RUTHLESS PEOPLE
In the experience of Football Daily, hearing Mark Robins speak is an interaction with an entirely normal, grounded human being, an intelligent, plausible, honest man. In a world of bluster and buzzwords, Robins speaks sensibly, realistically. For Coventry City he was the shy Messiah, leading the club out of its darkest hours, taking them within minutes – inches even – of the promised land. Visit the Coventry City Building Society Stadium and encounter a kind of faded grandeur. The glory days were at Highfield Road. Its replacement, the Ricoh, as it was first known at the start of a torrid history that continues with Mike Ashley as landlord, is modern, glassy, a cashless society with a statue of Jimmy Hill at its entrance. Perhaps one day Robins will be afforded a bronze tribute as the man who took the floodlit dreams of a city trying to revive itself on his shoulders. Without him, the stadium’s sun-bleached sky-blue seats might now be entirely disused.
But this being modern football, where the money slides uphill and out of the game, even a civic hero pays the price for a slump. Robins took the club to the Championship playoff final in 2023 and was a VAR-assisted offside goal away from beating Manchester United to reach the 2024 FA Cup final. Sorry, mate, you’re 17th in the Championship, and so, as a club statement droned: “Mark’s achievements at the Sky Blues, often against a backdrop of uncertainty and financial restrictions, will see him remembered and lauded as one of the club’s greatest ever managers, who was able to galvanise players, staff, fans and the club as a whole to incredible feats.”
Robins, as a football man, knows the game better than most, and just like Paul Hurst, who returned to Shrewsbury to relive the glory days but was sacked last week, or Erik ten Hag, now a forgotten man as Robins’ former club go mad for Rúben Amorim, and Marks Kennedy and Robinson, shelled by Swindon and Burton, knew the end could always be near. Doug King is the chief suit and local businessman behind the decision. “I have been successful at making things work in my life, which is why I am in this position now,” he chirped in a September newspaper interview. “I’ve backed myself to do the right things. I’m also aware that things can turn.”
Things will definitely turn if King doesn’t get the next decision right. Next? Catch a Championship match, meet a new generation of designer coach, a must-have for provincial clubs. Hull have Tim Walter’s green cagoule, Stoke have Narcis Pelach’s designer jeans. There’s Martí Cifuentes at QPR, Carlos Corberán at West Brom, Régis Le Bris, Danny Rohl, Johannes Hoff Thorup. Robins, a tracksuit manager from the faded tradition of the country that can’t find an English national team coach, became a man out of time, falling victim to the cruelty of the sport that eats itself.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Welcome to Copenhagen. You’re [eff]ed now” – a tifo at Parken Stadium displays quite possibly the biggest F-bomb Football Daily has ever seen at a match. It turns out that their Tin Pot rivals Basaksehir weren’t effed at all, drawing 2-2 before responding in playground-style on their socials.
Chelsea were playing a team called ‘Noah’ last night and yet in its match report Big Website didn’t even have one single water/ark-related pun? The game’s gone …” – Noble Francis.
Ryan Lloyd shows a touching faith in Brazilian stadium security when he says the pig’s head must have been thrown by a Corintiano because away fans are banned from the derby (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). As someone who cowered in the Brook Road Stand watching Southampton at Griffin Park because I couldn’t get an away ticket and whose dad silently supported the Seagulls at Wembley in 1983, surrounded by Manchester United fans, I can assure you, not everyone is always who they seem at the football” – Ben Mimmack.
Seeking to resuscitate the flogged dead horse which is the ‘great headlines’ thread (Football Daily letters passim), I well remember a newspaper headline after the 1993 Milk Cup final, in which Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 with a winner scored by Steve Morrow, whose arm was famously then broken when Tony Adams dropped him in the course of the post-match celebrations. One broadsheet ran with ‘Joy today but sorrow to Morrow’, and I couldn’t fathom why they blew the opportunity to go for ‘Joy today but sorrow to Morrow and Wednesday’” – Simon Skinner.
Re: great headlines. I realise the topic is getting a bit long in the tooth – and to be fair I don’t even know if this counts as a proper headline – but certainly as of 8pm on Thursday the Big Website main page was still claiming this to be ‘Breaking news’! Excellent work” – Scott Blair.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Simon Skinner, who lands a Football Weekly scarf. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
