November 3 – The Life of Brian
HE’S not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy! Well, perhaps not naughty, but certainly not the managerial messiah.
It was on this day in 1999 that Brian Kidd proved what Steve McLaren is proving daily, namely that good number twos very rarely make good number ones, when he was sacked as Blackburn Rovers manager.
As a player, Kidd had strutted his stuff for Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Everton and Bolton before he moved to America to play in the NASL.
Sir Alex Ferguson gave Kidd his big break into coaching when he gave him a job working with the youth players at Man Utd where he aided in the development of the golden generation including David Beckham, Paul Scholes and the rest of the title winning kids.
Bringing through the finest players of their generation convinced Fergie that Kiddo was pretty darn hot stuff at this coaching lark, so he promoted him to assistant manager as United went on the win the Premier League and both domestic cups.
By now Kidd was beginning to tire of being the monkey to Ferguson’s organ grinder and started to think he might make a pretty good gaffer himself.
Meanwhile, over at Blackburn, the club were struggling to deal with life post-Dalglish and had even tried to sign up Sven to lead them, although he never actually got there, bizarrely choosing life in Italy over Lancashire. Crazy fool.
In 1998 Roy Hodgson had just been sacked by Rovers after a promising start had deteriorated and the club hovered around the dreaded relegation zone.
Jack Walker, quite logically thought the man who coached United to the top might just be the chap to lift Blackburn out of the doldrums so handed Kidd the keys to the managers office at Ewood Park, along with £20m to spend on new players.
Throwing money at the problem failed to work however, and Kidd oversaw Rovers’ relegation. ‘Oh well, might as well give him a proper chance,’ went the thinking at boardroom level. Sadly, Brian couldn’t get to grips with actually being in charge and the club failed to hit the heights even in their new lower division surroundings.
By November they were dangerously close to the relegation places again and Jack Walker decided it was best to put Kiddo out of his misery.
Since then, Brian has gone back to what he does best, by coaching for both Leeds United and England, before he arrived at Sheffield United where he is now watching Bryan Robson make a hash of yet another job.
Right, that’s yer lot for today but come back tomorrow to read about a red invasion.
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November 3 - The Life of Brian and Lights, Camera, Corruption! | On This Football Day on November 3rd, 2009
[...] 1999 – The Life of Brian HE’S not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy! Well, perhaps not naughty, but certainly not the managerial messiah. [...]
November 3 - Lights, Camera, Corruption! | On This Football Day on November 3rd, 2008
[...] any, we will be here as usual to take your mind off the whole thing. You can start by checking out what else happened on this day in football right here. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “November 3 – Lights, Camera, Corruption!”, url: [...]