Best in my life time - Curbs (just) with Lennie so close behind.
Why Curbs well I saw the greatest game ever under his management. It is seared on my heart. I can't forget that
Why Lennie just behind, well he provided the second most emotional game ever - at St Andrews however he just wasn't around as long
Best in the clubs history
Well, for your benefit Choice, but I want to echo what Oggy has said,
From the third to runners up in the first in three seasons.
FA Cup finalists and winners.
In charge for 24 years was it?
What JS did was an outrageous achievement and will probably never be bettered but i thought this was about your favourite manager as in your lifetime that you saw influence the football club..I cant say Jimmy Seed was my favourite manager because i wasnt born until 1971, surely its like saying Sam Bartram is your favourite player. You wouldnt say that would you even though you know he was a legend, you would say Hales, Mendonca, Parker or whoever was most influential throughout your time as a supporter...
The 3 best managers are Seed, Lawrence and Curbishley.
The achievements of all 3 were remarkable and a case can be made for any of them to be judged the greatest.
However for me Curbs shades it because of the more hostile transfer market and wage structure he was confronted with. South Stand operated when there was a maximum wage so, although I daresay there was a bit of "boot money" about, there was not the incentive to shift clubs to improve wages a la Parker. There was also no European football so the English first division was the pinnacle.
The same applied to Lennie, thanks to Heysel, which made it easier for him to keep his best players. It was also pre Bosman so a contract actually meant something back then.
The above comments are not intended to detract from the tremendous achievements of Jimmy Seed and Lennie Lawrence but are made for comparitive purposes.
Curbs though had to manage a relatively poor club at the top level at a time of Sky inflated wages, Bosmans and the incentive of European football. Somehow he kept us around mid table or slightly better for 6 seasons under those conditions and that is why, by a fag paper, he is my number one.
i was so disappointed when lennie left the club, but a bit like my feelings when benty left, (not the fat money grabbing one) i wished him well and thanked him for the great memories and effort during his time at the club. didn't really want curbs to do well after leaving....actually wanted him to return saying i'm sooo sorry it was all a big mistake. so lennie for me!
2nd favourite for me would be Theo, great guy plus he coached my son's football team for a while some years back.
2nd best after Seed, definitely Curbs.
(excluding JS) curbs clearly for me cos he left via the front door and didn't slip out the side door like lennie and go running to the first approach from a more attractive club
but you can tell from others opinions on here that there really is still limited respect and worship for curbs when he clearly held our club together more than lennie did in a more competitive enviroment and he left when we were a top flight team (a year earlier than he wanted too but murray thought he knew best)
[quote]running to the first approach from a more attractive club[/quote]
What Middlesbrough LOL!!!
Cold North East ramshackled ****hole with high unemployment figures and "fans" that throw stones over rows of terraced house onto away fans coaches on arrival (it was Ayresome at the time)
It might have been something to do with money...but Middlesbrough a more attractive club your not serious surely
Without Lennie we probably wouldn't have a club left
Without Curbs we would not have had the roller coaster of premiership football for as long as we did.
[quote][cite]Posted By: ThreadKiller[/cite]Has to be sir alan. No other manager was able to leave the club with a hero's send off with the club secure in the top flight.[/quote]
But were we really secure or was the ship already sinking?
[cite]Posted By: ThreadKiller[/cite]Has to be sir alan. No other manager was able to leave the club with a hero's send off with the club secure in the top flight.
But were we really secure or was the ship already sinking?
i think 47 points and the fa cup quarter finals were secure enough but you might think differently
but Middlesbrough a more attractive club your not serious surely
as opposed to a team who had no ground and were trying to raise funds to get back to their old ground , yes boro were a more attractive propositon to lennie and it gave him the opportunity to bid £250k to the 'poor' club he had just left for robert lee , derisory would be complementing that insult of a bid , especially coming from someone who knew what we were about
Funny, i seem to remember so many people then saying it was time for Curbs to move on so we could move forward, "He's taken us as far as he can" they all wailed....So i suppose yes maybe i did see things differently..
