Thetownend.com

i know the thishiteis site is running a couple of threads about the forthcoming series coming up but i found the article this morning in the mirror for people to read.  car crash tv? you bet ya!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/tm_objectid=17583175%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=big%2dron%2dput%2dme%2don%2dthe%2ddole-name_page.html

WHEN Ron Atkinson arrived at a club in the past it meant FA Cups, title races and a shot at the big time.






Advertisement

Atkinson's involvement at Peterborough led to manager Steve Bleasdale quitting



But now it means fireworks and fighting, chaos and confusion, and dressing-room rebellion - as Peterborough manager Steve Bleasdale found out.


A fly-on-the wall TV documentary called Big Ron Manager will reveal just how spectacularly the League Two club blew their promotion bid after the former Manchester United and Aston Villa boss was brought in by his friend and Peterborough chairman Barry Fry in January.


Atkinson and the caretaker manager clashed so much that Bleasdale quit in front of his stunned players and staff 70 minutes before a crucial game with Macclesfield.


Fed-up Bleasdale ended up resigning in the dressing room 70 minutes before a game in April. But the League Two side's fans have never been made fully aware of why he left - and just how badly chairman Barry Fry shattered the club's bid for promotion by bringing in Atkinson and the TV crews.


The fly-on-the-wall series, which begins next Wednesday, will shock football fans with the intensity of the rows, bust-ups and confrontations including this a mass dressing-room brawl after a vital promotion defeat.


Bleasdale, who took Posh into the play-off positions before Atkinson's arrival, is now on the dole. Peterborough eventually finished the season in ninth place, having lost seven of their final 10 games.


Bleasdale told Mirror Sport last night: "I'm a coach who can change teams, change training and change players.


"I have modern ideas - and yet I'm doing nothing. Ron has walked away but there is nothing for me.""


Other jaw-dropping moments in the five-part series include:


<li>DEFENDER Phil Bolland, now at Chester, telling the TV crew: "Nobody knows who is running the place."</li>


<li>ATKINSON and Bleasdale rowing in the dressing room in front of Peterborough's startled players - then in front of Fry, who sides with Atkinson.</li>


<li>A BLISTERING, foul-mouthed, dressing-room bust-up between Bleasdale and defender Sean St Ledger, whose appalling attitude eventually sees him offloaded to Derby.</li>


<li>FRY intervening to tell St Ledger he will be playing after he is axed from the team by Bleasdale.</li>


<li>THE chairman calling Bleasdale into his office and telling him: "It's clear to me that you have no idea what you are doing. I will be picking the team."</li>


<li>A FIGHT in the dressing room between players.</li>


Bleasdale added: "I just can't get my head round why Ron kept challenging my authority in front of the players. I didn't want him in the dressing room. My experience will never leave me and whatever football role awaits me it will be nothing to compare with what I have had to put up with.


"We had had so many meals over which I was persuaded his role would be a watching brief. He told me that if he saw anything to work on, he would advise me in private. But he didn't do that.


"For me, I learned nothing. Ron Atkinson's been a great manager but, no disrespect, what did he teach Stevie Bleasdale? I'm still waiting.


"Yet it got to the stage where, when Ron Atkinson the great manager came into the dressing room, the players were trying to decide whether they all listened to him or to the rookie manager who has just had two defeats."


Bleasdale was initially made to look as though he had left the club in the lurch when he quit in April.


But Posh fans will be shocked when they see the full story unfold and the way he was made to stand aside, humiliated in front of his players, as Fry gives a team talk before that match.


The subject of the documentary was initially intended to be Swindon Town in December 2005.


Atkinson was brought in to the Wiltshire club to perform a similar role alongside Town boss Iffy Onoura. But after just four weeks Onoura pulled the plug on the project, refusing to be undermined.


The Peterborough project then began a week later. Bleasdale added: "I know Iffy well and he had a great escape. He said to me: 'Steve, I don't know how the hell you put up with it. I'm really glad he left our club'."


Blasting Ron's criticisms of the underachieving players, Bleasdale added: "It needed for Ron to take me aside and say, 'Look Steve, this is what I feel about certain players'. Then I would relate it to them. That's what I thought he was coming in for.


