On the 4th March 2004 Gudjon Thordarson was booted out of Oakwell by previous Oakwell owner Peter Ridsdale and Paul Hart was immediately instated.
12 months on and after a dreadful record of just 14 wins from 51 games Hart is given a "severance payment" ( quite why when he was supposed to be on a rolling contract ill never know) and the Reds go in search of their 7th manager in 7 years.
The main subject in the boardroom at the minute should be " Pick The Right Manager"
There has been too many quick fix managers such as Spackman, Parkin and Hart. I feel people like Hendrie, Bassett and Thordarson weren't given a fair chance and now the right man has to be appointed. Shepherd needs to pick his man and give him the tools and the time to make it work like John Dennis did with Danny Wilson. Wilson didn't do very much with us at first and then with a bit of tweaking and some hard working players signed we gained promotion to the Premiership and now Wilson is being hailed as probably the greatest manager ever at the club.
We need an old school manager a Martin Allen type figure who doesn't go picking up fancy dans from the Premiership like McPhail and Tom Williams but picks up players who are prepared to give blood sweat and tears for the cause. There's probably only 4 or 5 players willing to do that at the minute at the club - Paul Reid, Jacob Burns, Michael Chopra, Antony Kay and Neil Austin when he plays and the last two are local lads so you wouldn't expect anything less.
We need another Redfearn in midfield, another De Zueew at the back and believe me they are out there you just need to look.
We are once again looking at a new era at Oakwell. Im glad I thought Hart had his time and was the wrong man from the beginning.
Lets hope this isn't yet another false dawn. Give Ritchie until the end of the season that gives the club nearly 3 months to pick their man and lets hope the glory days can once again come back to Oakwell
COME ON U REDS!!!