’ and ‘casino economics’ by the shadow chancellor. Showing their colours early, Liz Truss’s chancellor shamefully announced a budget that will do very little for the low paid, already struggling under mountains of debt, spiralling energy costs and rampant inflation. His show stopper and heralding a new era of the odious and morally reprehensible ‘trickle down’ economics, Kwarteng axed the 45% tax rate for the most wealthy in our society, abolished the cap on banker’s bonuses, and ditched plans to increase corporation tax from 19% to 25%.
The doubling of stamp duty may well help middle income families already in the property chain, or those wealthy enough to join it as a first time buyer but does nothing for those who don’t earn enough to even qualify for a mortgage (even though they are already paying more in rent than they would as a mortgage). Virtually the only good news for the less well-heeled, a promise to reduce the basic rate of income tax by a meagre 1% next April, and the wealthy will benefit just as much with that as well — let the good times roll, eh?
The Treasury admitted that there were no forecasts modelled for the impact of the measures introduced on growth, apparently because there wasn’t time to run any. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies commented: “Today, the chancellor announced the biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years without even a semblance of an effort to make the public finance numbers add up. Instead, the plan seems to be to borrow large sums at increasingly expensive rates, put government debt on an unsustainable rising path and hope that we get better growth. Mr Kwarteng is not just gambling on a new strategy, he is betting the house”. Predictably, the stock market plummeted.
Across the pond, Trump World seems almost facile by comparison, but I do like seeing the equally odious and morally reprehensible Trump having his feet held to the fire. In what has undoubtedly been an exceptionally bad week, on top of the January 6th Committee investigations, the potential criminal charges that may come out of that, the Department of Justice investigations into the theft of top secret classified documents (apparently declassified just through mind control according to the orange buffoon) and a host of other cases, new ones have emerged this week.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced during the week a $250m civil case suing the Trump Organisation, and specifically Trump himself and three of his children, Donny Jr, Ivanka and Eric. Following a three year investigation, in a 214-page complaint James’ alleges multiple counts of falsely inflating his net worth by billions to enrich himself and secure favourable loans, and then underinflating those same assets for tax avoidance (the details have also been passed to the IRS to consider whether the criminal charge of tax evasion needs to be added to the list). For all his self-promotion as a ‘successful businessman’, Trump’s estate would probably be worth more now if he’d simply left it alone when inheriting it from his father.
Trump’s view on and treatment of women is on record, and there have already been multiple cases of sexual misconduct either reported, and even brought against him in court. He’s managed to dodge them all so far, but this week E Jean Carroll announced her intention to file a lawsuit against him for sexual battery, under the new Adult Survivors Act. Carroll alleges that Trump raped her in the 1990s in New York City, when Trump was a real estate developer. The new law, which comes into effect on 24th November 2022, allows accusers one calendar year from then to file civil lawsuits against their alleged attacker, regardless of when the alleged assault took place.
U’s World So, back to the U’s, and obviously following Robbie’s announcement on Sunday, most attention has turned to rampant speculation about who will be Wayne Brown’s replacement? What we do know, for now, is that Steve Ball has agreed to step up as caretaker at least for today’s game, but has categorically ruled himself out as the permanent replacement. Let’s be honest, he was probably never going to be in the running anyway, but that assurance ought to reassure some that even if it is to be another internal appointment, it won’t be him.
Sporting Director Dmitri Halajko, who arrived in the summer, has confirmed that the selection process will consider all options, with a clear emphasis on the potential for someone new coming into the club. According to his statement, the club have drawn up a shortlist of potential appointments who they are actively targeting, inevitably the club has also received many expressions of interest and CVs from other candidates, and of course the internal appointment option is technically still on the table. On the latter, Dmitri stated “…then you have the internal route, which the club has used quite a lot before, which we won’t discount but we are certainly looking at the other two areas as a priority at this stage”.
I won’t dwell on the bookies odds for our new manager, which seem to change more often than I do my socks, suffice to say many of the leading contenders at various times all appear to be of the same mould — young, hungry and ambitious current non-league managers. Nothing necessarily wrong with that either, after all, St Philip of Parkinson wasn’t exactly an established manager when he arrived at Layer Road, and we all know how that worked out. All I hope is we bring someone in with some fire in their belly, and a willingness to shake some of our underperforming squad out of their complacency. Ironically, with today’s game televised on iFollow thanks to England’s dreadful performance against Italy last night (Gareth Southgate anyone?), I’d imagine there’ll be a fair few candidates watching in to assess the situation and run the rule over the squad — let’s hope the players understand that!
Stat attack Oo are ya? As mentioned above, Wayne Brown has been our most frequent manager over the years, with three separate spells in charge at the club. In taking over temporarily for today’s game, Steve Ball joins that exclusive group, as this will also be his third spell in charge (Ed. errr, ‘Head Coach’ I think?). Four others have had two bites at the cherry: Steve Foley, Geraint Williams, Steve Whitton and Joe Dunne.
