A Reappraisal of Martin Dobson, our shortest lived manager
Feb 4, 2015 15:08:25 GMT
2nd May 1990 and dmacca65 like this
Post by mehewmagic on Feb 4, 2015 15:08:25 GMT
I wrote this recently. Far too long / off topic for my Bristol Post blog, so I thought I'd share it with you lot instead. Hope you likey likey.
Martin
Well, I bet you never expected those first five words in the same sentence did you?
Whereas Bert Tann is famous for his 801 League games as manager of BRFC, throughout almost the entire 1950s and 1960s, Martin Dobson is infamous for his mere nine League games, in the late summer of 1991. No other ‘permanent’ Rovers manager has ever achieved so little.
When John Martin Dobson was born on Valentine’s Day 1948 I doubt his family expected him to be the first footballer to be transferred for over £300,000 (when Everton bought him from Burnley in 1974), nor to be known as ‘Sir Dobbo’ to his many admirers.
Like Bert, Mr Dobson was not a local. Bert hailed from the rough streets of Plaistow in East London, whereas Dobbo was the local lad made good from near Blackburn.
With no plausible internal candidate available Dobbo seemed like an intelligent choice to attempt to ‘replace the irreplaceable’ Gerry Francis in July 1991 and the decision certainly didn’t seem like an outlandish whim at the time. Like Gerry he was a well respected ex-England midfielder (five caps to Gerry‘s 12), and he had a far longer and superior managerial track record, having managed Bury for five seasons, gaining promotion to the Third Tier in his first season and steadily improved them thereafter.
He was certainly his own man and kept his own style. I will always remember a HTV interview with him just after being appointed. In stark contrast to the stereotype of the lumpen proletariat from Lancashire, or even the boiler suit chic and mullet of King Gerry, he was sitting in a chair in a peaceful sun drenched garden with a flowery shirt on, smart trousers and buffed Italian shoes. He appeared smooth, relaxed, and a bit of a thinker.
Little did he know the maelstrom that awaited him.
In the closed season Ian Holloway had followed Gerry to QPR. This was a void that proved very difficult to fill as Ollie had been an ever present in the 1990/91 League season and had chipped in seven goals as well. Thankfully other losses were relatively minor as Tony Sealy and Christian McClean had only ever played bit parts in previous seasons, although both were vital backup in the 1989/90 Championship winning season.
Two experienced players did come in, Justin Skinner from Fulham for £130,000 and Steve Cross from Derby County for £40,000, and the signing of ‘El Diablo’ (Skinner) in particular seemed to signify a change to a more cultured midfield style. Indeed Dobbo was himself described as “a majestic passer of the ball… almost Gazza and Hoddle rolled into one”.
However, he won just one game from 12 overall, never gave us a clean sheet, and unspeakably managed to lose three times to City in less than six weeks! The stats, to be blunt, are vicious and inescapable. He never played the same side twice and there were rumours of dressing room upheavals. It certainly seemed like Dobbo tried too much too soon.
By complete co-incidence Dobbo’s tenure coincided with a very short lived phase I had of writing up my own away day match observations. After over 20 years gathering dust I recently found my typed ‘reports’ from Swindon Town (his 7th League match; 1-0 loss) and Brighton & Hove Albion (his 9th, and last, League match; a 3-1 loss).
“Before the [Swindon] match we were singing ‘Going Up, Going Up, Going Up’ [we were 23rd at the time] and that self deprecating humour was all the more relevant after the dismal first half performance. Thankfully the second half saw the return of the famous Rovers spirit, even if no decent scoring chances were created. The team selection though must still be seriously questioned. Not one proper winger was in the 13 and Justin Skinner, Andy Reece, Tony Pounder and Aidy Boothroyd had all been dropped. A sweeper system was used but Martin Dobson fails to realise that Lee Archer isn’t being used as a winger, Ian Alexander is not a winger (although he has been many years ago) and Marcus Stewart is certainly not a winger! Just because you play a sweeper and expect the full backs to get forward a bit doesn’t mean you can neglect the wings. The midfield was a mis-match as usual with Steve Yates eventually being pushed up into it for the last 30 minutes. Stewart was lost there (he’s a striker for Christ’s sake) and the choice of substitutes didn’t give Dobson the experience and flexibility he should have given himself. These were Marcus Browning and trialist Gareth Taylor (position unknown). Is he trying to punish Andy Reece and Justin Skinner by not even putting one of them on the bench?”
