John Barnes plays the race card.....Again

Why does nobody ever point out the Jean Tigana did a pretty devent job at Fulham when talking about black managers?

Also Tony Adams managed Wycombe Wanderers in league 2 before pompy (where he was number 2 to 'Arry and got the job on the back of caretaking form) but then he did get them relegated there.

Originally Posted by BryanRobson'sLiver

Why does nobody ever point out the Jean Tigana did a pretty devent job at Fulham when talking about black managers?

Also Tony Adams managed Wycombe Wanderers in league 2 before pompy (where he was number 2 to 'Arry and got the job on the back of caretaking form) but then he did get them relegated there.

Because Tigana is memorable precisely because it's a rarity. Forgot that about Adams. But if anything that helps the point. Despite a history of alcoholism and drug addiction, he still went in at a higher level than Ince and Hasselbaink

Several established black/mixed players go in at non-league. Phil Babb and Marcus Gayle in the same league last year, Conf South.

I caught 5 mins of TalkSport this morning, Ray Wilkins picked up on this, and (as far as a Crab can be, he was agitated) "Listen pal, there's plenty of us who haven't got jobs and want them. You've got to wait your turn".

Originally Posted by saffers

but how many white managers have done terrible jobs yet keep getting appointed to jobs?

But what about the countless white managers don't get appointed to jobs again? What about the countless white people who have never even had an opportunity in the first place? What is the ratio of white players to black players the past 30 years? What is the percentage of unemployed white ex-footballers to unemployed black ex-footballers? How many black people have done their coaching badges compared to white people?

etc etc etc.....

If any of you remember Fantasy football with skinnda/bad....you'll know Barnes face is really a mask.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Not sure it happens that much after terrible starts, tbf. English football looks very badly upon early failure, instead of recognising that a young manager can learn from mistakes. Tony Adams hasn't had another look-in since a couple of poor spells at the start of his career.

What's interesting is the level black managers go in at. Barnes at Celtic is a slight exception because that was about Dalglish, but generally while Sherwood, Southgate, Pearce, Shearer, Adams etc walk into top jobs, the likes of Ince and more recently Hasselbaink start off at Macclesfield and Burton Albion. English managers are awful, but that doesn't stop the white ones with status getting big jobs.

If Hasselbaink was white, with the career he's had across multiple countries, speaking various languages, does he start in League 2?

The Adams situation has already been picked up on, but the others are all England yes men with connections. And Pearce and Shearer both had a perceived deep affinity for the big clubs they got started at. As for Southgate he's cultivated the image of a thinking man's footballer or some shit, and started at Palace iirc. I'll give you Sherwood though, but there's always an element of right place right time to factor in as well - like Carver in his 4th caretaker role atm, and Ramsey at QPR for that matter.

Alongside Tigana you also have Gullit, who got the Chelsea job which is one of the biggest in the country. He's also had the Newcastle job. I'm genuinely struggling to think of many English black former players of that calibre who would be interested tbh, and once you move away from the top calibre you're quickly amongst the Clark Carlisles of this world.

Maybe Hasselbank gets to start in a bigger job if he's white, maybe not. But Poyet began at Brighton iirc. & if you look at the starting points of the current PL managers they include Watford, Swansea, Sheff Utd, Reading, Carlisle, Bournemouth, Blackpool... some of those clubs feature more than once, and there are a string of similar and lesser clubs on these manager's records as their 2nd or 3rd club including the likes of Huddersfield, Notts County & Gillingham...

http://www.managerstats.co.uk/premier-league/

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

The Adams situation has already been picked up on, but the others are all England yes men with connections. And Pearce and Shearer both had a perceived deep affinity for the big clubs they got started at. As for Southgate he's cultivated the image of a thinking man's footballer or some shit, and started at Palace iirc. I'll give you Sherwood though, but there's always an element of right place right time to factor in as well - like Carver in his 4th caretaker role atm, and Ramsey at QPR for that matter.

Alongside Tigana you also have Gullit, who got the Chelsea job which is one of the biggest in the country. He's also had the Newcastle job. I'm genuinely struggling to think of many English black former players of that calibre who would be interested tbh, and once you move away from the top calibre you're quickly amongst the Clark Carlisles of this world.

Maybe Hasselbank gets to start in a bigger job if he's white, maybe not. But Poyet began at Brighton iirc. & if you look at the starting points of the current PL managers they include Watford, Swansea, Sheff Utd, Reading, Carlisle, Bournemouth, Blackpool... some of those clubs feature more than once, and there are a string of similar and lesser clubs on these manager's records as their 2nd or 3rd club including the likes of Huddersfield, Notts County & Gillingham...

http://www.managerstats.co.uk/premier-league/

Most of those are higher up than League Two, though. As mentioned, even Adams went in at League One with a long list of personal problems. Poyet at Brighton - Championship. The point is not so much about not getting Premier League jobs, but starting so low.

