Ferguson: A Harsh Sacking?

Even though Peterborough are currently remaining silent on reports while I write this, the man who lead the Posh from the bottom division of the football league to the Championship has apparently been relieved of his duties. Chairman Darragh MacAnthony appears to have taken the decision after Peterborough’s poor start to the season; the Posh currently sit bottom of the table with only two wins to their name. But any football fan must ask, where is the justice in this for Ferguson? I personally find it a shame that McAnthony has taken this decision and i’m sure many fans of the club will feel the same.

Peterborough has been quite a colourful club in recent years. Whether it be inviting disgraced TV pundit Ron Atkinson and a bunch of sky TV cameras into their club to “sort things out” or engaging in a legal dispute with Victoria Beckham over the naming rights of the clubs nickname ‘the Posh’, many English fans will be well acquainted with the name. Sky Sports favourite and director of football Barry Fry will also be familiar face to football fans, being one of those larger than life characters within the game.

This latest bit of news from Eastern English side though confuses me some what. How can any chairman justify sacking a manager who has won back-to-back promotions for your team and also shown great commitment throughout, notably rejecting the chance to manage Reading this summer – instead preferring to sign a new four year contract with Peterborough. The club is bottom of the table and on poor form, but you should expect that if you’re going up into a new league; Ferguson hasn’t even been given the opportunity to turn things around in any manner.

As mentioned above, Barry Fry is a recognisable figure from the club. A former manager and chairman who has always had the clubs best interests at heart. A meeting on Monday 9th November was scheduled after the club suffered another defeat to top of the table Newcastle United; a team they were hardly expected to beat. I wonder what Fry himself makes of this decision and how much of a say he had in it; he’s a man who’s whole life has revolved around football and surely he would realise Peterborough have a brilliant thing in Ferguson.

Maybe I could be wrong here but that scheduled meeting for Monday maybe have started out as a review of the clubs form and possibly gone a bit far and ended up with the worst possible scenario. Even then, to let Ferguson go suggests that the board’s ambitions for the club are currently set too high. They have shown little faith in one of the brightest young British managers and once again we see another reason why clubs look to hire foreign coaches; the Brit’s just aren’t given a chance to develop.

There are still 30 games left to play this season! 30! With all due respect, the Posh are not one of the big hitters in this league – nor are they expected to be. Any team that gets promoted to a higher league needs to prepare for the battles of relegation and build from there. Although some considerable investment has been made into the club, they have a lot of players that still need to adapt to the Championship. I can’t imagine any of the players are too happy about the decision, it’s clear that if he won two promotions then he obviously had a good rapport with his players.

It’ll be interesting to see who is brought in to replace Ferguson, I can’t think of many managers that could turn things around for the club. Ferguson is young so he is still developing, but at the same time has shown magnificent maturity in what he has accomplished. Any club that decides to snap him up will have a gem of a manager – I have already seen that Brighton fans are hopefull of the Scot filling their vacant managerial post after Russell Slade was given the axe. All I can see for Ferguson is success in the future and I hope he is back in management sooner rather than later.

It’s also quite ironic that Ferguson’s last game in charge came against another club whose chairman makes a few questionable decisions – Newcastle United. Anybody fancy getting the rumour mill going regarding a bit of Mike Ashley advice to MacAnothony?

It’s been almost ten years since the two teams that are one of the most hated rivalries in British soccer last played a league match against each other. On that cold Spring morning in 1999, the Welsh derby between Cardiff City against Swansea City ended in a drab nil-nil draw. Both teams, at the time, were in the bottom division of the Football League.

The two Welsh sides finally play against this each other this Tuesday (September 23, 2008) in the Carling Cup in a game televised live on Sky Sports (and on Setanta in the United States) at 2:30pm ET/7:30pm BST. It’ll definitely be a classic to watch if you’re a fan of the beautiful game.

While the nineties were mostly a dark time for Welsh club football, a lot has changed since then. That season, Cardiff were promoted to League One where they continued their slow ascent into the Championship League. Last season, Cardiff were finalists in the FA Cup Final and came within six points of qualifying for the playoffs.

Forty one miles west of Cardiff, the capital of Wales, Swansea’s fortunes haven’t been as pronounced but a recent resurgence under the leadership of Spaniard Roberto Martinez saw the club break their record of most points in one season (92) when they finished as champions of League One.

Now that Swansea has returned to the Championship League for the first time in 24 years, football fans have three opportunities this season to see why the Welsh derby is one of the most heated battles in the Football League.

Interestingly, the rivalry is more pronounced off the pitch than on it. On the pitch, the match often resembles a Merseyside derby played at a frenetic pace involving plenty of red cards and rough play, but few moments of brilliance or goals.

For me, when I was growing up in Wales until the age of 14, I would go to as many Swansea matches as possible. But in the late 70s and early 80s, the only two matches I would purposefully stay away from was when Swansea’s opponents were either Cardiff or Chelsea.

Off the pitch, the viciousness and hatred between the Cardiff and Swansea fans is the most venomous in all of England and Wales.

After ten years of no league matches against each other, the fear is that violence will rear its ugly head when both teams play each other this Tuesday and on November 30 and April 4. In the past decade, old grudges have had a chance to fester.

One recent incident that will be on the minds of Cardiff fans looking for retribution is the April 2006 Football League Trophy final. After Swansea beat Carlisle at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, two Swansea players unfurled a Welsh flag that contained anti-Cardiff insults written on it. To make matters worse, one of the Swansea players wore a T-shirt with an image of a Swansea player urinating on a Cardiff shirt.

Club officials and local police, looking to reduce the likelihood of mass violence, have scheduled the November 30 match between both sides for an eleven thirty kick off on a Sunday morning. A heavy police presence will be on display for the match will be televised live on Sky Sports as the Bluebirds of Cardiff battle the Swans. Expect a very heated atmosphere both inside and out of Swansea’s Liberty Stadium.

Despite having the worst year that a football fan could have if you supported Derby County like I do, the loyalty showed by the clubs fans were  recognized in a Sky Sports survey. Even as Derby only claimed one win last season (1-0 v Newcastle) the Derby faithful sold out Pride Park, usually sold out the Rams away allotment and then turned around and sold an impressive 22,000 season tickets for the upcoming CCC season. The survey showed that 53% of Derby fans watched at least 15 matches. Let me tell you as a Derby fan, that was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. That was more then any other club in England last season. While the pride of the players may have come into question a time or many, the pride of the fans in Derby County showed week in and week out. Congratulations to my fellow Rams fans for being the most loyal fans in England!