You think that’s an over dramatic heading? As the events of a couple of weeks ago unfolded to an unbelieving Tiger Nation over the course of the last fortnight – The Club’s owners Assem and Ehab Allam had suspended manager Nicky Barmby, terminated the contract of Head of Football Operations Adam Pearson, the manager was then summoned to see the owners before being formally dismissed, both Pearson and Barmby then offering carefully curtly-worded statements that said in so many words to the Allams “we’ll see you in court” – there was a widespread tendency amongst the faithful to say, “City, eh? Here we go again.”
That’s understandable, but it’s completely incorrect. This is a diametrically different animal from the meltdowns we suffered in the early ‘80s, most of the 90s and from 2008 to 2010. Those were characterized by the club going well off beam, normally due to hopelessly overspending against declining revenue, before being ‘rescued’ by new owners who were incompetent, criminal or both. Recent events are different as the club was as stable as it has been in its history, owned by a family who are not only wealthy and successful in business but proven local philanthropists.
The football operations were overseen by Adam Pearson, in the opinion of most City fans the most skilled and trusted owner/administrator in the Club’s long and chequered history. And the team was managed by Nicky Barmby, beyond question the finest footballer the city of Hull has produced, a man unarguably committed to club and city. This combination had two days earlier led the club to a finish of 8th place in the Championship – so one of its most successful seasons ever – with every prospect that it could take the club forward next season. And so the club, surveying all this stability and promise, chose to take careful aim and shoot off its own foot. No, this is a completely different disaster, mystifying, maddening and completely avoidable.
The Allams are not the sort of pantomime villain we’ve had pillaging the store in the past. They are not lovable rogues. Nor are they well-meaning incompetents. They’ve done much for Hull and you may well have benefited, if you are an Hull KR fan, or a student or employee of the University, or maybe someone who sometimes gets ill, or likes to watch a play. They have put considerable money into helping Rovers with their debts and comedy toy town stadium and have funded building projects at the University of Hull and Castle Hill Hospital, the latter crucial in supporting medical education and research into heart disease and cancer, and have helped bale out the Hull Truck theatre. And they are hugely successful, climbing the Sunday Times rich list on the back of their Marine Generator business. O yes, nearly forgot; they also saved Hull City AFC from extinction after the Bartlett/Duffen regime had unforgivably pissed away the legacy of the premiership, by investing – or at least guaranteeing debts – of up to £50 million. These should be people you revere.
Given all this, the recent events frankly defy explanation. The only way the Allams could have lowered their stock with the fans the way they have would be to dismiss two of the most popular people ever associated with the club in one day, and blow me, that’s exactly what they did. To an outsider it’s almost impossible to convey the feelings fans have for Pearson and Barmby.
Adam Pearson rescued us twice, from the wreckages of the Hinchliffe/Buchanan regime and the previous under investment and later from Bartlett/Duffen. He then persuaded the Allams to come in and take on our debts. We literally owe him everything. Taking our lead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one day his epitaph will be “He saved Hull City. A lot.”
Nick Barmby is the local boy who left town to seek his fortune and found it as a footballing superstar at proper football clubs where he won cups and England caps and yet never lost his desire to return and play for his home town team, which he then did for 8 years, uncoincidentally the best years in our 108 year history. This playing career only ended when he was persuaded, perhaps against his better judgement, to become the manager of the club, a job at which he showed every sign of making a success. He loves not just Hull City but also the City of Hull, having lived in Hull or on its borders for most of his life. He is, quite simply, a hero.
We still don’t know why any of this has happened. The Allams say that Nicky’s comments in newspaper and radio interviews have undermined the board, when he said that the Club needed to show it had the ambition to succeed by backing him financially and possibly hinted that this was perhaps less likely than he had hoped when appointed. This seems bizarre. The manager’s words were hardly inflammatory.