Of those that have clocked up 50+ games in charge, Ted Davis has been far and away our most successful, with his 129 games returning an equivalent 2.02 points per game using today’s metric. Ian Atkins isn’t too far behind, undoubtedly helped because his spell in charge coincided with our first season in the Conference, with a per match average of 1.98 PPG from his 51 matches as (player) manager. Ted Fenton completes the top three, with a PPG of 1.84 from his 89 games in charge.
Ted Davis, courtesy of ColuData
Then, there’s a big gap, with the next group all around the 1.4 to 1.5 PPG mark (Parky’s PPG was the best of that group at 1.56). The lowest in the 50+ match category is Jack Butler, with just 0.87 PPG from 77 games, with Jock Wallace second from bottom with a PPG of exactly 1 from 52 games. Third from bottom, and along with Dave Huzzey not involved today, is Joe Dunne with a PPG of 1.06 from his 99 games in charge.
Incidentally, across his three spells in charge, Wayne Brown’s PPG was 1.23, and if you look at the stats regardless of how many games in charge, Richard Hall is absolute lowest with a PPG of 0 (lost his only game in charge), followed by Denis Mochan with a PPG of 0.4 (didn’t win any of his five games in charge) and Dale Roberts with a PPG of 0.8 (won one and drew one of his five games).
New manager or dead cat bounce? Remarkably it took until the 1953/54 season and a 3-1 victory over Torquay at Layer Road for a new manager to win their first game in charge of the U’s, when Jack Butler finally bucked the non-winning trend established by Ted Davis, Syd Fieldus, Ted Fenton and Jimmy Allen before him. Even more remarkably, it would be nearly 30 years before another U’s manager won their first game in charge, when in January 1983 Cyril Lea’s U’s narrowly overcame Crewe Alexandra 4-3 at Layer Road.
Since then, the new manager effect has been a bit more positive, but overall the record is poor — of 47 debut matches for managers (caretakers or otherwise), 24 have resulted in defeat, 11 drawn, and just a dozen won. Eight of those 12 have been at home, but even then, the record is poor, with the remaining 13 either lost (12) or drawn (just the one). However, in that regard, special mention ought to go to Joe Dunne — overall his PPG as manager may not be very good, but he did at least win both of his debut games in charge. The last manager to win their debut game at home? None other than Wayne Brown in 2015/16.
A new era dawns? The best debut performance for a manager is shared by Roger Brown and Phil Parkinson, who both registered 4-1 victories, against Rochdale at Spotland and Port Vale at Layer Road respectively. Wayne Brown also deserves recognition in this category too, with his stirring 3-0 victory at Salford City in January — just a memory now I’m afraid.
The ‘What the Hell have I let myself in for’ award goes to legend Dick Graham, who’s U’s were smashed 4-0 at Griffin Park in 1968 in his first game in charge — which certainly goes to show a poor start doesn’t necessarily bode ill for the future. On the basis that in the league, a 5-1 defeat is marginally better than a 4-0 defeat, I should also highlight the aforementioned Richard Hall, whose only game in charge was a 5-1 battering at Burton Albion in 2015.
Match of the Day Colchester United v Leyton Orient Saturday 8th May 2010 Coca Cola Football League One (Tier 3) Attendance 5,751
No programme for this one, just my calendar entry
For today’s Match of the Day we return to the memorabilia random match generator, and as per usual lady luck appears to have intervened with her hand of fate. Only this time, not the debut match of a new manager, but as it would turn out, the final match of an incumbent manager. We go back to May 2010, and as with the previous blog, the last match of the season, this time against local (kind of) rivals Leyton Orient.
Under Paul Lambert, the U’s had started the 2009/10 season with a bang with that memorable 7-1 thrashing of Norwich at Carrow Road. That of course prompted “let’s be havin’ you!” Delia and her board to move in and poach Lambert for themselves, though not before being rinsed by little old Col U for some compo. Joe Dunne picked up the reins as caretaker, as mentioned above winning his first debut match in charge of Colchester United 2-1 at home to Gillingham.
Aidy Boothroyd was eventually appointed as our permanent manager at the beginning of September, and for the most part he kept the excellent start going, with the U’s remaining in the play-offs right through to the beginning of April. However, that belies the reality — the wheels had come off back in February, with the U’s winless since then, slowly being overtaken and eventually forced out of even the play-offs.
The supporters were obviously not happy about our worsening league position, but also not happy with our style of football. Even when winning, under Boothroyd we had become somewhat one-dimensional and not a particularly attractive side to watch — the fact that our two leading goal scorers, Lisbie (12) and Wordsworth (11) were the only players in double figures spoke volumes to that. More worrying, I suspect as the season went on, we started to be comprehensively ‘found out’ by astute managers who knew how to combat that style with ease. By the last game of the season, and despite a long awaited 3-0 victory over Swindon in mid-April, every other match had been either lost or drawn, and even the play-offs were now a mathematical impossibility.
Didn’t stop me making the journey though, hitching up with my mate Jon at Hamilton Hall on the way through.
