Different clubs, different approaches and different incompetences - Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers are this season's case studies of how not to run a football club. Both have been deservedly relegated from the Premier League and hopefully will not return any time soon. Football - and more saliently - their own fans, deserve better.
Early results for Wolves were promising, and the club looked set for an unusually comfortable season, without the looking over their shoulders that a typical Wolves season usually entails. Unfortunately, that was August, and by September results had reverted to type, and Wolves slid down the table fast.
The response from the Wolves board was to sack the manager Mick McCarthy, partly as a result of fans' pressure. Despite acting on the disappointment of supporters, the decision to sack McCarthy is now widely regarded as a mistake. Who got the blame? The fans? The players? No, the board got the blame, but rightly so. Fans pay their money to watch football and vent their frustration. The job of a football club's board is to act rationally. The decision by the Wolves board was anything but rational. Wolves were always set for a struggle, but the decision to sack McCarthy was carried out without a sufficient shortlist of replacements in mind.
Following McCarthy's sacking, there followed an embarrassing rigmarole which saw managers lined up for the role, then discounted on a near-daily basis. Steve Bruce was understood to be lined up, but something went wrong and in an act of throwing in the towel, Wolves decided to hand the job to one of the coaches, Terry Connor. As we are constantly reminded, he is 'a nice bloke' and has a good relationship with the players. Wolves have not won since.
As for Blackburn, well where do we start? The club has been a circus ever since it was taken over by 'The Venkys', whoever they may be. The Indian chicken traders who bought the club are even more rarely spotted than actual chickens around Ewood Park these days, such is the poisonous atmosphere that has engulfed the ground.
One of their first acts was to sack the solid - if unspectacular - manager, Sam Allardyce. As was the case with Wolves, they decided to promote an inexperienced number two to the role of manager. Results have been appalling ever since, with the occasional exception which meant that the mutiny around Ewood Park only reached full volume on Monday (7th May) when relegation was finally confirmed.
If the incompetence of the Wolves board was a hasty sacking without considering a replacement, the Blackburn board upstaged it by keeping their manager in charge far longer than plausible. Back in December, the atmosphere at Ewood Park was at its lowest point until this week, as Blackburn lost to local rivals Bolton. I have no doubt that the timing of their otherwise virtuous protests cost Blackburn the three points that day. However, that was also the time for the Blackburn owners to pull the plug on Steve Kean.
Looking back, excellent results that followed, such as the victory against Manchester United at Old Trafford were more about the players declaring what they were capable of if given a fair chance, rather than tacit support for their manager. Although hostilities ceased for a while, when a normalisation of the results returned so did the anger.
The inaction of the Blackburn board is indicative of their seeming lack of actual physical interest in getting involved with the club. The most destructive rumour that circulates is the question of how much they knew about promotion and relegation, and if this means of meritocratic movement in English football was even known to the Venkys.
If they did not know about the existence of relegation, there is some consolation for them - all relegated clubs are awarded a series of 'parachute payments' to ease the crashing fall to status and the finances a relegation can take.
Wolves and Blackburn can be summarised as contrasting styles of how their staff were handled. One club hit the panic button and effectively destroyed its structure; the other fiddled while the structure burned. In Reading and Southampton they will be replaced with two clubs that have built solid foundations on-the-pitch in recent years. This is just as well, because the Premier League is an unforgiving place for clubs that are run ineffectively.
