Special Disco Mention #28: David Moyes

As the most, and possibly only, avid football fan on the Ransom Note team, I’ve been charged with writing this week’s Special Disco Mention as there was only ever one person in the running…

To the untrained eye, the media may have lost all sense of perspective with regards to the sacking of David Moyes – 6Music were even running it as their main news story on Tuesday despite other things going on (y'know, such as the potential collapse of eastern Europe, that sort of thing…) But other news isn’t as important, because this is football. No, it’s more than football. It’s Manchester Ruddy United sacking a manager – something which hasn’t happened since well before I was even a glint in my dear father’s eye. They’re perhaps the only team that has achieved enough of a global splash to allow them the opportunity to float shares on the stock exchange – the stocks perhaps unsurprisingly rose by a quid or so (I don’t know/care, i’m not a banker) after the execution of Tuesday.

Because that’s what this feels like. Poor David Moyes may not have had the best of luck in his brief tenure at the club yet he’s just so much more likable than the considerably dourer Scot that he replaced. In hindsight it’s easy to say that he was the wrong man for the job, just like it’s easy to say Nick Clegg is a bit of a tosser. But only one of these things could anyone have been sure about before they were given a second in a position of real power (obviously the latter, although I still can’t work out what he’s done as deputy PM). Moyes just didn’t really have the charisma, track record, experience and authority for the job – but Ferguson wanted him so hey-ho, solid reasoning.

But back to my use of the word execution, before I sprung upon a tangent that made the last paragraph seem as valuable as the filler that made up every academic piece of writing I’ve written. It seemed as though everyone but Moyes knew that he was destined for the sack when he headed in for a normal day at work on Tuesday morning. Poor sod. I’d hate to head over to Ransom Note Towers (patent pending, or not…) on Tuesday for our dearly beloved Wil to tell me to hit the bricks – with a lot more sweariness thrown in for good measure. It would then quite probably crush me to find out that EVERYONE knew it was going to happen before it was confirmed. For a club that probably spend millions or billions each year on media relations and other such frivolities that keep me in fresh pants, this was a monumental cock-up. It was classless, as in the sense you’d expect someone like Southampton to have done it.

From the previous sentence you may have guessed that I’m a Pompey fan which is primarily why I side with Moyes and have done since he took over at Old Trafford. He’s the underdog, the man no-one wanted and frankly I can’t stand the torrent of abuse he’s had from United fans this year. Quit your bellyaching over finishing 7th in the Premier League with a Community Shield win – 12 months ago there was a real possibility that I would no longer have a club to support which would have entirely ended my interest in football. Remember Portsmouth anyone? We won the FA Cup in 2008 (beating United in the QF which has remained to this day one of our best family outings), lost to Chelsea in the final/got relegated in 2010 and ended up in a fight against relegation to the Conference or whatever sponsor it’s named after now until our latest saviour, ‘Awfs’ as he shall forever be known, got the players to pull their fingers out.

So I have no time for fans who think that 7th place, League cup semis and a Champions League QF loss to the best team in the world (until this week) is an underachievement. David Moyes should be holding his head proud and it’s the stubborn, over-paid, arrogant players that should have encountered the wrath of the fans and anyone else who gives a bollock. Let’s hope he is able to remain dignified enough to take up his rightful place as a top division manager before too long – hopefully lawsuits and unfathomably large pay-outs aside he’ll come out of this smelling like the proverbial white rose. Good luck to you Mr Moyes, if all else fails I reckon you’d be in with a shout for the position of Pompey’s academy coach…

Ciaran Steward