Hasselbaink went for the Leeds job and I suspect others. Burton was the best he could do. And he surely had as deep an affinity with his clubs as Pearce had with Man City? Same with Ince, who took the bottom club in the football league. Given his reputation as a captain and midfield inspiration, perhaps Ince is the most damming evidence of a problem. He's no more of a moron than Pearce, Shearer etc.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Most of those are higher up than League Two, though. As mentioned, even Adams went in at League One with a long list of personal problems. Poyet at Brighton - Championship. The point is not so much about not getting Premier League jobs, but starting so low.

Hasselbaink went for the Leeds job and I suspect others. Burton was the best he could do. And he surely had as deep an affinity with his clubs as Pearce had with Man City? Same with Ince, who took the bottom club in the football league. Given his reputation as a captain and midfield inspiration, perhaps Ince is the most damming evidence of a problem. He's no more of a moron than Pearce, Shearer etc.

well tbh I thought Pearce began at Forest, didn't realise he started right at the bottom. Ince had other offers iirc - there's also the personality of the candidate to consider, not just the politics of their skin colour. From the outside looking in I'd imagine Ince would be great to work with when the going's good, but he'd either be too soft or too hard when it gets a bit rocky - very similar to Keane like that. I don't know why Ince hasn't got another job after Blackburn tbh but suspect there's more to it than we know.

there's an element of defending a position I don't necessarily hold in this cus Ince could surely be an inspiring manager with a bit of time invested in him, and there's no question that there's a racism/prejudice handicap that black managers face on the inside of football clubs - or that that's a lot to do with the people bankrolling them, and the supporters too for that matter. But at the same time are there really that many top class black candidates amongst former pros?

How do you decide if a former pro is a top class candidate?

Originally Posted by Semantic Lisp

well tbh I thought Pearce began at Forest, didn't realise he started right at the bottom. Ince had other offers iirc - there's also the personality of the candidate to consider, not just the politics of their skin colour. From the outside looking in I'd imagine Ince would be great to work with when the going's good, but he'd either be too soft or too hard when it gets a bit rocky - very similar to Keane like that. I don't know why Ince hasn't got another job after Blackburn tbh but suspect there's more to it than we know.

there's an element of defending a position I don't necessarily hold in this cus Ince could surely be an inspiring manager with a bit of time invested in him, and there's no question that there's a racism/prejudice handicap that black managers face on the inside of football clubs - or that that's a lot to do with the people bankrolling them, and the supporters too for that matter. But at the same time are there really that many top class black candidates amongst former pros?

Doubt it, but there aren't many white ones either. Doesn't stop Sherwood walking into Spurs and Villa

Ince did get more jobs, at MK Dons and Blackpool. He appears a bit of a @#%&!, but of course Pearce is the guy who racially abused him. England isn't the only country where this is an issue, tbf. Brazil's paucity of black managers over the years is far more startling.

Originally Posted by Ethers

How do you decide if a former pro is a top class candidate?

I have no idea. What made Swansea opt for Gary Monk? I suppose as outsiders we ought to assume that they'd watched his development as a person, spoken at length with him, seen his interactions around the club first hand and were impressed enough to let him work with their players.

As we're talking about people not being given jobs surely it's fair to assume that the same process has taken place or similar and whoever's calling the shots in each scenario hasn't been suitably impressed? Whether that's because of an inability to see past their colour it's hard to say*. Just as it's hard top quantify the effect of feeling they have to be a bit better than their [white] peers might have in wearing down newbie black managers.

I don't know basically.


*despite the obvious perception that that's an issue

Using the data from the previous census, 2.2% of the population is black. So for 92 league clubs, a 'fair' representation would be 2 black managers across the 4 divisions.



Assuming a manager starts at 35-40, we need to look at the quantity of black players around 20 years ago (certainly fewer than now), then find out if they go on to take their badges and if they get actively involved in coaching at any level before we can start to say the KKK are running the league.

P.S. Tigana was sacked at Fulham, wasn't he? Al Fayed then tried to sue him for over-paying for players.

P.P.S. I must have missed the bit when Barnes was asking why there's so few professional players* in the UK from Indian sub-continent heritage?
(* had to google that, didn't even know of one tbh).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j32Au78D0sE

Originally Posted by Clarkie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j32Au78D0sE

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Doubt it, but there aren't many white ones either. Doesn't stop Sherwood walking into Spurs and Villa

Ince did get more jobs, at MK Dons and Blackpool. He appears a bit of a @#%&!, but of course Pearce is the guy who racially abused him. England isn't the only country where this is an issue, tbf. Brazil's paucity of black managers over the years is far more startling.

like i said, maybe people have seen a potential in sherwood that got him fast-tracked.

also villa are not the only club who have been taken over and have a new culture at the top, thus maybe affecting a reset on any progress made on the jobs for the boys ladder regards racism.

how pearce has gone as far as he has is a mystery regardless of him racially abusing ince in 1994. remember fergie back then telling ince to treat it the same way he dealt with people calling him a scottish bastard, which is interesting cus isn't that pretty much the same kind of matter-of-fact playing down of the problem that John Barnes adopted in the suarez/vermin case