Saturday 15 January 2011

Welcome Home Sir Chris !

                          One of my favourite Chrissy Powell moments and there are lots of them !

That that's then........finally we've got our new manager and I couldn't be much happier. More of that later. In the meantime Keith Peacock takes charge for the last time. Ironically, at my school this week the caretaker walked out suddenly, luckily we've been able to get a football manager to fill in.

Seems KP didn't do a bad job last week steering the lads to a respectable 0-0 at half time and with better finishing we could have even gone in ahead. That was a game we were never going to win but provided a good test against players better than the usual league 1 standard of course.

Hopefully KP can get the lads to do well today and with Sir Chris watching on from the stands it'd be disappointing if maximum effort and commitment aren't very much to the fore. For me anything other than a defeat is a good result. If the lads can match Northampton Saints 37-0 win from last night I'd be " over the moon " !

I'm not going today and so wish I was now ! Good luck to all who are. I'll be following via all the usual media streams including the BBC website. One can only hope that before he hangs his boots up for good that on the BBC teamsheet Worner will be Worner and not Warner.

As other blogs and forums have observed no one dislikes Sir Chris, how could you. What a great player and servant he was / is to our club. Always has time for everyone and always has a smile on his face on and off the pitch.

Views are mixed as to whether this just a populist appointment a la Keegan or Shearer or a sound one with an eye on the future with a promising manager with loads of potential.

I believe it's a great appointment. Not to have given Sir Chris the job now would have meant we might have never had him at all. To see him develop and do well at some other club would have hurt like hell. He knows our club, he cares about our club, he loves our club. 

I feared we'd lost our chance to have him back at the Valley in any kind of coaching / managerial capacity. I'd have spent the rest of my life wondering like England and Brian Clough of what could have been.

He brings great promise and you can, as others, have reasonably asked, whether that promise and love of our club is enough. Well it's not a bad starting point and having the fans, almost to a man, on your side is a real plus factor. He'll have good more goodwill than Pardew did at the early stages of his time with us.

Aside from all of the above he is very highly regarded by people inside the game and whose views we should respect. Opinion may be divded on Sven but I believe he's a top class manager who had a great record with England and virtually all clubs he's managed. Clearly he recognised Sir Chris's ability and I'm sure Chris has played a large part in Leicester's recent success.

The news of our new manager has got the club going again and I for one was dancing round the bathroom singing " Chriss Powell. Chrissy Powell, etc " for some while. I'm feeling quite positive and the best I have for some now about our club. Next Saturday's game against Plymouth can't come soon enough for me.

Hopefully Chris can use his connections and will be given cash to get some players in. Automatic promotion looks beyond us now given Southampton's recent form and I can only see a massive downturn in Brighton's fortunes and a simlilar upturn in ours resulting in that being achieved.

A play-off remains our best hope and we've been known to like those eh ? A repeat of 97-98 would go down well with all concerned.

Sir Chris was earmarked as a future manager of some quality by many some time ago when he was still with us. I'm happy that the right decision has been made. No one knows for sure of course but like I said before we won't die wondering.  

Come On You Reds !

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