Thetownend.com

calderwood gets sacked from forest, who wants him here?

do we want him coz he was a legend as a player here? or coz he is a good manager? or just to get us fans semi-excited about something again after almost not having a club to support?

Have to say I'm on the fence about this one although I do think he'd do a better job than MM.

No.

He took a good couple of years to get both Forest and Northampton promoted with the biggest budget in the division supposedly.

Plus, he's due for the sack so he isnt going very well in the Championship despite again having money to spend.

He'll be given a chance here by the fans because hes a Swindon Legend but no doubt we'd turn on him if results didnt go our way.

I think there are better managers out there.

legend as a player, still not convinced with him as a manager.

i'd rather have ling if we had an ex-player, he's worked with little money and plays football. calderwood has been backed financially by the boards at both northampton and forest.

I have to say I don't get the logic that because someone used to play for us that will make him a better manager for us. If nothing else it's insulting to the manager - implies that Calderwood, Ling et al aren't doing the best they can at their current clubs and somehow would only find that extra 5% (or whatever) if they were managing a club they used to play for.

he is a legend as a player.i'd not be gutted if he came here, but i'm not convinced it would be for the best.if it went tits up, then it would sour all the greatness he was a major part of.

ling has done fuck all imo to warrant him coming here.ditto nihjolt

Of course both Calderwood and Ling have played for Nottm Forest and Leyton Orient respectively....

he's done as much as calderwood. orient are punching above their weight, forest are still - arguably - underachieving.

at the end of the day i don't really want any ex-players in charge.

neither do i.

 It's a good question...my initial feeling is that as a man with two promos at lower league level, he'd fit the bill....throw in his legendary status as a player, and it's a seductive combination.

 Nevertheless, his contract situation, if sacked might throw up complications and there  isn't a vacancy here yet.

really? i'd love kammy to quit tv and become our boss

id have Calderwood here in a heart beat

But as sonic pointed out, both achieved with massive spending. He might fit the bill, but would Fitton foot the bill? (See what I did there?)

maybe it would have been a hard enough question to put in the quiz eh reg?!

 A CC question would have been nice....like when CC made his WC finals debut in 98, who was he required to mark?

ronaldo

Ronaldo.John Collins scored a pen for Scotland in their defeat.

  Easy...but interesting, a long way from the old Div 4 days.

Its more about the mentality of our fans. Much more positive and supportive with an ex player.

We just dont seem able to grow up and snap out of it.

Yeah, I know I get that bit, but a lot of those advocating Calderwood/Ling etc add in the "Town through and through" , "always gave 100%" etc bits as if their being an ex-player will somehow make them a better (rather than more popular) manager

No it will only make us feel better about them.

It is almost impossible that Malpas will turn us into a winning team now in my opinion. The fans are undermining him so badly that the players will not give Malpas a chance to assert his own ideas.

Fans would back Calderwood/Ling to the bitter end, which gives the players no option but to get stuck in.

Just like we were still singing Iffys name at Bristol City even though he had blatently just fucked things up totally.

fwiw so nothing. I'd say it was almost a dead cert he will be our next manager.

Eh?

Explain all of that please.

for what its worth, ie nothing its just my opinion

he will be our next manager. the fans dont want Malpas here and Calderwoods day at Forest are numbered.

We'll find ourselves looking for a new manager just as Calderwood is out of work.

He'll join us - I just cant see it happening any other way

For some reason i agree with that dv

Hope so.

Forest loose every week please. Had the 2nd Palace goal live on Sky Sports and their fans didnt look too happy.

Calderwood is a bit direct, but end of the day hes got a promotion under his belt, so he cant be that bad.

He will get all the time he wants from the fans.

didn't kingy get mansfield promoted?

NO HE FAILED IN THE PLAY OFFS

god

alright, calm down dave.

calderwood has two promotions under his belt anyway...

with clubs that have thrown money at him, and he still managed to cock things up along the way

unconfirmed,rumour mill,long time ago,nothing to do with football and not meaning to be ambiguous etc......but hasn't calderwood left a bit of baggage here that may prevent him coming back??

Unless he pissed off the tea man surely its too long ago to matter

The ex-player as manager discussion gets brought up with depressing regularity, and every single time it does my fucking head in.

