from the official: Tony Adams talks about himself a lot
and Matt Bloomfield a little bit
http://www.wycombewanderers.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/adams-blooms-was-my-nobby-stiles-3259711.aspx
ps. well done Matt - still think that Charlton away game was one of the all time great Wycombe performances
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What an incredibly un self aware piece from Adams. If you weren't around, you'd have presumed he'd had a really good spell here, rather than basically writing 80% of a season off and just accepting relegation, cheesing the likes of Simpson and Currie off.
Then name checking the few successes he was part of.
Odious bloke.
Oh yeah, "wanted to coach the top players". What, like he did in Azerbaijan or wherever it was!?
I did have to check my history when I read his account of his period 'managing' Wycombe. He will always be remembered by me for his account of the negative psychology of eating an apple before a game.
I am also interested in his comparison of Bloomfield and Nobby Stiles. Adams was 9 when Stiles retired so what a great footballing mind he had back then to recall his attributes and to see them in an Ipswich player so many years later.
Genius.
My god i remember Adams as being the worst manager we've had since Smith,I can't think of another manager though who was away with the fairies as much as Adams,Smith was crap but Adams needed sectioning!
I was a huge fan of Adams as a player, as a person an arse.
If I remember he did coach top players playing in Europe and made them crap and also got them relegated.
Poor old Tony, delusional at best, head up his own backside at worst.
Adams had had no experience in football management and, more significantly, no experience of football in the lower leagues. I suppose that's why Ivor Beeks thought he was the ideal candidate to be our manager, that and the publicity it brought for Beeks of course.
That actually made me a little angry reading that. Where does he get this extraordinary idea that he was so successful from? The whole 'I was doing everything at Wycombe' line is ridiculous too, as if he just assumed we would have an array of coaches and an extensive scouting network ready to do all that stuff for him. I remember a quote from him on his departure that was along the lines of 'You won't find anyone who thinks I did a bad job at Wycombe' - he was a truly awful manager, both at Wycombe and elsewhere and is clearly either in cloud cuckoo land or simply arrogant beyond all belief.
A bit of both, I reckon.
"I've done my budget"
"I set aside everything I learned under Arsène. It's a complete waste of time at this level. The other night, before the Colchester game, one of our players ate an apple. I let it go. If I started talking about the physiology of eating an apple, what it does to the digestive system just before you play football, I'd be confusing the hell out of them. They just can't take a huge amount of information on board"
Offering Simpemba 12k a year, an offer so sh!t, that he decided to play non league and work in a warehouse for a better standard of living.
Fielding a teenage back 4 for a game or 2.
Pissing about bringing premier league wonderkids in for a tiny amount of time, which was a thrill, but did next to nothing for us trying to stay up.
Writing off a season that was about 2months in, already accepting relegation, and being arrogant enough to think he'd easily get it right the next season
Resigning with such a lack of class that the club found out through the press.
Saw Gorman WAS getting it right a while later, and made out he'd have loved to have brought Mooney in, but wasn't backed well enough.
Refusing to bring in "sheds", ie physical players.
The man was a bloody imbecile, that only Smith could outdo. And perhaps the young idiots on the FB group constantly moaning about today's situation could have a look at those days and think on.
simmer....
I like the idea that Premier League players are more capable of taking information on board than lower league players.
@malone to be fair, seeing Steven Taylor in a Wycombe shirt was wonderful
Dropping Currie and Simpson was his worst offence. What a prick. Our two best players by a country mile
To be fair, he did sign some good players. Tyson, Burnell, Williamson, Bloomfield spring to mind
He also signed Gary Silk. One of the worst footballers I have ever seen
And, I should add, the way he has dealt with, and continues to deal with such an insidious illness as alcoholism is truly admirable.
Not to mention the sporting chance organisation he set up to help others battle this and other addictions
And he was an awesome player
Think it is time someone set up a poll/league table of Wycombe managers. Top place and bottom two are 'givens' but be interesting to see where we place some of the others
@bookertease Great idea. It would be particularly interesting to see where Sanchez falls.
The Burnell signing was intriguing to me. It came at a time when we paid a sh1t load of money to agents. He was not a bad player don't get me wrong. Coincidently he had the same agent(s) as Adams. Totally unrelated points.
Made a few nice signings yes, and I seem to recall a brief time at the summit.
At the first sign of trouble that season he just walked like a coward.
@bookertease , at the risk of missing someone i'll have a crack, best to crappest
1)O NEILL- PROS- Near impossible for anyone to ever better him
CONS - Leaving!
2)GORMAN - PROS - Sumptious football, cracking team, arguably the best football we've played in the league days. Always felt we had a goal in us. Exciting to watch
CONS - Minor one, lack of any cynical edge to see out games, Major one - factors outside anyone's control ruining the project
3)SANCHEZ - PROS - Incredible cup run, incredible relegation survival act. Overrides all the cons by a mile for me.
