John Beck, elite coach, paid by the FA

PragueAddick

Just when you think the FA cannot get any worse.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/05/john-beck-fa-coaching

Was anybody there at Upton Park when we played Cambridge? It was a draw, we booed them off the pitch in disgust. This man is part of the future of English football?

E_cafc

I remember that game and their tactics, dreadful, not too different from ours against Millwall! Seriously though, they almost got promoted playing that way. Didn`t they have Dion Dublin playing for them then? They used to just knock it long into the corner channels and then batter anyone who got in the way!

DaveMehmet

I remember Micky Hazzard being interviewed on the radio after he had played against them for Swindon. Absolutely slated them and called them a disgrace to football. Not sure if he ever got into trouble for it.

ShootersHillGuru

I'm too stunned to make a comment.

Lincsaddick

Beck is a disciple of Charles Hughes, the one time FA Director of Coaching and an arch exponent of the long ball game. It seems the FA is getting all retrospective in its old age. Bang it up to Hateley/Withe/Peacock/Latchford/Crouch and get the little fellas, the Keegans, to score off the knock downs and flick ons .. that's the way to do it

Hartleypete

Turning the clock back 30 years is just about the final nail in English football!

I remember going to watch Charlton away at Cambridge once when Dublin got the ball on the wing & hit it so high that he managed to get in the box to header it himself.

It was never pretty under Beck, stinks of jobs for the boys.

JohnnyH2

PragueAddick said:

Just when you think the FA cannot get any worse.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/05/john-beck-fa-coaching

Was anybody there at Upton Park when we played Cambridge? It was a draw, we booed them off the pitch in disgust. This man is part of the future of English football?

we lost 2-1

The bloke was a joke and this sums up the FA

Super_horns

Surely too old school anyway if he was coaching 30 odd years ago.

Presume he is teaching the future coaches rather than players...

E_cafc

We played them twice at Upton Park I think. I can remember losing 2.1 to them and think the following season was a 0.0 draw. Away we lost 1.0 and won 1.0 in those seasons, Pardew getting a last minute winner for us in a night game there.

PragueAddick

There you go, should have waited to look up Colin Cameron's book. But I remember the game for the crowd reaction. The Guardian reporter Martin Thorpe, who had covered all the Valley Party story, was there, and made a telling point. He pondered how the Cambridge players could possibly enjoy their work when they receive a reaction like that from away crowds. And now this man will teach the next generation of coaches.

There are various comments saying it was 20 years ago etc, but the man was never employed by any bigger club - thank heavens - and was clearly half bonkers then, which won't have changed. Surely there must be better people out there for such a role?

Viewfinder

E-cafc said:

We played them twice at Upton Park I think. I can remember losing 2.1 to them and think the following season was a 0.0 draw. Away we lost 1.0 and won 1.0 in those seasons, Pardew getting a last minute winner for us in a night game there.

You're right: at Upton Park we lost to Cambridge 1-2 (Gorman; att. 6,344) on 23 November 1991 - I remember this game well, but have forgotten about the 0-0 draw (att. 5836) on 12 September the following year.

E_cafc

I only remembered it because 12 Sept is my birthday and I kept thinking it had been ruined by Cambridge United lol. The highlights of the 2.1 are on this video, about 8 mins in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LixceNs1Pyg

Todds_right_hook

E-cafc said:

We played them twice at Upton Park I think. I can remember losing 2.1 to them and think the following season was a 0.0 draw. Away we lost 1.0 and won 1.0 in those seasons, Pardew getting a last minute winner for us in a night game there.

One of the first away games I went to. I think it was Robert Lee's last game

ShootersHillGuru

Super_horns said:

Surely too old school anyway if he was coaching 30 odd years ago.

Presume he is teaching the future coaches rather than players...

That's even fecking worse.

Viewfinder

E-cafc said:

I only remembered it because 12 Sept is my birthday and I kept thinking it had been ruined by Cambridge United lol. The highlights of the 2.1 are on this video, about 8 mins in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LixceNs1Pyg

What a disappointment for your birthday! I remember that 1-2 defeat because I took my mother along for her first game in decades - she and my father were brought up in Tottenham and he took her to Spurs games in the 1930s. John Beck at the FA? Heaven help us!

shirty5

During Beck's time at Cambridge he use to get the Groundsman at the Abbey Stadium to let the grass grow longer in each four corners of the pitch so it would hold up from long balls and then give them more time to get more bodies in the box

Boom

He used to do loads of stuff like that. At Lincoln, when it was wet (which was most the time), he used to tell the ball boys to towel dry the ball when it was a Lincoln throw in. Obviously the oppo team didn't get the same treatment.

Terrible but sometimes effective football.

Not forgetting of course the day that he got nicked at the ground before a game for whiskey tax fraud. Should fit in well at the FA.

E_cafc

Giving him the title Elite Coach is just as worrying as giving him the job in the first place.

Off_it

Boom said:

Not forgetting of course the day that he got nicked at the ground before a game for whiskey tax fraud.

Is there such a thing as "whisky tax"?

Hmm, maybe we should ask an indirect taxes expert. Do you know one Boom?

Boom

You not heard of it?

TellyTubby

I watched those Upton park matches. This appointment is an utter disgrace. The football he played would empty our grounds of fans within 2 seasons if taken up widely.

Off_it

Boom said:

You not heard of it?

Nope

Boom

I think they declared that the booze was sold to overseas so they didn't declare VAT on the sales. Don't think it left Scotland.

soapy_jones

Before taking a secound gander I quickly read the title and assumed if was something about Jeff Beck. Better shout for elite coach if you ask me...

Big William

I've probably been to over a thousand games in my lifetime and that one v Cambridge was one of the very worst. Quite simply if every game was like that I'd stop going. OK, a lot of modern football is unwatchable - stick one up front, pack the midfield and hoof it - but Becks Cambridge were truly terrible on the eye.

Ormiston_Addick

I am pretty sure I heard Stevie Claridge tell a story that Beck once subbed his central midfielder for taking three touches on the ball! This was because the team edict was to take one touch to control (if required) and then second touch was a lofted ball into the corner of the pitch.

Anyone stepping out of line with the strategy got hooked!

falconwood_1

Says everything about the FA.

Like Stan Flashman being employed by Ticketmaster.

Chris_from_Sidcup

I remember the 0-0 at Upton Park, i was fairly young at the time and had never seen anything like their 'style' of play before.

Mortimerician

Play to your strengths

LargeAddick

is it like hoofball?

ValleyGary

He only does Level 2 and Uefa B level.