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So do I mate

 

I literally said the level I got to in my last reply but again that doesn't impact my ability to form an opinion on a player.

When I am there I cheer the team on, I don't sit there booing etc. forming a negative atmosphere, I'll be there tomorrow cheering the team on desperate for 3 points and a win.

If Marsh plays and scores tomorrow I'll be delighted like all of us there and all the fans not there cheering on from at home.

That still doesn't change the fact that I'd like us to have someone better going forward than Marsh

 

I thought Duff was crap (and still do) if it's any consolation .

 

Its interesting that while most fans say how brilliant Clarke was in those days, in his first role as manager.
He had his faults though, and he showed his authority maybe a bit too strongly at times.
Speedie and Glavin have been mentioned, and he also put his pride before the team again, by dropping Aylott.
And Clarke leaving was the best news for big Trev, because Hunter liked him and put him back in the team.

 

Absolutely spot on .
I loved Hunter Norman bite ya legs

 

Indeed, but what Clarkey did in his first spell in transforming the club on and off the pitch was phenomenal. It has to be said though, he was left very good foundations by his predecessor Jim Iley, who wasn’t the most popular manager, but did a good job before moving to Blackburn. Back to Clarkey, it seemed he was consistent with his ruthlessness even to himself, because following a. 7-1 defeat at Reading he retired from playing when many thought he he still had enough in him to carry on.

 

Aylott deserved to be dropped and fined for removing his shirt and throwing it at Clarke, after he was substituted in the 2-1 home defeat to Portsmouth on the opening day of the 1980/81 season. Also, Hunter didn't automatically begin to select Aylott after he was appointed manager. He kept him in the reserves for a few weeks.

 

Yeah I've heard those stories about Jim Iley, and that he deserved credit for the job he did. Certainly not spectacular by the sounds of it, but apparently he kept us steady for a few years and allowed us to build on it by appointing Clarke.
As for Allan's retirement, I've also heard him say that he felt it was time, after that hammering at Reading.

 

Bloody hell bazza, a tha really telling us thas got a better footballing opinion because tha played for Barugh Green against Woolley Colliery, Rose and Crown and Kek Social club

 

I know Trev did that, but I don't think it deserved getting dropped and being forced to stay on the bench, while he/Allan was still manager.
And whether it wasn't straight away or not, Norm clearly rated him and got more out of him, than Allan did.

 

I think any player doing what Aylott did that day would be fined and dropped for such immature petulance. He got what he deserved. Hunter also thought the same, which is why he didn't immediately select him when appointed manager. There's no doubt that Hunter got much more out of him than Clarke did, but it doesn't mean Trev wasn't pathetically childish. I was also a huge Aylott fan.

 

I don’t think anyone’s suggesting we don’t need better. I think we all agree that we need to replace Cole & Mcatee but that’s not Marsh’s fault.

If Marsh who’s probably one of the lowest earners at the club was released in the summer we would either have had to promote another youngster like Dyer or Nzondo who I think are a fair bit off Marsh or bring in someone else & probably have to spend more on them & put them up in the gateway plaza at the cost of the club as we still need bodies in for the U23 games & Bristol Motors Cup.

 

What interests me as well, is what a number of Leeds fans thought about Clarke, at that time, in Sep '80.
Yeah he was a legend as a player etc, but he'd only just managed Barnsley out of the 4th Division.
And after the years of sh*ite they apparently had under Jimmy Adamson, they took the appointment of Clarke... as underwhelming!.
So it looks like Allan was up against it right from the start, when he went there.

 

Some people are suggesting he gets a run in team mate, so that seems to point to them not wanting better and wanting him to play.

I get your point around cup games etc. but I personally couldn't give a monkeys about pizza cup etc. so I'm all for those who aren't ready like dyer to play there as I couldn't care less if we didn't win that competition and they are younger than Marsh etc.

 

As best mi mrs can remember.

Clarke bless him.
Buckle whist being visited in BDGH. Said to our lass.(Nurse) "Do you know who this is young lady". Replied "No". He was a bit taken aback. Clarkey that is, When Buckle named him. R lass said "I should have, given mi husband nivver shuts up.abart him" lol.

 

Biggest mistake of his football career going back there so soon, but you couldn’t blame him. Barry Murphy and Martin Wilkinson went with him as well and I can hardly imagine what all those internationals thought when Murphy started coaching them.

 

And there's that lovely story of Clarke asking Norman Rimmington to join him at Leeds.
And big Norm, told him to f*k off!, in the nicest possible way of course.

 

Brilliant!!

 

I think cup games help massively when you’re trying to build a winning culture.

2016 the JPT helped massively, same with the great escape under Flitcroft when I’m convinced none of that happens without Danny Rose’s last minute winner at home to Burnley in the FA Cup.

 

I want him to play more. It’s not that I don’t want better as you suggest, but rather I want to give him a proper chance to prove he can make us better. He might… he might not… neither of us really know - we just have an averagely informed opinion.

But the same applies to all youngsters and new signings. But they all have to be given a chance to show it.