Gordon Strachan quits Boro manager job
Oct 19 2010 by Mark Douglas, The Journal
MIDDLESBROUGH owner Steve Gibson has pleaded for supporters’ forgiveness and pledged the club “will get it right” with their next appointment after seeing Gordon Strachan fall on his own sword.
A “tortured” Strachan ended weeks of speculation by resigning yesterday afternoon after overseeing a dreadful start to the Championship campaign – foregoing any compensation in the process by tearing up his contract.
Despite summer investment that Gibson claimed put Boro among the top ten net investors in English football, the Scot could not turn around a steady decline that has lasted for three years at the Riverside. They sit 20th in the Championship with just 11 points.
Boro, who have placed Steve Agnew and Mark Proctor in temporary charge for tonight’s trip to Nottingham Forest, now begin their search for a new manager in earnest, with Tony Mowbray the bookies favourite. Paul Jewell, Billy Davies, Phil Brown, Glenn Hoddle and Alan Curbishley are other names mentioned.
But Gibson said it was too early to begin talking about specifics, saying that the club would not be rushed into a crucial decision.
“I think (getting the next appointment right) is essential,” he said.
“We got the last appointment wrong but I would like the fans to be a bit forgiving and support us and get behind us.
“I understand it has been bloody awful. But it is time to dig in and be ferocious in our commitment and to be tenacious and that is what we have got to do. We have got to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. We will turn it around.”
Although he did not endear himself to Boro supporters with his occasionally acerbic radio interviews, in the end Strachan’s position simply became untenable because of results.
And, while he leaves with his reputation in tatters, Gibson is grateful to him for making a decision on his future for him.
“Gordon is a man of great integrity. He has torn up his contract and walked away without compensation because he felt it was in the best interests of this football club,” Gibson said.
“There are very few managers who have ever done that but that is the mark of the man. He feels he has given it everything he has got here, but it hasn’t worked out and he has taken full responsibility for that.
“He knew that first-team results weren’t anything like as good as we had hoped they would be and he agreed that the change had to be made.
“Gordon is a very rare guy. He is better for knowing. I like him enormously, but it just hasn’t worked and we had to face up to it.
“The integrity he has shown, he made life very easy for me. Not only did he offer his resignation, but in doing so, he tore up his contract.
“He sought no compensation, he walked away from the club with empty hands, and it’s a measure of the man.”
Gibson opted not to comment on the speculation linking Mowbray with the job.
Although the former captain is a hugely popular figure on Teesside, his relationship with many of the former Celtic players that Strachan signed may prove a problem. Several of them were cast aside by Mowbray when he was boss at Parkhead.
The Boro owner hinted that there may be other names in the frame.
“I am not going to talk about specifics. To concentrate on one individual wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do.
“There is a list, and since the rumours broke about Gordon, I have got agents putting forward all sorts of names.
“I have been in football a long time and I know a lot of people in the game, so we will see what happens.
“I think we are very attractive with our facilities and fans, we are as good as it gets in the Championship and we have got a long Premier League pedigree, and have to be as interesting as it gets for any manager outside the top half of the Premiership.”
