Elton John was wrong. “Goodbye” is actually the hardest word to say, and it’s going to be pretty tough to have to say it to our hero and, currently, our manager Stuart McCall on Saturday (or at Chesterfield, if you have a ticket for our final away game). From the moment he stepped out for his first game in charge, through the bad times and the good, we’ve been together for the most part: fans, manager, chairmen, and players united. Footage of McCall apologising to the fans at Dagenham & Redbridge is upsetting to watch because he certainly looks like a man who is ready to take his leave. I don’t want this to be the end of the story – Roy of the Rovers didn’t finish this way and Stuart of the Bantams shouldn’t either.
There are several arguments against McCall leaving – whether sentimental or intellectual. Emotion demands that our hero stays with his club (here is just one of the examples of Stuart McCall’s Bradford Army – although a 30-second Youtube clip perhaps doesn’t quite capture the sentiment), a club that has been associated with McCall the boy, the man, and the manager since the beginning of the 1980s. When we had a fundraiser to help save the club, not only did McCall turn up and play – but the fans chanted that same song of “Stuart McCall’s Bradford Army” (even though he was employed by another club at the time!) and we called for him to take the penalty that was awarded because we wanted him to score, if only because it would have given us another excuse to chant our hero’s name.
Intellectually, McCall leaving simply doesn’t make sense. As BfB have pointed out, there is “a correlation between often changing managers and a lack of success” and anyone who doesn’t believe that can take a look for themselves – Alex Ferguson at Manchester United is a prime example of success following stability and a good counterexample of failure following instability is that of Jesus Gil’s tenure at Atletico Madrid. Gil oversaw a side managed by 16 men in 17 years. He also oversaw a side that was relegated to the Segunda Division at the end of the 1999-2000 season. As soccerlens.com put it “Under Gil, Atletico were desperately short of structure, long term plans and patience.” This lack of patience, this short-termism led to a humiliating relegation for Atletico. Is this the model we wish to follow at Valley Parade? Or should we consider the benefits of stability, as have been demonstrated at Manchester United? They hadn’t won the league since 1966-67 when Ferguson was appointed in 1986. This nineteen year drought became a gap of 26 years before Ferguson finally won the league – he was given seven years to get it right. What happened next? We all know, of course – over the course of eleven seasons, they won the league eight times. Cup-Winners Cup, Super Cup, European Cups, FA and League Cups, Intercontinental Cups, the World Championship… If that’s what stability brings then I say “bring it to Bradford”.
What does McCall bring to the club? Well, he brings his personal qualities: honesty, warmth, love for the club, the will to win. He also brings experience: according to Wikipedia he played a total of 763 league games during his playing career, the 12th highest of all British footballers; he experienced top flight football and an FA Cup final with Everton; 40 caps, two European Championships and a World Cup with Scotland; Scottish League Championships and European Cup nights at Rangers (he won six league titles, three Scottish Cups and two Scottish League Cups while there); promotion with Bradford City from the old Division 3 and the old Division 2 (in 1985 and 1999 respectively); promotion as part of Warnock’s management team at Sheffield United; and he now has two years’ experience as a manager in his own right at Bradford City. Another thing that should not be overlooked is his contact book: McCall played at Everton, Sheffield United and Rangers. Name three success stories this season and (apart from Luke O’Brien), I predict that the names Dean Furman and Nicky Law will feature. Law comes from Sheffield United and Furman from Rangers – would we have got them if our manager was, say, Dave Penney (to pick just one potential scenario)?
When I put up a poll on this post: Save our Stuart; I didn’t know what to expect. In the event, 33 people voted. One was a “don’t know”, thirty-two wanted McCall to stay, and not one single person voted that they wanted him to leave. Perhaps they agree with Roland Harris (and myself) that stability is what is needed? Perhaps they were unable to answer Michael Wood’s question if it wasn’t Stuart McCall then who would it be? Either way, the verdict seems clear – we want Stuart to stay. I’m not sure how to convince McCall that it would be the right thing, though. Perhaps we can take advantage of his hyper-self-critical* nature and guilt-trip him into staying by pretending that this club is solely his responsibility and that he therefore owes us for not getting promoted this season? It would be dishonest but, frankly, anything that might work is worth considering.
*I note that those people with true knowledge tend to underestimate their competence and that McCall’s claim to be a “crap manager” may fall into this category. This is part of the Dunning-Kruger effect – pdf – and the converse is that truly incompetent individuals often overestimate their abilities (they are “unskilled and unaware of it”). My hypothesis is that while those thousands of fantastic managers and tactical geniuses who sit in judgement over Stuart McCall (and Wayne Jacobs on occasion) are members of the set of individuals who are insufficiently competent to judge their own abilities and hence overestimate their skill, McCall is himself sufficiently competent to judge his own ability and consequently belongs to that set of individuals who underestimate their skill. I know who I want to run the club – and it isn’t the “tactical geniuses” in the stands at Valley Parade, it’s the man in the dugout.
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