JPC82 (hope you're feeling better this evening, by the way) would have Calderwood back in a heartbeat.  Why?!  Think about it.  If he became our manager, maybe he would take us up in a blaze of glory.  Just as likely, however, we would drift around mid table for a season or two and he would get the sack after a bad spell.  Colin Calderwood is a Swindon legend, and I would like to keep him that way.  Returning to an old club is a rarely a good move, as invariably our heroes are shown up for the mortals they really are.  I never want to risk hearing 'Calderwood out!' from the Town End.  It would make me want to give up altogether.

And Martin Ling being 'Town through & through'?  I read an interview with Lingy in one of the London freesheets on my way home from work last week.  He was talking about his 5 year tenure as manager of Orient, and how that made him the 6th longest serving manager in the League.  In my book, that makes him quite Orient through & through.  He may well do a job for us at some point in the future, but the seasons he played for us does not itself qualify him to do this.  The greatest managers we have had while I have been following Swindon were Ardiles, Hoddle and Sturrock...and none of them was an ex-player.

All of which, of course, is completely fucking irrelevant because we have a manager (himself a playing 'legend') called Maurice Malpas.

guess I was too cryptic dave....try tea lady!

He had sex with the tea lady?

Maybe he took tea with the sex lady?

he may have been a playing legend, but do you seriously see him being a legend of a manager when we look back in 20 years??(or even 2 years for that matter)

if we were playing hunt the thimble, i'd say you're kinda luke warm at the moment....

he had tea with a sex lady?

No I don't, but that's not my point.  I'm saying that if Malpas does go (and, for the record, I don't believe the time has come for that to happen) I sincerely hope that candidates who happen to have played for us in the past are not given preferential treatment in the selection process for a replacement.

neither do I. However if a non ex-town player was in the frame e.g. holloway, I think he would be more likely to use us as a stepping stone to get his profile raised again if he were to be successful here. Calderwood has (to a degree) shown loyalty so far in his life both as a player and a manager (lets forget the tea lady!)

I would rather a manager who has had success and maybe failed on the way rather tham a manager who has just failed

trevor francis it is then :D

Haha let us stay as we are then

But that means we will have Fitton and Watkins going through all that interview crap again, trying to pick a manager who will listen to his team preferences.

I can make this post, because I know Fitton doesnt read internet forums because he thinks they are a waste of time. Hes probably right on that one!

Heres a name to be thrown in, mark robins

too small

when the fuck did he ever play for us idiot

Too much Bristol City.

2001 champ manager

ahhh touché

from a notts forest forum...sound familiar?!

Thats it my patience has worn thin, 10 games 5 points, f**king disgracefull.
He's lost the dressing room the fans everyone the team has no confidence or anything. lets stop pretending saying were playing well. Because simply we aint.
Today we were embarrasing he hasnt got an answer to anything.
Please f**k off Colin!!!
We still have time to get out of trouble but we need a change and FAST!!!! we cant afford to go down again it will kill the club once and for all, just like Notts County are now.
We haven't got a bad squad, we av just got a wank manager simple!

I dont think calderwood is the answer,If we was to go for Ex town i would go for Zippy,yes he's unproven but it wont cost us any compensation to anyone.

In my opinon unless we pay out for a proven manager IE bigger wages or compensation.

We can all shout malpas out but where do you go on a limited budget to bring another manager in.

i know we're an stfc forum but as its cc related:-

hmm I dunno to be fair ... I think the next five games are vital though. Defeat to Derby could spell the end.

Last season I thought he was at fault with his tactical mistakes and so on, but this season seems different, I don't really blame Calderwood for most defeats but like winnits said something needs to change.

I'm not desperate for him to stay but nor am I desperate for him to go. I think the main reason I'm not in the 'Calderwood OUT' camp is because I am genuinly scared about who we'd replace him with. Big sam and curbishley just sound like another Megson and who else ? .... I wouldn't want Nigel Clough or anyone like that to have the job.

Still Joe Kinnear will be available in a few weeks 

If it were up to me, Colin Calderwood would have until November 2nd to save his job...

Calderwood could be sacked and the new manager of someone else by the time Malpas goes for all we know.