“ ’Something is up, something is definitely up‘, as the immortal words of Vic Reeves go. Today something is up at BRFC. Long standing players like David Mehew and Phil Purnell don’t go on the transfer list after being dropped for just a few games. Rovers players may lack some skill but they don’t usually lack commitment. Ironically though this [Brighton match] was Rovers’ best performance of the season with commitment and team understanding returning for at least the first half. Martin Dobson’s choice of substitutes (Marcus Browning and Marcus Stewart) was again inexplicable though, and Carl Saunders looked a shadow of his former self with his impeccable holding and turning seemingly non-existent. If Dobson is serious about ’good’ football he will be happy with Steve Cross and Justin Skinners’ crisp passing but disappointed with Brian Parkin’s reluctance to let the back four (with Billy Clark at left back?!) play it out of defence. Also the aimless ‘pump it at Bruno’ tactic must be finished as his flick-ons are currently poor and anticipation of them is missing without an attacking midfielder like David Mehew in the side. Again the winger situation is unfulfilled with Dobson obviously reluctant to pick a so-called proper ‘winger’ when Tony Pounder and Phil Purnell continuously cut in-field, bunching up play and effectively making them light weight midfielders”
As Ray Kendall was at Rovers for so long his book “An Away Game Every Week” [Breedon Books, 2001] rather hurried through memories at breakneck speed. Dobson doesn’t even get a chapter of his own (it is shared with Dennis Rofe) but what there in it is illuminating. The new manager’s first big change made headline news in Ray’s kit-man bubble because he told players to wash their own training kit every day. Not bad for Ray but certainly not an ice-breaking player pleaser! A whistle was also used to sharply start and finish the training sessions at the Fry’s chocolate factory at Keynsham, triggering a joke amongst the players that they were ‘clocking in and out’ like workers on the Turkish Delight production line.
These were minimal changes though compared to Dobbo’s highly unusual resolve to never travel to away games on the team coach. Instead he would drive there with his wife, and also steer clear of any pre-match meal or overnight stays. “He would just walk into the dressing room as kick-off approached and start taking charge from there. And sadly, while he spoke sense as he went around each individual telling them what he expected from them, you could see that the respect of the players for him was slipping away”. Rovers may have been ‘ragbag’, but at least they always had a good team spirit, with Kendall recalling that players all the way back to the 1950s did everything together. This was rapidly being eroded, especially amongst some of the ‘senior’ players.
Despite the doom and gloom Kendall recalled that, “oddly enough some of the training and coaching exercises he put on were a revelation. There was no doubt he was a quality coach and had learned from his time at both Burnley and Everton, and with England. But by the time he’d blown his whistle to start he’d already lost the backing of the lads and it wouldn’t have made much difference what he did”.
The promotion clinching 3-0 demotion of City on the 2nd of May 1990 could still be smelt in the fabric of Fortress Twerton, so to weakly lose 3-1 to the enemy in the League Cup (our goal only coming from the consistently hapless Andy Llewellyn) was something he never recovered from. Two more 3-1 losses later, including the aforementioned Brighton farce, and Sir Dobbo’s investiture was metaphorically forfeited.
Funnily enough though we famously came back to win the Second Leg at Trashton 4-2 under Dennis Rofe and thus progressed to the next round, as ‘away goals count double’; later the title of one of the hilariously biased Screen Soccer videos which were compulsive viewing in our house.
This though is where the reputational fight back begins. Well...sort of.
Our inspirational captain, and trusty ‘cool left back‘, Vaughan Jones, played all bar two of the 52 League and Cup games in the previous season, but was injured at the start of the season and was also mysteriously missing from the official team photo. He regained his place in the line-up for the eighth game of the season, but as the ball was passed back to him (a few touches after the kick-off), he was roughly tackled and us lads on the Popular Side could immediately hear and feel that it wasn’t good news. His leg was broken; his season lasting a mere 20 seconds. We could never adequately replace him and sadly Vaughan only ever played another 12 matches for Rovers, and never quite got to his 400th League appearance.
