1 week Ago
It was probably right to see Mark Kennedy given his marching orders after the loss up at Salford. Results were poor, the trajectory was even worse: even the most optimistic Town fan must have been fearing a slip into non-league. Kennedy had made a rod for his back with his constant optimism in media appearances.
Hearing consistently cheery lines about hypothetical girlfriends and Navy Seals, while the eye test showed his team were in disarray, ultimately created the impression that he was denying reality. Before long we were staring at a new reality ourselves, the whirlwind which swept Kennedy away from SN1 immediately installing a new gaffer. Over the years, there have been several points where fans would have loved for the club to go and get the signature of Ian Holloway, and yet it somehow felt like a move out of left field when they actually did.
I must admit, my first impressions of the appointment were anxiety-ridden. Holloway had spent the last four years out of the game, after a difficult time at relegation-threatened Grimsby. Many of the successes on his CV which would have led fans to covet his appointment in years gone by now lay a while back.
Coming into a difficult situation against that backdrop, the worry was this was not a relationship which was guaranteed to click. Swindon can hardly afford to continue the slow bleed into non-league for much longer. Furthermore, after the frustration at hearing Kennedy’s talking, which was not backed up by the fundamentals on the pitch, it felt an interesting choice to appoint one of the game’s most storied speakers.
Most reading this will have a favourite Holloway quote from his various media engagements, and many will be excited about the possibility of new soundbites to come. At that moment, though, my concern was that I had absolutely no interest in Swindon’s staff talking a big game: we’ve done plenty of that in recent years. We need results.
But, aided by a couple of cup wins, my mindset is starting to change. For a few reasons, maybe this is the shake-up which has been long overdue. Firstly, Holloway’s experience as a head coach completely eclipses the last few appointments.
While experience doesn’t guarantee results - I hesitate to even raise the name of John Sheridan - having the right experience can hopefully be a sign the club may start to get the basics right. It will take time for Holloway to find the right balance of his team, which is one reason I was not greatly concerned by the recent chopping and changing of team selection going into the loss away to MK Dons. As much as it is unpleasant to lose, and results will need to quickly start turning a corner, it is equally obvious that a manager deserves some time to try things with his new squad.
And, actually, many of the fundamentals of football management: crafting a decent squad with balance; putting eleven of that squad on the pitch in a system which makes them better than the sum of their parts; and knowing what to say in the right moment are things which Holloway has a track record of doing. And, for all the will in the world, they are tasks Clem Morfuni, Jamie Russell, and everyone else learning on the job, have not succeeded at consistently in recent seasons. Go a level deeper, and my suspicion is that part of Swindon’s malaise under Morfuni’s ownership owes itself to a lack of perspective on what a football club represents.
His recent message on the club website in October illuminated this perfectly. At the time of his writing, the club had one league victory in the season, having ended the previous term dismally, and were staring down the barrel of a relegation scrap. Morfuni’s response? A list of achievements.
You’d think these achievements would relate to something football fans will look back on in years to come. Promotion chases, cup runs, big results, great football, players now at the top level whose careers our club launched. That’s what football is about, right? Well, Morfuni’s achievements are: increasing the budget, having the ground bought for the club by the Nigel Eady fund, maintaining the ground, negotiating a kit deal, and having a statue put up.
.. if it gets you going, more power to you.
It’s not what we started watching the sport for as kids, though. But let’s use the previous, footballing prism, to read Morfuni’s list of achievements like a football fan: successive league finishes in a lower position; barely any cup runs; the standard of football getting worse; and any players who achieve something at the club unable to become cult heroes because they’re sold at the first opportunity. Here, I hope Holloway can be the antidote to many of these ills.
His years in the game prove he has the perspective which has been so sorely missing in recent years, and should enable the club to succeed. He himself is a personality fans can be enraptured by. And he even has us on a cup run already.
Should it come to it, his status must surely allow him to push back at the ownership if they try to cut a corner which experience dictates should not be cut, too. Maybe Holloway will succeed, maybe he won’t: football is typified by fine margins between success and failure. Whether the appointment proves inspired, or a desperate dice roll, having made yet another appointment, Morfuni’s ownership must now live or die by footballing achievement.
The off-pitch work must still be done, it is important: but this club has many years of Football League history to be proud of, and we need sporting success now so they can continue..