I'm sure that Malpas will be here for all of 2008 at least.

right then, look at our league fixtures for this next month before a 2 week break.I personally wouldn't be happy with anything less than 9 or 10 points out of the possible 18 if we're to be avoiding a relegation scrap.I'm 80/20 in favour of malpas going at this present moment but think this next month will decide his future. And does no-one else think he would benefit from watching in the stand?

huddersfield (h)
southend (a)
northampton (h)
oldham (h)
walsall (a)
scunthorpe (a)

Incidentally the 1st game back after that break is likely to be to the league leaders, Leicester.

Who are still a bit shit, despite being top of the league...if we outbattle them in the middle of the park, we can win it.

If Malpas does leave and we go down the ex-player route then it has to be Micky Hazard purely for the reason that I like the idea of giving the job to a taxi driver.

erm, top of the league and shit? think I'd settle for that at this present moment and it least we'd have something to talk about other than malpas future...or would we...he'd be a sought after manager if we were top ;-) and as for outbattling them in the middle of the park-therein my friend lies one of the many problems.....imho

Agree jimbob, i like all of our midfield but it lacks two massive things, tennacity and pace.

Colin Calderwood has lost the dressing room and the fans at the City Ground.  Isn't that what the jocks were telling us about MM when he was appointed??  It's a no go for me, even if MM does decide to resign (Fitton will not sack him).

That was not a throwaway comment.  I live in Leicester, have seen Leicester play and know loads of Leicester season ticket holders.  One thing we all agree on is Leicester are a bit shit (not really shit, but a bit shit).  The thing is this division is shit...so only being a bit shit may be enought to win the title :)

Your point about outbattling in the middle of the park being a problem is sadly accurate.

Oh, and yep, damn right I'd settle for being shit and top of the league.

They destroyed Cheltenham 4-0 at Whadon Road, 2 weeks after we were well beat there.

Theyve just got different standards having not been down here before. This is quite a good league. The 2005-05 league when Colchester and Southend went up werent nothing special though.

Well the wife could see no difference in the standard between Hereford vs Swindon and Leyton Orient vs Leicester, and to be honest neither could I.  The bottom line as far as I can see is no team in this league is any good, which makes our poor start even more frustrating.

Come on, Leeds beat us easily with 10 men. Weve had a poor start because we are shit. Its frustrating that we are wasting good forwards on shit defenders, but that is it, you win and loose as a team and overall we are crap. Hereford are the only team that have made us look comfortable at the back, and we still conceeded a goal.

Il wait until I see Oldham, Leicester and Scunthorpe before I judge them. But I would suggest they are a fair bit better than us.

We need to realise were not as good as we thought we were, then we can get a decent mentality back on the terraces and get behind the team.

Good point, well made.

I dont think its that much of a valid point because we were better last year with mainly the same players.

Those expect us to suddenly become a top 6 side are obviously setting their sights too high but the players we have are capable of getting us to mid table.

I guess whether you need to realise we arent as good as we thought, depends how good you think we are....

Its the defensive unit that have deteriorated.

You cant talk, you seem to think Jack Smith is a top class full back!

So are you telling me im deluded because I think we can be a mid table team. Should I set my expectations lower than that?

My expectations were a run at the play-offs, now they are for a long hard relegation battle and hoping we might survive by the skin of our teeth, because there are three or four sides in this division who are shit.

Now, personally I never thought we were good enough for a run at the play offs. I think if we wanted to acheive that this season we would have spent a bit more money and offered higher wages.

All I wanted/expect from this season was progression from last season. More points and a higher league finish. I think rightly or wrongly our current playing squad is capable of that.

A few decent results and hopefully the confidence will come back. We havent had a major over haul in the summer so to me our squad should be playing to the same standard they managed last season.

Unless Comminges really was the man!

Who are those 3 or 4 sides dellboy?

My expectations were that we'd make improvements to set up the promotion push for a subsequent season(s). In truth, I was hoping for a top 10 finish, but doubted we'd not get into the top 7.

Cheltenham
Hereford
Crewe

I think the current bottom seven will fight out the relegation so add
Yeovil
Leyton Orient
Swindon
Colchester

i think we are not bad enough to be in a relegation scrap.the side is deffo not achieving what it should be currently though

I will get battered for this, i reckon as things stand cheltenham will finish above us

Yes you should. If we cant keep 3-0 leads and we cant motivate ourselves at home then we are relegation material.

Nothing drastic is going to change, Fitton said so himself.

Only player who is improving is Billy Paynter. The rest are all showing a regression.

Well in that case I just hope we win League Two this time....

