Just listened to Undr The Cosh with him Said Barnsley was a great club but he didnt enjoy it here. Simon Davey was clueless and didnt have any clue what to do. Should have been selling Catalogues not be a Manager. He said when he got drafted back into squad on Boxing Day after 4 months out in cold he was hungover after being pissed over Xmas but he didnt care.
No idea but I think he may be our longest serving manager of the Cryne era and certainly one of the least popular with the fans (and I believe playing staff)
Not many of the footballers they have on there seem to care much. Think the world owes them a living!
Davey had an in depth dossier on each player on the books at the time and Patrick was obviously impressed with the detail he had gathered . Always remember tuning in to Radio Sheffield one night and listening to Patrick being interviewed when Ritchie had just left. He was asked if he had a list of potential candidates for the job. His reply was " what if we've already got the next manager at the Club."? I have to be honest and say I personally never rated Davey, but he did give me some priceless memories during his tenure namely the FA Cup Semi Final against Cardiff City at Wembley, the Cup win against Chelsea and clawing a two goal deficit back at Hillsborough to enable us to draw 2-2 when it first looked as though we were set for a hammering.
Our longest serving championship manager under Patrick, gave us some of our best ever players like Muller and gave us one of our best ever cup runs. Yes he wasn't a nice man but the football was much better than what we've been dished up in the majority of the years since his departure.
I personally think that Davey had been essentially spying on Andy Ritchie and the squad for months before he was appointed. That he was a slimy little b****** who lied and cheated his way into the job. Convinced Patrick that he was some kind of amazing find and Patrick lapped it up, gave him the job and a blank cheque to do with as he pleased. We may have had a good cup run but I think a lot of that was in spite of Davey not because of him. It was just a case of players rising to the occasion against famous opposition.
So let me get this right, Andy Johnson turns up for a match still pissed up but criticises Davey for not having a clue? oh the irony.
What's the difference between being "clueless" and not having "any clue"? Perhaps in the FA Cup he was clueless against Liverpool away, but didn't have any clue against Chelsea at home.
I heard that Andy Johnson and Jonathan Greening had a 100m race in 2012. They reckon it might finish this year.
Whenever Davey's name comes up people always bang on about that great cup run, which basically boiled down to two great performances against Liverpool and Chelsea But our league form under Davey was terrible. I remember shocking away form under him; over a 2 -season period I think we won about 3 games out of 46 away
Simon Davey kept us in the Championship for 4 seasons and took us to the FA Cup semi final. For those factual reasons he has been our most successful manager in the last 20 years.
I think Davey gets a lot of unwarranted stick. He never got us relegated and also gave us some brilliant highs. Up there with Wilson and Bassett for providing memories for me.
I worked at the club throughout the Davey era, we helped set up the training pitches and so on. He was a very awkward bloke, and spoke to no one other than Ryan Kidd. The drills were all organised by Ryan, in fact he did absolutely everything. The players never took the him what so ever, I’d go as far as saying that the vast majority of the squad disliked him. He was cold, very cold. His treatment of Anthony Kay was awful to watch, he didn’t like that Kay was vocal and had a big influence on the dressing room but Kay was a proper leader, a captain... very Roy Keane. So he froze him out of the side and told him he would never play for us again... we went on to lose about 6 in a row and he was forced to pull him back in and he was phenomenal right up until the end of the season, but Davey still wanted rid. A few of the lads were adamant that he wanted to shop abroad for foreign players to avoid vocal characters and to NOT create a side that wanted to socialise outside of work. I know that sounds insane but there was definitely something in that. Ryan Kidd by the way always came across a bit of a looney on the sidelines but in truth he was the most boring, dull and slow bloke I’d ever met. He wasn’t good for the morale of the squad at all, which leads me on to Andy Johnson. Andy was a proper joker, a funny character and a decent player too. He looked after the younger players and was always offering advice to Jacob Butterfield (sure whitey will vouch for me here) Jamil Adam etc. Again, Davey and Kidd didn’t like that, and he was soon frozen out and forced into the reserves. it was bizarre, it was work work work with them. They didn’t like the acting around, the joking etc which to us seemed odd, the jokers seemed to help break the ice and help the lads bond but they simply did not want that. Kim Cristianson was a good striker btw, but he was told to find a new club after he’d only been at the club a matter of weeks after an arguement with Davey.
You've obviously got inside knowledge, but I'd still say we weren't relegated under him and beating Liverpool and Chelsea was memories that will last forever. So the player's must have cared a little bit. Typical Barnsley in my opinion to slag a bloke that actually did ok.