Dobson blooded Lee Archer, Marcus Browning, and Marcus Stewart, the later of whom is still the most talented player I’ve ever seen in a blue & white quartered shirt, and became an almost instant first team player, bravely scoring on his debut in the first match of the season after being 3-0 down to a gigantic Ipswich Town team, and then showing an amazing lack of fear in his first ever away game by volunteering to take a last minute penalty to rescue a draw at Tranmere Rovers.
Ray Kendall’s book also gives several positives, as well as pointing to a ”lack of effort [by some players] in everything that happened”. As for his quirks, “Ironically Martin, for all that he travelled on his own to away games, was probably spending more time around the club than Gerry [Francis] ever did. Gerry’s style had been to come and go every couple of days and try to have maximum impact. But Martin was an extremely quiet man and just didn’t have the same force of personality to gain everybody’s respect”
The results may be inescapable but I still think Dobbo was given a horrible mission to try to follow Gerry, especially with no Championship experience and an impatient Board, and was also pretty unfortunate with the loss of Ollie, Joner and others. He shook up an ageing team, gave youth a chance, and offered us a glimpse of a more expansive game.
But ultimately he failed to gain points, and just as importantly failed to understand the intense football rivalry in our City that a Blackburn-born lad who played over 400 games for Burnley really should have understood to the very depths of his heart!
‘Player power’ allegedly reared its ugly head again in 2011, propelling Dave Penney into the record books along side Dobbo as the two shortest lived permanent Rovers managers ever (merely 13 and 12 games respectively). I dearly hope that this dubious honour is never allowed to transpire again. Dobbo had been allowed five years to steadily improve Bury, and we gave him 12 games. That is nothing for Rovers to be proud of.
Like so many other Gas failures, he never managed again, preferring to remain in the background at his one true love, Burnley FC.
For more detail on Rovers as the ‘Graveyard of Managers’ please see the article I wrote for the Bristol Post website here… www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-graveyard-managers/story-24741491-detail/story.html
Martin
A Reappraisal of Martin Dobson, our shortest lived manager
by Martin Bull
by Martin Bull
Well, I bet you never expected those first five words in the same sentence did you?
Whereas Bert Tann is famous for his 801 League games as manager of BRFC, throughout almost the entire 1950s and 1960s, Martin Dobson is infamous for his mere nine League games, in the late summer of 1991. No other ‘permanent’ Rovers manager has ever achieved so little.
When John Martin Dobson was born on Valentine’s Day 1948 I doubt his family expected him to be the first footballer to be transferred for over £300,000 (when Everton bought him from Burnley in 1974), nor to be known as ‘Sir Dobbo’ to his many admirers.
Like Bert, Mr Dobson was not a local. Bert hailed from the rough streets of Plaistow in East London, whereas Dobbo was the local lad made good from near Blackburn.
With no plausible internal candidate available Dobbo seemed like an intelligent choice to attempt to ‘replace the irreplaceable’ Gerry Francis in July 1991 and the decision certainly didn’t seem like an outlandish whim at the time. Like Gerry he was a well respected ex-England midfielder (five caps to Gerry‘s 12), and he had a far longer and superior managerial track record, having managed Bury for five seasons, gaining promotion to the Third Tier in his first season and steadily improved them thereafter.
He was certainly his own man and kept his own style. I will always remember a HTV interview with him just after being appointed. In stark contrast to the stereotype of the lumpen proletariat from Lancashire, or even the boiler suit chic and mullet of King Gerry, he was sitting in a chair in a peaceful sun drenched garden with a flowery shirt on, smart trousers and buffed Italian shoes. He appeared smooth, relaxed, and a bit of a thinker.
Little did he know the maelstrom that awaited him.
In the closed season Ian Holloway had followed Gerry to QPR. This was a void that proved very difficult to fill as Ollie had been an ever present in the 1990/91 League season and had chipped in seven goals as well. Thankfully other losses were relatively minor as Tony Sealy and Christian McClean had only ever played bit parts in previous seasons, although both were vital backup in the 1989/90 Championship winning season.