CONS - Absolute meltdown near the end of his time, rants at fans, fell out with Devine etc. Struggled when Devine and Bates left. Pretty much had 2 ports of call for players, Brentford or Wimbledon links. Made Waddock look like a don of contacts.
4)LAMBERT PROS - Felt a bit big time with him in charge, a European cup winner, not that he mentioned it much. The League cup semi final was an incredible achievement, and is his main reason for being so high up. Brought in some really good characters, like Batista, the Villa defender, Anthony Grant. Easter playing so well, was a good time to be a fan in that run.
CONS - A bit dour, every game was "tough", and his penchant for 4 centre mids across the park didn't half make the football tedious at times.
5)AINSWORTH PROS - Absolute cult hero personality, from being a player through to manager. Showed a real willingness to learn from mistakes to put together that team that so cruelly didn't go up, after the last day desperation at Torquay.
CONS - real make or break season which can go either way. The style of football is becoming a huge concern, with massive question marks about whether it'll change when the wingers and Hayes are fully fit.
Has the potential to climb this list, but could easily sink down as well. Fingers crossed
6)GREGORY PROS - Terrific rescue job to keep us up. Had an incredible record low of goals conceded in one calendar year at home, under 5 was it? Brought Scotty back, which with Stallard and McGavin made an entertaining attack. Until Bell was so cruelly stolen for a pittance it looked like we could go places that season.
Overrides the 2 below as their promotions were from a lower division and neither did better than Gregory in the now league 1.
CONS - Not an attacking force away from home. Never kicked on from staying up. Pretty lucky to get the Villa job. Wouldn't have got it on achievements alone.
7) WADDOCK PROS - nice guy, got us a promotion. Brought Gaz in.
CONS - 2 relegations, became an unfunny joke how poor his recruitment and links extended. Seemingly everyone we signed was an Aldershot old boy, which being a division below us for a lot of his time was bloody rubbish. Stupidly awarded a scandalously long contract.
8) TAYLOR PROS -Got us promotion, which probably makes it harsh to rank him so low.
CONS - Soul destroying football, get a goal up then kill the game. Made the promotion we did get feel joyless, incredibly strange emotion. Stitched up by Hayes's little summer ultimatum, but he absolutely saddled the club with garbage like Green, Duberry and Westlake. Re-signed Oliver, one of our all time crappest defenders, and alongside Duberry gave us our all time worst combo at the back.
9)SMILLIE PROS -Lovely guy, genuinely wanted him to do well
CONS- Cheap option, massively out of his depth, chucked into a hopeless cause.
10)ADAMS - PROS - supposed big name manager. Few good signings, giving us the privilege of Taylor and Luke Moore.
CONS - everything from my previous post
11)SMITH PROS - supposed big name manager.
CONS - Everything. Kicking out well loved players for no reason. Bringing expensive flops in. Seemingly genuinely perplexed how taking a team to midtable with sh!t punt and sprint football wasn't making everyone cheer his name. Had the audacity to try and claim credit for the youth system, that hadn't even born any fruit by then. Claiming someone "very close" to the running of the team said we were "certainties" for relegation unless he did major surgery. 6th the year before!
Claiming the fans didn't like a "flashy" London bloke.
that was an enjoyable trip down memory lane! Anyone else's list?
Forgive the length of that piece, but just listing without explanation didn't seem right!
I guess it doesn't count, as it was only on a caretaker basis, but I would rate the Brown/Ryan co-manager spell near the top of my list if it did.
O'Neill was before my time - I moved to High Wycombe and started supporting just as he left, in the summer of '95 - so I can't really comment on his management. Of the other's on @Malone list above, I would place them in order of whether I would call them my "favourite":
1) Sanchez
2) Ainsworth
3) Gorman
4) Waddock
5) Smillie
6) Gregory
7) Lambert
8) Taylor
9) Adams
10) Smith
Sanchez, prior to becoming completely frustrated with his lot and upsetting the fans with his unguarded and not well thought through comments, achieved a lot in my opinion. I will never forget the FA cup run: the clincher for me being the pre-match team talk he gave before the FA Cup semi-final that Steve Brown showed a video of at his "An evening with ..." event a few years ago at Adams Park. Rousing stuff.
I'd have Taylor above Lambert and Gregory, but I have the advantage of seeing almost none of the games he managed.
Personally I'd go with Malone's list swapping Gregory with Lambert and maybe moving Ainsworth up a touch. It doesn't feel right ranking him yet but he's probably top half.
I'm actually quite surprised how lowly we seem to rate Gregory. My memories are of a decent, quality football team, although I guess he did have a decent budget to work with. But I do remember those seasons warmly
Looking at the list of managers we've had since joining the league, we haven't done too badly really, have we? Of the least successful, Smillie was just the wrong man in the wrong job and Adams wasn't around too long, which only leaves Smith as an outright disaster. Could have done with Sanchez and Waddock leaving a year earlier than they both did. I guess, with a very few exceptions, all football management careers end in failure.