“If you can’t support us when we lose or draw, don’t support us when we win”
For his last game of that season, Aidy Boothroyd’s U’s lined up:
1….Ben Williams 4….Magnus Okuonghae (captain) 6….Paul Reid 23..Marc Tierney 25..John White 10..Kem Izzet 11..Simon Hackney (9. Clive Platt 62’) 22..Anthony Wordsworth 26..David Prutton 7….Ashley Vincent (31. Phil Ifil 68’) 15..Kayode Odejayi (20. Kevin Lisbie 55’)
Going into the game, it was reported that Robbie Cowling had given Boothroyd the green light to bring in new players over the summer, provided he balanced the books by potentially having to sell some of our own. Boothroyd had publicly stated he wanted to whittle the squad down to a core of about 24 players, and the greatest and most concerning uncertainty as far as the Faithful were concerned was leading goal scorer Lisbie, on loan from our dear Suffolk friends.
Leyton Orient, under manager Russell Slade, had been through a difficult season struggling to avoid relegation, and going into this final game of the season still weren’t safe. A win at the WHCS would confirm their safety, otherwise they were relying on already relegated Wycombe Wanderers to defeat fellow strugglers Gillingham, and/or a combination of results for Exeter City, Tranmere Rovers and Hartlepool also in the relegation scrap all going their way. The three names of note in the O’s line-up that afternoon were Jamie Jones in goal, Ryan Jarvis in midfield, and former U’s legend Scott McGleish up front — 36 years of age and still banging them in for fun.
Predictably, with everything to play for, the O’s supporters turned out in numbers for the game, as to be fair did the U’s support, given we were only playing for pride now. However, the near 5,800 crowd were not exactly treated to an entertaining spectacle first half. There really isn’t too much to mention about the first 20 minutes or so, until finally Odejayi, coming back into the side after being out for nearly two months, carved out our first serious threat on goal. Latching onto David Prutton’s through ball, Odejayi had only Jones to beat, but dragged his shot wide of the far post.
Considering the position, Orient were equally lethargic. Odejayi’s attempt did at least stir them into some sort of action, with Sean Thornton heading over from close range shortly after when he should probably have done better, and then firing into the side-netting with a shot that Ben Williams clearly had covered. Just before half-time Wordsworth managed a header on target, but Jones with relative ease tipped it around the post for a corner.
And that was how the first half ended, goalless and not much really of any note to report on. The word filtering through at half-time was that Wycombe had taken a 1-0 lead at home to Gillingham deep in first half stoppage time, and whilst the U’s faithful couldn’t give two hoots, as it stood Leyton Orient were safe from relegation.
Whether the fragility of their position finally dawned upon them, or Slade gave them a right earful in the dressing room, the O’s came out much more up for the fight in the second half. A stinging drive from Ryan Jarvis was fingertipped over by Williams, and Eric Lichaj should have done better with a chance later in the half but allowed time for Williams to save easily. The U’s were still somewhat lacklustre going forward, even following the introduction of both Kevin Lisbie (to thunderous applause) and Clive Platt around the hour mark.
If anything, it was Boothroyd’s third substitution bringing on Phil Ifil that finally swung the pendulum our way, with Thornton doing very well to block Phil’s header from a Wordsworth’s corner on the line to prevent a certain goal. With the U’s now pushing harder and harder up front, we were always susceptible to the counterattack, and Williams had to be on his toes to smother the ball at the feet of Ryan Jarvis.
Finally though, the U’s late pressure told from the unlikeliest of sources, diminutive and goal-shy midfielder Kemi Izzet. With no other option, his goal-bound shot was blocked on the line by Luke Ashworth, only this time using his hand. It was a clear cut decision, and obviously earned Ashworth a straight red card in the process. And so, in the 92nd minute of the game, up stepped Kevin Lisbie to blast the ball past Jamie Jones and give the U’s a 1-0 victory that if I’m honest they barely deserved — but as the ground erupted, who cared!
Colchester United 1 (Kevin Lisbie 90+2’) Leyton Orient 0
Lisbie finished the season with 13 goals, and although initially not ruling out the possibility he might return for another spell with the U’s, that would be his last game played and goal scored for Colchester United. He spent the following season on loan at Millwall, and then ironically in the summer of 2011 signed for Leyton Orient.
Although the O’s were defeated on the last day, Wycombe had done their job for them, beating Gillingham 3-0 to ensure the O’s survival, and consign Gillingham, Wycombe and Southend, alongside bottom club Stockport County, to relegation. As much as the tail end of the season had been one big black cloud for the U’s, that news was a considerable silver lining.
As for Aidy — well despite all the chat about building a new squad etc., this would also be his last game for Colchester United, leaving in the summer to take up the reins at Coventry City. Doing things the right way, Coventry City did of course ask permission from Robbie Cowling to initially approach Aidy Boothroyd — Robbie didn’t say no this time.
There’s a very grainy shaky video of Lisbie’s penalty on YouTube for your delectation and delight, but unfortunately it won’t embed into the blog, so you’ll have to go see it on YouTube.
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