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HE will not have to pick up a paintbrush or sweep the corridors this summer but Phil Parkinson’s renovation job at Wanderers is not dissimilar to a couple of his predecessors.
It is 24 years since a manager last prepared the Whites for life in the third tier – but back then, fans had become rather accustomed to their surroundings.
Phil Neal had stabilised the club after its one and only season in the bottom division but twice missed out in the play-offs to Notts County and Tranmere Rovers.
Years of financial hardship had reached a plateau but Burnden Park was showing its age, the fans were showing their displeasure and a disappointing mid-table finish in the 1991/92 campaign convinced then-chairman Gordon Hargreaves it was time for change.
Wanderers reached out, as they have with Parkinson, for someone who knows the course and distance. Bruce Rioch had taken Middlesbrough from the doldrums and rebuilt unfashionable Millwall after relegation from Division One.
Success, Rioch later claimed, was built on a back to basics approach. Before the White Hot years came a few weeks of pre-season were spent grafting in overalls with a paintbrush in hand.
“Of course, there was no money at all at the time, so when I agreed to go into the club I knew before we even looked at the squad, we’d need to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in,” he said.
“The whole place needed sorting. Everywhere was scrubbed, we put new paint on the wall. It felt like a fresh start.”
While Parkinson won’t literally be dropping in at B&Q on the way into pre-season training later this month, he does face a clean-up operation of sorts.
Tarnished by two relegations in four years, and still in a state of disarray following last season’s financial problems, the new manager’s first responsibility will be to take a scrubbing brush to the team’s mentality.
Neal had a similar task when he arrived at Burnden in 1985 and could not arrest the slide immediately. The much-decorated former Liverpool defender was, by his own admission, unprepared for the mess he inherited.
“I got a rough ride at the time,” he told The Bolton News. “I was really learning my trade at Bolton, it was never going to be perfect but I hope people look back now and think ‘you know – he didn’t do too badly.’
“Going down into the fourth division was a huge blow but I’ll always be proud of the way we got started again, kicked on, and became a better team because of that disappointment.”
Parkinson comes to Bolton with a much deeper managerial CV. His knowledge of football at League One level, and more importantly success, is one of the major reasons Ken Anderson and Dean Holdsworth gave him the nod.
But nevertheless expectation will be something he needs to manage, just as Neal did back in the late eighties and early nineties.
A generation of Wanderers fans have grown up on a diet of Premier League football and many have found the adjustment hard to take in recent years.
Parkinson has kicked off on a measured footing, making no grand promises of success until he knows exactly what kind of squad, and what kind of characters he will be working with.
The real balancing act will be to keep targets realistic whilst still engaging the supporters, many of whom have had their loyalty pushed to the limit.
Fans have fallen by the wayside in recent seasons yet attendances still continue to defy predictions. And around 8,500 season tickets sold show there is still a strong backbone of support for the new manager to rely on.
Parkinson and his staff have already set about making changes on the training pitch specifically designed to getting his players to eat together either side of training, get changed in the same facility and minimise the time spent on their own in the gym.
The Rioch-like attention to detail will not end there and suggestion within the club is that pre-season training will be quite unlike any other the senior members of the Wanderers squad have experienced.
Parkinson won’t have to paint the door of the manager’s office, and is unlikely to get his players to serve cups of tea to the public waiting for tickets outside the ground, more is the pity. But he knows forging a good relationship with supporters will be vital if he wants to foster the “all for one” spirit he enjoyed at Bradford City.
Those little PR tricks Rioch produced in his early days at Burnden Park helped him win fans over quickly.
People who have followed Parkinson’s managerial career suggest he will do things ‘his way’ but perhaps looking at how the club fared in the past could be of benefit. After all, don’t they say those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes?
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wanderers/14580624.Parkinson__39_s_Whites_job_similar_to_one_started_by_Rioch/
It is 24 years since a manager last prepared the Whites for life in the third tier – but back then, fans had become rather accustomed to their surroundings.
Phil Neal had stabilised the club after its one and only season in the bottom division but twice missed out in the play-offs to Notts County and Tranmere Rovers.
Years of financial hardship had reached a plateau but Burnden Park was showing its age, the fans were showing their displeasure and a disappointing mid-table finish in the 1991/92 campaign convinced then-chairman Gordon Hargreaves it was time for change.
Wanderers reached out, as they have with Parkinson, for someone who knows the course and distance. Bruce Rioch had taken Middlesbrough from the doldrums and rebuilt unfashionable Millwall after relegation from Division One.
Success, Rioch later claimed, was built on a back to basics approach. Before the White Hot years came a few weeks of pre-season were spent grafting in overalls with a paintbrush in hand.
“Of course, there was no money at all at the time, so when I agreed to go into the club I knew before we even looked at the squad, we’d need to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in,” he said.
“The whole place needed sorting. Everywhere was scrubbed, we put new paint on the wall. It felt like a fresh start.”
While Parkinson won’t literally be dropping in at B&Q on the way into pre-season training later this month, he does face a clean-up operation of sorts.
Tarnished by two relegations in four years, and still in a state of disarray following last season’s financial problems, the new manager’s first responsibility will be to take a scrubbing brush to the team’s mentality.
Neal had a similar task when he arrived at Burnden in 1985 and could not arrest the slide immediately. The much-decorated former Liverpool defender was, by his own admission, unprepared for the mess he inherited.
“I got a rough ride at the time,” he told The Bolton News. “I was really learning my trade at Bolton, it was never going to be perfect but I hope people look back now and think ‘you know – he didn’t do too badly.’
“Going down into the fourth division was a huge blow but I’ll always be proud of the way we got started again, kicked on, and became a better team because of that disappointment.”
Parkinson comes to Bolton with a much deeper managerial CV. His knowledge of football at League One level, and more importantly success, is one of the major reasons Ken Anderson and Dean Holdsworth gave him the nod.
But nevertheless expectation will be something he needs to manage, just as Neal did back in the late eighties and early nineties.
A generation of Wanderers fans have grown up on a diet of Premier League football and many have found the adjustment hard to take in recent years.
Parkinson has kicked off on a measured footing, making no grand promises of success until he knows exactly what kind of squad, and what kind of characters he will be working with.
The real balancing act will be to keep targets realistic whilst still engaging the supporters, many of whom have had their loyalty pushed to the limit.
Fans have fallen by the wayside in recent seasons yet attendances still continue to defy predictions. And around 8,500 season tickets sold show there is still a strong backbone of support for the new manager to rely on.
Parkinson and his staff have already set about making changes on the training pitch specifically designed to getting his players to eat together either side of training, get changed in the same facility and minimise the time spent on their own in the gym.
The Rioch-like attention to detail will not end there and suggestion within the club is that pre-season training will be quite unlike any other the senior members of the Wanderers squad have experienced.
Parkinson won’t have to paint the door of the manager’s office, and is unlikely to get his players to serve cups of tea to the public waiting for tickets outside the ground, more is the pity. But he knows forging a good relationship with supporters will be vital if he wants to foster the “all for one” spirit he enjoyed at Bradford City.
Those little PR tricks Rioch produced in his early days at Burnden Park helped him win fans over quickly.
People who have followed Parkinson’s managerial career suggest he will do things ‘his way’ but perhaps looking at how the club fared in the past could be of benefit. After all, don’t they say those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes?
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wanderers/14580624.Parkinson__39_s_Whites_job_similar_to_one_started_by_Rioch/