Two experienced players did come in, Justin Skinner from Fulham for £130,000 and Steve Cross from Derby County for £40,000, and the signing of ‘El Diablo’ (Skinner) in particular seemed to signify a change to a more cultured midfield style. Indeed Dobbo was himself described as “a majestic passer of the ball… almost Gazza and Hoddle rolled into one”.
However, he won just one game from 12 overall, never gave us a clean sheet, and unspeakably managed to lose three times to City in less than six weeks! The stats, to be blunt, are vicious and inescapable. He never played the same side twice and there were rumours of dressing room upheavals. It certainly seemed like Dobbo tried too much too soon.
By complete co-incidence Dobbo’s tenure coincided with a very short lived phase I had of writing up my own away day match observations. After over 20 years gathering dust I recently found my typed ‘reports’ from Swindon Town (his 7th League match; 1-0 loss) and Brighton & Hove Albion (his 9th, and last, League match; a 3-1 loss).
“Before the [Swindon] match we were singing ‘Going Up, Going Up, Going Up’ [we were 23rd at the time] and that self deprecating humour was all the more relevant after the dismal first half performance. Thankfully the second half saw the return of the famous Rovers spirit, even if no decent scoring chances were created. The team selection though must still be seriously questioned. Not one proper winger was in the 13 and Justin Skinner, Andy Reece, Tony Pounder and Aidy Boothroyd had all been dropped. A sweeper system was used but Martin Dobson fails to realise that Lee Archer isn’t being used as a winger, Ian Alexander is not a winger (although he has been many years ago) and Marcus Stewart is certainly not a winger! Just because you play a sweeper and expect the full backs to get forward a bit doesn’t mean you can neglect the wings. The midfield was a mis-match as usual with Steve Yates eventually being pushed up into it for the last 30 minutes. Stewart was lost there (he’s a striker for Christ’s sake) and the choice of substitutes didn’t give Dobson the experience and flexibility he should have given himself. These were Marcus Browning and trialist Gareth Taylor (position unknown). Is he trying to punish Andy Reece and Justin Skinner by not even putting one of them on the bench?”
“ ’Something is up, something is definitely up‘, as the immortal words of Vic Reeves go. Today something is up at BRFC. Long standing players like David Mehew and Phil Purnell don’t go on the transfer list after being dropped for just a few games. Rovers players may lack some skill but they don’t usually lack commitment. Ironically though this [Brighton match] was Rovers’ best performance of the season with commitment and team understanding returning for at least the first half. Martin Dobson’s choice of substitutes (Marcus Browning and Marcus Stewart) was again inexplicable though, and Carl Saunders looked a shadow of his former self with his impeccable holding and turning seemingly non-existent. If Dobson is serious about ’good’ football he will be happy with Steve Cross and Justin Skinners’ crisp passing but disappointed with Brian Parkin’s reluctance to let the back four (with Billy Clark at left back?!) play it out of defence. Also the aimless ‘pump it at Bruno’ tactic must be finished as his flick-ons are currently poor and anticipation of them is missing without an attacking midfielder like David Mehew in the side. Again the winger situation is unfulfilled with Dobson obviously reluctant to pick a so-called proper ‘winger’ when Tony Pounder and Phil Purnell continuously cut in-field, bunching up play and effectively making them light weight midfielders”
As Ray Kendall was at Rovers for so long his book “An Away Game Every Week” [Breedon Books, 2001] rather hurried through memories at breakneck speed. Dobson doesn’t even get a chapter of his own (it is shared with Dennis Rofe) but what there in it is illuminating. The new manager’s first big change made headline news in Ray’s kit-man bubble because he told players to wash their own training kit every day. Not bad for Ray but certainly not an ice-breaking player pleaser! A whistle was also used to sharply start and finish the training sessions at the Fry’s chocolate factory at Keynsham, triggering a joke amongst the players that they were ‘clocking in and out’ like workers on the Turkish Delight production line.
