quite enjoyed this - from the anorak
http://www.anorak.co.uk/292462/sports/i ... year.html/Ian Wright On Garry Cook And ‘Shambolic’ Manchester City Is The Most Stupid Thing You Will Read This Year
IAN Wright wades into the self-awareness and guile of a Glastonbury camper with diarrhea heading to the portaloo. His article for The Sun is so appalling, so lacking in nous, insight and sensible thought you wonder for his sanity – and that of the paper than continues to employ him. He writes:
I FELT extremely disappointed when I read the story in yesterday’s Sun about the e-mail sent to Nedum Onuoha’s mum from Manchester City. How can anyone possibly think it’s acceptable to joke about someone suffering from cancer?…
Now City have to investigate this disgusting behaviour by a member of their staff and sack whoever wrote that e-mail.
Have to. Wright has spoken. They. Have. To.
They can’t sweep this one under the carpet. Nor can the FA and the Premier League.
The FA and Premier League now have control over emails allegedly sent between staff at a football club?
The FA couldn’t wait to hand Wayne Rooney a ban for swearing last season. Let’s see how quickly they act over a far more serious allegation involving a chief executive.
Wayne Rooney was on the field of play when he told daytime telly watchers to “fuck off”. Does Wright suggest the FA now backdate a rule that makes it illegal for any worker at any professional football club to make a joke he finds offensive? And what should the email writer’s punishment be? A three-match ban? A cut in their holiday allowance? An hour listening to Ian Wright?
City have been involved in a lot of embarrassing episodes recently but this one is too serious to be ignored.
Have they? This is the same Manchester City who are unbeaten this season, have a terrific squad, just won the FA Cup and are in the Champions’ League for the first time. Embarrassing?
Sheikh Mansour has to make some major decisions about the running of his club because City’s reputation is being seriously damaged.
Has it? No.
Sheikh Mansour needs to understand that you can have all the money in the world, but you cannot buy class. City have spent more than £500million on new players to challenge Manchester United on the pitch. But the gulf between the two clubs remains as big as the Grand Canyon.
No. It’s goal difference actually. Both clubs occupy the top two places in the Premier League table. And on matter of classy Man United, is Wright familiar with the antics of the aforesaid Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and Alex Ferguson, a charmless man who until recently refused to speak to the BBC?
The greatness of a football club is not just measured by the trophies you win, but by the quality of the people you employ, from the boardroom all the way down to the tea ladies.
No. It isn’t. People tend not to remember the tea-ladies. But they do remember the cups. You can see the silverwear noted in club programmes, right besides the role of honour for the car park attendants and the stadium cleaners.
Sheikh Mansour must now decide if he is happy to have the reputation of his club being continually dragged down by the behaviour of the people he employs.
Continually? How so? This was one email.
Even if Cook’s story is true and it was someone else who sent that sick message to Dr Anthonia Onuoha, it doesn’t let him off the hook.
Why not?
It still suggests that the club is being run in a shoddy, shambolic way.
One email suggests the entire club is shambolic? When ARsenal won the
And it shows what somebody employed by Cook thinks of him if they are prepared to send a message like that on his e-mail account.
Does it? Olive Kay, the Times writer, says Cook “is regarded intrnally – and in Abu Dhabi – as an inspirational, dynamic chief executive…” Are we to belive that the trillionaires who own City put up with Cook because he’s useless and they can’t afford to get rid of him?
Says Wright:
By the end of my son Shaun’s stay at City, he found it almost impossible to deal with Cook and football administrator Brian Marwood.
Aha! A personal element is introduced.
All his talks were held with John Williams, who was brought in to help Marwood a few months ago and was totally professional in paving the way for Shaun’s recent move to QPR.
So. The shambolic club got a man in who was terrific? John Williams is the former chairman of Blackburn Rovers . He might have been brought in to replace Cook – he has more experience in football and City are now a big force in the game.
…if Cook and Marwood are really doing such a magnificent job, why are they paying £100,000-a-week for £25million Emmanuel Adebayor to play for another club?
(tTo enlarge on that point – why did they sign Shaun?) Is it because they have better players than Adebayor and can afford to pay him to play elsewhere?
Why are they giving away Craig Bellamy and sending Roque Santa Cruz out on loan?
Is it because Bellamy was on £95,000 a week and not deemed to be good enough to play. Severing his contract freed City from the wage burden. Santa Cruz is deemed to be less able than Edin Dzeko, Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotell.
I do not begrudge Manchester City any of their current success. They are a magnificent club with magnificent supporters.
Hold on a moment, Wrighty. Not too long ago City were shambolic and lacking in class.
I can remember the way those fans continued to turn out in their thousands even when City were relegated to the old Third Division not so long ago. So to see City competing in the Champions League and challenging for the Premier League title is a fitting reward for their supporters’ loyalty.
No, Wrighty. The fans did not get them into the Champions’ League. This sop to the supporters – having rubbished their club – is nonsense. City are riding high because the owner has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in it. This massive change has been in part overseen by a chief executive who may well have played a significant role in seducing Sheikh Mansour into buying City and not another big failing club, like Leeds United, Aston Villa or Spurs.
What they don’t deserve is to have people who are employed by the club behaving in such a vulgar, arrogant and sick manner.
So says Ian Wright. And this now is the bet bit. You may recall the words of linesman like Richard Saunders, who officated at an Arsenal game back in 1993. Said he:
“I was running the line on the main stand side and Ian Wright thought he’d been fouled on a couple of occasions by a Norwich defender. In my opinion, they were fair challenges, so I hadn’t put my flag up. But he ran 10 yards towards me and bawled: ‘Where are your f****** arms, linesman’.”
Wright apologised. So. If the emailer apologises things will be okay, eh Wrighty? And did emplying the Sun ‘s rent-a-gob make Arsenal a classless club with poor reputation? Does one person make or break a club?
The longer these people remain on the Manchester City payroll, the more you have to question the judgment of Sheikh Mansour.
What makes tyou think he would listen to your questions, Wrighty?
I have no idea what City’s response to this e-mail scandal will be. Their biggest concern is probably how it became public knowledge. The answer to that one is simple. It came to light because it was supposed to.
Eh? So it’s a conspiraacy..?