They were the sort of things managers say, the sort of things they should say to show they want to improve things. There’s no obligation on owners after this to stump up the readies, of course; they know how much money they have to invest. But they’re not going to invest it if they aren’t told they need to. As to why Adam Pearson has been dismissed, we’ve no idea at all. It seems likely that he spoke up for Barmby and was seen as Barmby’s man, and so he probably couldn’t be allowed to remain. The Allams have effectively cut of the club’s head, for reasons that seem at best specious, at worst dishonest.
A lot of stupid things have been said about this. The fans have been perhaps more united on this in bemusement and dismay than on most things, but the fucking idiots amongst us have had their say, informing us of the following:
“Nick Barmby made lots of mistakes as a manager.” Of course he did. He’s a novice coach. And he’s made far fewer mistakes than, for example, Alex Ferguson, who would be on every list of the best managers in the history of the game, has made in the last few weeks. Coaches, like players, make errors all the time. But Nicky got so much right and had the trust and respect of the players. I had seen nothing to suggest that he couldn’t do well and some things to suggest he might do a lot better than that.
“If you say what Barmby said, the owners have to sack you, that would happen in any job.” O do fuck off you, you silly get. Of course it wouldn’t. See above. And it’s Nick Barmby to you, cuntard.
“The Allams are successful businessmen, they know what they’re doing.” They are successful at running a marine generator business. They’ve made a virtue up to now of pointing out that they know nothing about running a football club. But it was one thing to say that, another thing to demonstrate it as disastrously as they now have.
“The Allams have said that they had made money available and that the Barmby and Pearson wouldn’t spend it.” Yes they did, in a self-serving interview in the HDM, disgracefully at a time when Nicky was suspended and had no right of reply. And it made no sense at all. And it made a mockery of their desire for the club to run on its own, managing its own affairs. The only thing we really learned from the interview is that the Allams suddenly want to be hands on at the club. And that they were honest in their earlier statements in knowing nothing useful about running a football club.
“It’s time to move on, Nicky’s gone, we need to get behind his successor.” Jesus Christ. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. I await a measured response from you when your wife leaves you, as she surely will, to my words of commiseration, “Well she was a good lass, very bonny too, but she’s been gone hours now and she’s not coming back, it’s time you got over it and tried to snare someone else who you’ll like a lot less and will be much less good for you. Cheer up!” You people are fucking mad.
“We’re committed to running this club on sound business principles.” Not the fans this time, the owners. And the answer is, O really? With no manager in place at a time when we should be trying to sign new players and secure our best players, players who have in some cases been openly critical of recent events or who are actively seeking information about where the club is going? When there is every likelihood of having to pay off a manager? When no one is clear who is running the club? With season ticket renewals still not sent out to fans, reducing revenue at a time of year when a club has no other income, prompting more and more disaffected fans to choose to spend their cash on summer holidays, patio furniture and seaside working girls? Or, er, whatever it might be.
Where were we? Oh yes, with the clear and understandable word going round football circles that the club is run by megalomaniacs so that only the terminally unsuccessful or unpleasant dyspeptic Glaswegian homunculi can be expected to apply? For all I know that sort of business acumen may be what’s needed to have marine generators flying off the shelves. But it’s no way successfully to run a football club.
So it’s a mystifyingly stupid and shocking business. But it’s worse than that. It’s a dreadful end to the time at a club of two genuine heroes. Heroes by definition are in short supply. Because they’re so heroic, you see. Where as the rest of us aren’t. I admire Adam Pearson hugely. I revere Nicky Barmby above every other footballer in the world. And I won’t ever forget what he’s done for the club and the sickening, shoddy, sordid way that the club has chosen to repay him.
And I’ll feel that a bit as next season comes, when I’ve renewed my season ticket against my better judgement (which I will, because all of being a fan is a triumph of your emotions over your better judgement) as I see the team run out under the tutelage of a manager I either disdain or just don’t care about, I’ll feel just a little bit more disconnected from the club I love. I’ve never felt bad about being a Hull City fan before. I do at the moment. That’s what being a Hull City fan means to me now.
And when I next need a marine generator, I’m going with Fischer Panda. See it as the pointless revenge of the utterly powerless.
Mark Gretton