These were minimal changes though compared to Dobbo’s highly unusual resolve to never travel to away games on the team coach. Instead he would drive there with his wife, and also steer clear of any pre-match meal or overnight stays. “He would just walk into the dressing room as kick-off approached and start taking charge from there. And sadly, while he spoke sense as he went around each individual telling them what he expected from them, you could see that the respect of the players for him was slipping away”. Rovers may have been ‘ragbag’, but at least they always had a good team spirit, with Kendall recalling that players all the way back to the 1950s did everything together. This was rapidly being eroded, especially amongst some of the ‘senior’ players.
Despite the doom and gloom Kendall recalled that, “oddly enough some of the training and coaching exercises he put on were a revelation. There was no doubt he was a quality coach and had learned from his time at both Burnley and Everton, and with England. But by the time he’d blown his whistle to start he’d already lost the backing of the lads and it wouldn’t have made much difference what he did”.
The promotion clinching 3-0 demotion of City on the 2nd of May 1990 could still be smelt in the fabric of Fortress Twerton, so to weakly lose 3-1 to the enemy in the League Cup (our goal only coming from the consistently hapless Andy Llewellyn) was something he never recovered from. Two more 3-1 losses later, including the aforementioned Brighton farce, and Sir Dobbo’s investiture was metaphorically forfeited.
Funnily enough though we famously came back to win the Second Leg at Trashton 4-2 under Dennis Rofe and thus progressed to the next round, as ‘away goals count double’; later the title of one of the hilariously biased Screen Soccer videos which were compulsive viewing in our house.
This though is where the reputational fight back begins. Well...sort of.
Our inspirational captain, and trusty ‘cool left back‘, Vaughan Jones, played all bar two of the 52 League and Cup games in the previous season, but was injured at the start of the season and was also mysteriously missing from the official team photo. He regained his place in the line-up for the eighth game of the season, but as the ball was passed back to him (a few touches after the kick-off), he was roughly tackled and us lads on the Popular Side could immediately hear and feel that it wasn’t good news. His leg was broken; his season lasting a mere 20 seconds. We could never adequately replace him and sadly Vaughan only ever played another 12 matches for Rovers, and never quite got to his 400th League appearance.
Dobson blooded Lee Archer, Marcus Browning, and Marcus Stewart, the later of whom is still the most talented player I’ve ever seen in a blue & white quartered shirt, and became an almost instant first team player, bravely scoring on his debut in the first match of the season after being 3-0 down to a gigantic Ipswich Town team, and then showing an amazing lack of fear in his first ever away game by volunteering to take a last minute penalty to rescue a draw at Tranmere Rovers.
Ray Kendall’s book also gives several positives, as well as pointing to a ”lack of effort [by some players] in everything that happened”. As for his quirks, “Ironically Martin, for all that he travelled on his own to away games, was probably spending more time around the club than Gerry [Francis] ever did. Gerry’s style had been to come and go every couple of days and try to have maximum impact. But Martin was an extremely quiet man and just didn’t have the same force of personality to gain everybody’s respect”
The results may be inescapable but I still think Dobbo was given a horrible mission to try to follow Gerry, especially with no Championship experience and an impatient Board, and was also pretty unfortunate with the loss of Ollie, Joner and others. He shook up an ageing team, gave youth a chance, and offered us a glimpse of a more expansive game.
But ultimately he failed to gain points, and just as importantly failed to understand the intense football rivalry in our City that a Blackburn-born lad who played over 400 games for Burnley really should have understood to the very depths of his heart!
‘Player power’ allegedly reared its ugly head again in 2011, propelling Dave Penney into the record books along side Dobbo as the two shortest lived permanent Rovers managers ever (merely 13 and 12 games respectively). I dearly hope that this dubious honour is never allowed to transpire again. Dobbo had been allowed five years to steadily improve Bury, and we gave him 12 games. That is nothing for Rovers to be proud of.
Like so many other Gas failures, he never managed again, preferring to remain in the background at his one true love, Burnley FC.
For more detail on Rovers as the ‘Graveyard of Managers’ please see the article I wrote for the Bristol Post website here… www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-graveyard-managers/story-24741491-detail/story.html