It all depends on the defence.  If it can be sorted then we have enough about us going forward to finish mid table.

If we keep conceeding 2/3 goals a game you dont have to be a genius to figure out that we will be in for a relegation fight.

I'd like to think we are under acheiving, not shit....

Our last relegation season we were shit, you could see that 10 mintues into the Barnsley game.

I agree DV.  We clearly have a much better side on paper than we did in the relegation season, when the likes of Shakes, Brown and CCP to name a few were all 1st team regualars.

Thats not to say we are "too good to go down" though. Any team that concedes as often as we do, and with so many of them self inflicted is going to be in the shit.

Seriously how many goals have we conceeded this season that could be put down to an individual error.  I can think of 5 just off the top of my head, some really bad ones too.

And that dosnt include the ones that were more of a team effort in the shit defending stakes.

We've hardly made the opposition work for their goals with good play have we?  its fucking depressing.

P Smith x 2
J Smith
Brez v Col U (probably)

What's the other one?

ifil

[/quote]
yep

Casal - Tranmere, QPR, QPR

Brez/Morrison - Chetlenham

Jack Smith - Colchester

Nalis - Colchester if you're being really picky

Brez - Colchester

P. Smith - Franchise (although the good saves far out weighed the mistake that game)

Ifil - Leeds

P. Smith - Leeds

Aljofree - Leeds

J. Smith - Millwall

P. Smith - Hartlepool

you could probably at a push include:

Aljofree v Leeds
Brez standing on his line, then letting the ball go straight above him for chetenhams 2nd

fuck me, it would be easier to work out how many good / well worked goals the opposition have scored

Zero.

I really think it is.  I cant remember 1 goal scored against us that was an unstopable strike or a well worked move with no defensive culpability for us.

Thats the most annoying thing.  If we had cut even half the cock-ups out we'd be looking like a half decent side with a repectable points tally.

You can add Smith P away at Hereford to that list

 Most goals are the products of mistakes somewhere, even at a higher level than we play at, in Div 3 it is quite unusual to see a goal scored, which is solely good play by the attackers.

 The better teams make fewer mistakes, especially of the most basic variety.

 In the last couple of weeks I've doubled the quota of goals seen dropped in from weak free kicks, relative to the previous 40 odd years.

When you watch ITV's 'The Championship' you see the level of competent defending decrease from

each division.Some of the levels of defending in Div 2 are simply comical.I watched 'Football Gaffes'

on ITV4 yesterday,wondering if STFC would appear? Sure enough,it showed Tom Heaton rushing out

of his area, against Port Vale at the County Ground,in october 2005.The ball bounced high over his

arms and led to an easy goal.We lost the game 2 - 1

I remember Nicky Hammond doing something similar at Ipswich-the day Fjortoft scored his first goal

That really was a howler.

I can remember Digby kicking the ball straight to Merson v Boro....we were top and 1-0 up and cruising...Merson scored then Emerson got the winner.

was that david thompson and george ndahs debuts?

Yeah..Ndah scored a peach on his debut.

 TBF, Merson still had a bit to do...

  In fact, you could make a case for that game being some sort of high water mark, we've been going down hill since.

Was a great finish Reg...and i agree that game is clearly etched in my memory...its as you say been downhill since.

 We could compete with the likes of Boro back then...we haven't played them since that season.

 The reason for difference is Steve Gibson...a model chairman, whereas we've had nothing but problems, he's managed to steer Boro to some degree of success.

And the same goes for Reading....i hope our guys are watching how theyve done things.

 True, but I've no time for Reading, whereas Boro have always been a proper football club.

  There are of course major differences to our situation....with Reading, they owned Elm Park, which was a shit hole with no potential, so relatively easy to sell and get a new ground.

  Middlesboro, is an industrial wasteland, with plenty of relatively cheap land available for development, and all sorts of grants available.

 The CG is still  decentish ground, which we don't own and there is little if any cheap land in Swindon for a development.  The only way it would happen if the Board want to pay for it, and there is little evidence they want to do it. 

I remember Griemink "doing a Smith"  in front of the Townend within 2 minutes of the start of a game.

v Cardiff I think

I am pretty sure that Reading were trading at a fairly significant loss for most of their ascent too?

Yes they've been successful but it has come at a cost, depends how you define "well run" but to me it is living within your means.