Just what i remember..Only what i heard....Not neccessarily my opinion :-)
[cite]Posted By: choice[/cite]Funny, i seem to remember so many people then saying it was time for him to go so we could move forward, "He's taken us as far as he can" they all wailed....So i suppose yes maybe i did see things differently..
Just what i remember..Only what i heard....Not neccessarily my opinion :-)
Fair enough prolly the same people who thought going down would be a good thing .................
[cite]Posted By: choice[/cite]Funny, i seem to remember so many people then saying it was time for him to go so we could move forward, "He's taken us as far as he can" they all wailed....So i suppose yes maybe i did see things differently..
Just what i remember..Only what i heard....Not neccessarily my opinion :-)
Fair enough prolly the same people who thought going down would be a good thing .................
You are right, some people did.
Not all though, plenty wanted Curbs to stay even if, IMHO, for him personally a break was what he needed.
Some thought the Championship would be more fun on the assumption that we'd get out of it PDQ.
And some, not all, thought Parkinson should have been sacked a few weeks ago.
[quote][cite]Posted By: oohaahmortimer[/cite][quote][cite]Posted By: choice[/cite][quote]but Middlesbrough a more attractive club your not serious surely[/quote]
as opposed to a team who had no ground and were trying to raise funds to get back to their old ground , yes boro were a more attractive propositon to lennie and it gave him the opportunity to bid £250k to the 'poor' club he had just left for robert lee , derisory would be complementing that insult of a bid , especially coming from someone who knew what we were about[/quote][/quote]
Now you are starting to sound like you resented Lennies actions, heres my own personal take on it...
Ok.....So lets just say that YOU are head hunted by another company who are prepared to take advantage of your current companys restricted financial situation and prize away their greatest assets (manager and player), they offer you decent money when you havnt been getting paid regularly. Cos when Lennie left things economically wernt that great with the country let alone CAFC and they didnt have the stupid salaries to fall back on that they have now. After those years of putting his heart and soul into Charlton (WHICH HE DID) he finally thought of himself and his family and left to secure his families security (can you hear the violin playing!!!!).
So his new contract at Boro states that he has "X" budget.......he knows Robert Lee is quality, he has worked with him before, he would have been crazy not to attempt to sign him. Was 250k that derisory at the time do you think? We wernt in a position to bargain and Lennies bonuses at Boro would probably have been greater if he had of spent less. So he thought of himself, his family and his own future but i think after the years he put in at Charlton he deserved that.
i think 47 points and the fa cup quarter finals were secure enough but you might think differently
Here we go again .......!
;o)
FACTS oggy not hearsay or guessing FACTS ;-)
Maybe that's what the statistics say, OohAah ........but you know, I know, and everybody else knows that was a struggling team that desperately needed rebuilding.
[cite]Posted By: choice[/cite]So his new contract at Boro states that he has "X" budget.......he knows Robert Lee is quality, he has worked with him before, he would have been crazy not to attempt to sign him. Was 250k that derisory at the time do you think? We wernt in a position to bargain and Lennies bonuses at Boro would probably have been greater if he had of spent less. So he thought of himself, his family and his own future but i think after the years he put in at Charlton he deserved that.
you are trying to justify a manager who would try to rump charlton over,who was 100% clear of our desperate need to sell our only asset so that the taxman could be paid.basically if we couldn't sell,we weren't coming home at all. this seems to be glossed over as we only remember the houdini act that he played in the past.
