February 11 – JFK
SO after a summer of promise the season has started badly, results are poor, morale amongst the supporters is low, and a once great club is on its knees.
Desperate for a man to turn things around the unpopular owner turns to Joe ‘Effing’ Kinnear to be the new boss in a bid to arrest the slide. The story is familiar to all Newcastle United fans but today in 2004 exactly the same scenario unfolded at Nottingham Forest.
After a good 2002/03 season in which Forest had made the play-offs under Paul Hart, the following term was going badly and chairman Nigel Doughty, fearing another relegation, sacked Hart.
Within days former Wimbledon boss Joe Kinnear was unveiled as the new boss at the County Ground, his first job since being sacked by Luton Town in 2003.
His first match was a home game against Walsall. With 45 minutes gone Forest were 3-1 down but after a half time team talk in which Joe encouraged his players “to show some bollocks” they fought back to draw 3-3.
After the game Joe showed his penchant for expletive laden diatribes at the press, previous managers and just about anyone else who happened to be wandering into shot is nothing new.
“It’s a hard club to come to for players because from the moment you walk into the place you get the history rammed down your throat day in day out,” he said by way of an opening salvo.
“It’s a pain in the arse but you have to live with it. You can’t break wind without names like Clough and Birtles being mentioned.
“I know all the crap about winning the European Cup but the people who hang around the club pontificating haven’t had the guts to become managers or, if they have, they’ve failed. People criticise me, say I’m a route-one manager, but it’s always the same- if Robert Pires threads a 20- or 30-yard ball inside the full-back for Thierry Henry to run on to and score it’s a brilliant pass but, when my teams do it, it’s a boot down the middle. We’re a good passing side and no one’s going to take that away, irrespective of what’s been said, but I want to see a result.”
Despite his fevered rantings Joe did manage to arrest the slide and kept Forest in the Championship that season, but by December 2004 his second term in charge was not going well and he resigned.
It would be his last job in football until Mike Ashley stunned the football world by bringing him back as Newcastle boss in September 2008 (here at OTFD we are still convinced Ashley must have been reading a ten-year-old newspaper article about the best British managers having first brought back Keegan, then gone for Venables and finally ended up with Kinnear – he seemed so out of touch it’s a wonder he didn’t enquire about Herbert Chapman or Walter Winterbottom).
Of course it was when appointed Newcastle boss he pulled out his best ever rant at the press and his perceived rough treatment from journalists.
We’ll leave you with that particular piece of genius (for the easily offended this is a sanitized bleeped version – we don’t think swearing is funny or big or clever). God knows what the club’s top players like Michael Owen made of it all but back in 1998 young Mickey was making his England debut. Have a look at that here and come back tomorrow for more from us.
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