Life. You could be getting on with things as normal. Business as usual. Steady. Ticking on. Same old, same old. Then, all of a sudden, something happens so quickly that, once it’s taken place, you think “what just happened?” Like the time I was temping for a company many moons ago, and I made a small mistake on the job. The manager spotted it, called me to her office, and told me she was letting me go. There and then. At 3pm on a Wednesday. No notice. One minute I was in, then a blur, then I was out.
I remember sitting in my car for a while afterwards, not so much disappointed at the situation, but bewildered and shocked by just how quickly it happened. This is the feeling Notts County fans are experiencing now. Martin Allen was managing the club quite admirably. Though it had been a while since talk of automatic promotion, the team sits 11th in the table and, although they suffered a poor 3-0 defeat away at Jeff Stelling’s Hartlepool, previous results had been decent and, all in all, things were steady.
Then, on February the 18th, a notice on the Pies’ website: “Notts County wish to announce that Martin Allen has been relieved of his duties with immediate effect.” What?
Just like that, he was gone. A manager everyone thought was getting on ok and had turned County into a steady, top half League 1 club, no longer there. And while the dismissal of a manager usually leads to several days, if not weeks, of finding a suitable replacement, a new manager had been brought in within 48 hours. Not Steve Cotterill, who, despite his woes on the red side of the Trent, would have been a popular choice at Meadow Lane based on his previous County spell, but Keith Curle.
Yes, Keith Curle…What?
An eccentric, popular manager, who was liked and respected by his players and who actively strived to raise the team’s profile in the city, dismissed and replaced with one whose previous posts are limited to Mansfield Town, Chester and Torquay United – and let’s be honest, they weren’t exactly flying high with him in charge. Mad Dog was there on Friday, gone by Saturday and replaced by Curle on Monday. It’s like some twisted surreal footballing version of a popular Craig David song. It does not make sense.
But despite the madness, rational thinking is needed. One thing to take into account is that Neil Warnock has just been appointed manager of Leeds United, and could have attempted to recruit Curle to his backroom team at Elland Road, as he did at Crystal Palace and Queen’s Park Rangers, so County owner Ray Trew may have wanted to move quick to secure Curle’s signature. The fact that Curle and Kevin Pilkington were at the Exeter game should have raised eyebrows. This, combined with the speed of Mad Dog’s dismissal and Curle’s swift appointment, are tell-tale signs that changes may have been in the pipeline for some time. By the looks of it, there were some serious backroom problems which we don’t know about – a Nottingham Post interview with skipper Neal Bishop hinted at “irreconcilable differences” between Allen and Trew.
So, as things are, where should the fans stand? My opinion is that, as a County fan who remembers nearly dropping out of the Football League altogether, not to mention the crazy financial doping period, complete with Trainspotting-style comedown which had Portsmouth, Leeds United and Gretna written all over it, Trew’s tenure has so far been a success, bringing much needed stability to the club, and thus, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and get behind the new manager. Like I said, there may have been good reasons for Allen’s dismissal. We don’t know. However, animosity at this stage is not beneficial.
Curle has not managed a club since 2007, but has been a coach at Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers (who, let’s not forget, were promoted the Premiership) under Warnock, so let’s hope this will reflect positively in his managerial tenure and that this Keith won’t end up a lemon. So, let’s see how things get on, onwards and upwards, and as always, COYP!
Written by Giuseppe Labellarte, We Are Going Up’s Notts County blogger
Giuseppe tweets at @JoeJonesHome
Tags: keith curle, League One, mad dog, Martin Allen, Meadow Lane, Notts County, ray trew, Steve Cotterill