Maybe that's what the statistics say, OohAah ........but you know, I know, and everybody else knows that was a struggling team that desperately needed rebuilding.[/quote]
i don't think they were struggling unders curbs's management you could have said that every year as he got them outperforming and he always did so i'll take my FACTS over yours and anybody else's opinion/guessing cos that team did what it did and even when it was allegedly chuff at the end of the season it picked up a point a game....
and who better to keep that team up than the man himself for one last season and to help in finding his replacement .... still murray thought he knew best
Many people forget (or weren't around at the time) that during his last season at Charlton, Lennie Lawrence was consistently subjected to rumours that he was about to be sacked and also suffered abuse from the crowd (such as it was in those days). He no doubt felt that his time was up at Charlton and that things had run their course....and that it was only a matter of time before he was sacked. All this against a background of having to sell two more of his best players...Steve MacKenzie and Gordon Watson (on top of previous sales of John Humphrey, Colin Pates, Mickey Bennett and Paul Williams).
There was intense speculation that he was going to be sacked in October 1990 but a decent coupe of away wins at Newcastle and Boro put that on the back burner for a while. But later in the season the abuse resurfaced at the Boro home match (the one where Walsh played for them and Kernaghan played for us) and there were similar crowd reactions at Oxford and home to Port Vale. Against this backdrop it was no surprise that he should leave, on his own terms, for a bigger club...and make no mistake, in 1991 Middlesbrough WERE a bigger club. Their crowd for the game against us that season was 18k....our crowd for the return fxture was 5.5k (our average was only 6.5k despite home fixtures v Millwall, West Ham, Newcastle)
The business about the Robert Lee offer is nonsense. If Charlton had needed the 250k from Boro they would have sold him but they were able to hold out for more Newcastle. There was no obligation to sell to Boro. People shouldn't hold anything against a manager who turned the team from being absolute dross of the highest order into a team that we supporters (very few in numbers by today's standards) were proud to follow all over the country.
Comments
Curbs
Theo
Gritt / Curbs
Why Curbs well I saw the greatest game ever under his management. It is seared on my heart. I can't forget that
Why Lennie just behind, well he provided the second most emotional game ever - at St Andrews however he just wasn't around as long
Best in the clubs history
Well, for your benefit Choice, but I want to echo what Oggy has said,
From the third to runners up in the first in three seasons.
FA Cup finalists and winners.
In charge for 24 years was it?
There is only one Jimmy Seed.
The achievements of all 3 were remarkable and a case can be made for any of them to be judged the greatest.
However for me Curbs shades it because of the more hostile transfer market and wage structure he was confronted with. South Stand operated when there was a maximum wage so, although I daresay there was a bit of "boot money" about, there was not the incentive to shift clubs to improve wages a la Parker. There was also no European football so the English first division was the pinnacle.
The same applied to Lennie, thanks to Heysel, which made it easier for him to keep his best players. It was also pre Bosman so a contract actually meant something back then.
The above comments are not intended to detract from the tremendous achievements of Jimmy Seed and Lennie Lawrence but are made for comparitive purposes.
Curbs though had to manage a relatively poor club at the top level at a time of Sky inflated wages, Bosmans and the incentive of European football. Somehow he kept us around mid table or slightly better for 6 seasons under those conditions and that is why, by a fag paper, he is my number one.
Robin Michael Lawrence
Llewellyn Charles Alan Curbishley
I'm a fan of Phil Parkinson but fear without a random name change he could struggle to live up to the recent greats.
Agree with that.
2nd favourite for me would be Theo, great guy plus he coached my son's football team for a while some years back.
2nd best after Seed, definitely Curbs.
but you can tell from others opinions on here that there really is still limited respect and worship for curbs when he clearly held our club together more than lennie did in a more competitive enviroment and he left when we were a top flight team (a year earlier than he wanted too but murray thought he knew best)
Stuart Leary.
And (in my lifetime that is), you really can't choose between Curb's and Lennie.
What Middlesbrough LOL!!!
Cold North East ramshackled ****hole with high unemployment figures and "fans" that throw stones over rows of terraced house onto away fans coaches on arrival (it was Ayresome at the time)
It might have been something to do with money...but Middlesbrough a more attractive club your not serious surely
Without Lennie we probably wouldn't have a club left
Without Curbs we would not have had the roller coaster of premiership football for as long as we did.