"But when he stands up and starts slating the players, then going round and nudging everyone and saying, 'You do this and you do that' what can you do? That's how you lose the dressing room.


"People will see what happened in the boardroom and how difficult it was for me. I distinctly said I didn't want him in the dressing room. Ron probably thought he was helping. But it didn't work."


Fry, having sunk his life savings into the ailing club to keep it afloat, saw Atkinson - with two FA Cups, a League Cup and experience of management at the highest level -as the ideal mentor for Bleasdale.


But Fry undermines his manager from the start by insisting Atkinson had his "100 per cent backing to change things as he sees fit".


Bleasdale added: "My wife Karen thinks the show is going to be a smash hit for other people but it won't be for me.


"She felt I should have gone a long time ago. But she still believes in me and a lot of other people still believe in me too."


BIG RON MANAGER begins next Wednesday, August 23 at 10pm on Sky One.

Best thing Iffy ever did was make that guy leave the town.

Should make great viewing though.  I'll be watching.  I'd hate to be a Peterboro fan watching though.

glad it wasn't us doing it

i would say close call, and a good call by iffy
but we did get relagated last season!

wat chan is it on?

The players played worse when Ron and his cameras left. We might have stayed up if he stayed, and we'd still have Iffy.

we still went down anyway, but well done for iffy for telling the board he wanted Ron out, and wel done to the board for agreeing with him

"A BLISTERING, foul-mouthed, dressing-room bust-up between Bleasdale and defender Sean St Ledger, whose appalling attitude eventually sees him offloaded to Derby"

How the fuck can any Peterborough player be "off-loaded" to Derby, a club two divisions higher than them??  Surely that was a cracking move for the lad?

sounds like its worth watching then.

22nd (Tues) 10-11pm, taken from Sky 1 website. Some will be repeats I guess. Also Sky are playing god and inventing new hours for August 26th!

-------------

Next showing: 2006-08-22 at 22:00 - 23:00
New series following football pundit Ron Atkinson as he assists Peterborough United's caretaker manager Steve Bleasdale in attempt to take the team into Coca-Cola League One

 
Next showing: 2006-08-23 at 22:00 - 23:00
Series following football pundit Ron Atkinson as he assists Peterborough United's caretaker manager Steve Bleasdale in attempt to take the team into Coca-Cola League One

 
Following showings:
 
2006-08-22 at 22:00 - 23:00
2006-08-26 at 25:50 - 26:40
2006-08-23 at 22:00 - 23:00

am i going crazy, when did we suddenly get a 27 hour clock?

At about 25.13 last night.

It its going to be interesting viewing!

Remember the documentary on our lot when Adi Viveash was a kid...I remember someone giving Chalky White a wedgy too in very fetching plastic pants.

But I can't remember any in-fighting. I'm nt so naive to believe it doesn't go on...bar the Gurney/Hewlett 'I've put one in your wife' episode, anybody know any bust-ups or general player goss at the club?

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

ITV used to do this behind-the-scenes ... they only got on-air late 'cos of TV-am so used to refer to the hours past midnight as 25:00, 26:00 etc ...

got footage in 85 i think of macari punching steve foley in the dugout.

macari gets interviewed about it and admits he hit because he was "out of order"   great moment!!!

and remember when mcmahon was on the touch line and fjortoft ran into him after a challenge (mcmahon had his arm in a sling) fjortoft just looked at mcmahon and pulled up both his hands and began to shoot at mcmahon like a kid.
i think mcmahon sold him not long after that  :D

I bet most stories people know of involve McMahon being an arse. Remember when he made Phil King train in short sleeves with the youth team in the dead of winter whilst everyone else had their woolies on. Tit.

Then there was the time Mooney supposedly lamped Nico after a bit of 'scouse wit' didn't go down too well with our Tommy.

Supposedly, Apparently, on the grapevine...

mark robinson and scott leitch(spelling?)
on the pitch down by the town end after we let in yet another goal

and i remember a swindon fan behind me throw his programme at the lino shouting send them both off.

cant remember who against im leaning towards ipswich maybe?

thank fuck it wasnt Swindon, appaling programme.