When I first graduated, I was lucky enough to have my dream
job as a freelancer for a radio station in Ipswich and as part of that job –
the best part – I got to report on Ipswich games and go to press
conferences.
One Saturday afternoon I headed up to the Molineux and
enjoyed us take a late equaliser through Tommy Miller. Then after the game, as we
were waiting for Jim Magilton to come up from the dressing room, I decided to
sit in on Wolves’ manager Mick McCarthy’s interview.
It’s one of my favourite memories from my short-lived time
as a journalist, his interview was like no other I had listened to. The room was
relaxed, he joked with the press that it felt like a defeat and even popped in a couple of
swear words which made everyone laugh. He was relaxed and genuine… a nice guy.
Despite everything, I still trust that first impression and
I still believe he showed traits that should be valued in a manager. Having had
the pure nastiness of Roy Keane followed by the puppet that was Paul Jewell –
I, for one, welcomed and have enjoyed Mick’s 'Barnsley-style' attitude of just being
honest about what he thinks.
The trouble is, that approach is exactly what has got him in
trouble – and rightly so. It’s been his undoing.
In my opinion, there has been a small section of our fans
who have expected (nay, wanted) him to fail since he was appointed our manager. 'He wasn’t the right fit for Ipswich, Wolves fans have reported bad things and
he’ll never take us anywhere', they said.
On the latter, they were wrong. 2015 was a tough year for me
personally, but I will always remember it for that afternoon at Ewood Park,
standing next to a chap I recognised only from Twitter who was listening to the
radio through headphones.
‘They’ve got a penalty’ he said of Derby, the team we needed
to lose if we were to make it to the play-offs. Then he held his finger to his
lips and I swear the whole of the away stand went quiet… a few seconds
passed, then – he thrust his fist into the air and we all cheered. Derby had
missed the penalty – we’d done the impossible.
And that was the point – Mick McCarthy had taken a team on
the brink of relegation, destroyed by a succession of two very poor managers,
spent just £110k on them and reached the bloody play offs. It was unexpected, a
miracle and, to me, it didn’t really matter that we lost to Norwich in the
semi-finals – I was so proud that my little Ipswich was proving the world of big, bad, money-mad football that they were wrong. Winning can be achieved through passion and drive,
this is how it should be done.
For that, I thank Mick from the bottom of my heart. For
making me happy, for making me fall in love with my team and being a football
fan again, for – however briefly – pulling our fan base back together to make
us proud of our club.
He is well respected throughout football and rightly so. He
is an excellent manager at this level, even if you don’t appreciate the way he
does it. He will, I’m sure go on to manage another Championship side and no
doubt we will lose to them when we play.
But his time with us is over and I am relieved, but sad it’s ended
this way.
That small section of fans who have been openly against him
all along has slowly grown and grown. As times have become tough, more and more
people have gone against him, encouraged by his unnecessary digs.
Conversely, I’ve been a big supporter of him and have openly defended
his sarcastic comments. He’s honest and that’s what I like, I agree that he
knows how to do his job better than the section of fans that think it’s okay to
sing ‘your football is shit’ in the middle of a game.
Hell, I even understand why he reacted like he did to the
away section after Chambers scored his goal against the scum. He’s been on the
receiving end of some nasty abuse from our fans and I think I’d have been hard
pushed not to feel smug that the tactics they so loudly criticised had just seemingly won us the game.
But, to me, that moment signalled the point it had gone too
far. The hate between our fans and our manager has become so much that he – in
a moment of passion, probably without even thinking – directed the emotion at
them, instead of celebrating with his own players.
This feeling of divide has grown and grown and I think there
is fault on both sides, let alone the contribution Ian Milne and Marcus Evans’
actions (or inactions) have made. Something should have been done about it a
lot sooner than it has – things didn’t need to get this bad.
It’s reached a point now where I actually started not wanting to go
to games any more. Me, the girl who has long argued that I will always
want to go to the football, no matter what the score, because it means spending
the day with my friends. I just couldn’t be bothered with how miserable everyone had become, I couldn’t be arsed with the stress.
I honestly expected him to go last summer. Who knows why he
didn’t: perhaps Evans is just happy because McCarthy doesn’t expect more money,
perhaps Mick really does want to honour his contract, perhaps we couldn’t find
a replacement for him (given how long it took to replace Daryl Murphy, I
wouldn’t be surprised).
As we go into a new era for the club and finally answer the
question – who could do better? I want o say thank you to Mick. Genuinely,
you’ve given me a lot of joy over the past five years and I’m grateful. I’m
also grateful you’re finally out of the door and we can hopefully start to get our club back.
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