Really can't separate them
1) Iain Dowie
2) Uncle Les
3) Sooper Al
4) Parky
It's a difficult choice. Can anyone help me .... ?
Best Charlton Manager is probably Jimmy Seed, but you could argue for Curbs or Lennie on this as well.
But were we really secure or was the ship already sinking?
i think 47 points and the fa cup quarter finals were secure enough but you might think differently
Here we go again .......!
;o)
Just what i remember..Only what i heard....Not neccessarily my opinion :-)
FACTS oggy not hearsay or guessing FACTS ;-)
Fair enough prolly the same people who thought going down would be a good thing .................
You are right, some people did.
Not all though, plenty wanted Curbs to stay even if, IMHO, for him personally a break was what he needed.
Some thought the Championship would be more fun on the assumption that we'd get out of it PDQ.
And some, not all, thought Parkinson should have been sacked a few weeks ago.
as opposed to a team who had no ground and were trying to raise funds to get back to their old ground , yes boro were a more attractive propositon to lennie and it gave him the opportunity to bid £250k to the 'poor' club he had just left for robert lee , derisory would be complementing that insult of a bid , especially coming from someone who knew what we were about[/quote][/quote]
Now you are starting to sound like you resented Lennies actions, heres my own personal take on it...
Ok.....So lets just say that YOU are head hunted by another company who are prepared to take advantage of your current companys restricted financial situation and prize away their greatest assets (manager and player), they offer you decent money when you havnt been getting paid regularly. Cos when Lennie left things economically wernt that great with the country let alone CAFC and they didnt have the stupid salaries to fall back on that they have now. After those years of putting his heart and soul into Charlton (WHICH HE DID) he finally thought of himself and his family and left to secure his families security (can you hear the violin playing!!!!).
So his new contract at Boro states that he has "X" budget.......he knows Robert Lee is quality, he has worked with him before, he would have been crazy not to attempt to sign him. Was 250k that derisory at the time do you think? We wernt in a position to bargain and Lennies bonuses at Boro would probably have been greater if he had of spent less. So he thought of himself, his family and his own future but i think after the years he put in at Charlton he deserved that.
Maybe that's what the statistics say, OohAah ........but you know, I know, and everybody else knows that was a struggling team that desperately needed rebuilding.
you are trying to justify a manager who would try to rump charlton over,who was 100% clear of our desperate need to sell our only asset so that the taxman could be paid.basically if we couldn't sell,we weren't coming home at all. this seems to be glossed over as we only remember the houdini act that he played in the past.
for this reason lennie, i'm out
Maybe that's what the statistics say, OohAah ........but you know, I know, and everybody else knows that was a struggling team that desperately needed rebuilding.[/quote]
i don't think they were struggling unders curbs's management you could have said that every year as he got them outperforming and he always did so i'll take my FACTS over yours and anybody else's opinion/guessing cos that team did what it did and even when it was allegedly chuff at the end of the season it picked up a point a game....
and who better to keep that team up than the man himself for one last season and to help in finding his replacement .... still murray thought he knew best
There was intense speculation that he was going to be sacked in October 1990 but a decent coupe of away wins at Newcastle and Boro put that on the back burner for a while. But later in the season the abuse resurfaced at the Boro home match (the one where Walsh played for them and Kernaghan played for us) and there were similar crowd reactions at Oxford and home to Port Vale. Against this backdrop it was no surprise that he should leave, on his own terms, for a bigger club...and make no mistake, in 1991 Middlesbrough WERE a bigger club. Their crowd for the game against us that season was 18k....our crowd for the return fxture was 5.5k (our average was only 6.5k despite home fixtures v Millwall, West Ham, Newcastle)
The business about the Robert Lee offer is nonsense. If Charlton had needed the 250k from Boro they would have sold him but they were able to hold out for more Newcastle. There was no obligation to sell to Boro. People shouldn't hold anything against a manager who turned the team from being absolute dross of the highest order into a team that we supporters (very few in numbers by today's standards) were proud to follow all over the country.