Mark McGhee (not dead)

[Burton Wolf]

Is he still in the bookies on Perton?

 

[Burton Wolf]

Who could ever forget that ridiculous SF line up at Villa Park -joke

Claridge for ****s sake!

 

[bully9]

Talking out your backside mate, completely ****e managers can't go on an 18 game unbeaten run, even though he bored the opposition into submission. Stale Fraudbakken, Terry Connor, Dean Clownders, Paul Thickbert and Walter Dumba were all worse.

Hoddles football bored me senseless, 18

Nope, l can't agree that Hoddle was the worst ever - Clownders for one....

As I put it earlier I didn’t class him as a manager more of a ****in **** , sorry for the bad language

 

[JOSWolf]

I was delighted when we appointed him, how wrong was I! More delighted when we canned him off!

 

[SuperGran]

Remember away fans singing He’s fat he’s round he’s taking wanderers down! Except he was too lazy even for that
Just bobbing around midtable doing nothing

 

[AndyWolves]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Can anyone recall who McGhee beat to the job? I see that when we appointed Graham Taylor, we were also considering Robson and Gerry Francis!

Dave Bassett IIRC

 

[Jonzy54]

Is he still in the bookies on Perton?

Been shut for a few years

 

[DanishWolf]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Can anyone recall who McGhee beat to the job? I see that when we appointed Graham Taylor, we were also considering Robson and Gerry Francis!

I should've been able to remember, because I wrote articles about it for our Danish Wolves fanzine back then, but its slipped out of my memory, and the magazines from back then are stored away in the basement. But I do believe O'Neill was in the running. Chris Nicholl, then at Walsall was mentioned too. So was Dave Bassett.

I remember being quite excited by the appointment, as it signalled the start of a new and more modern journey for us.

His second game in charge was also my first every game at Molineux, and I rememember the atmoshere at a sold out Molineux being one of genuine citement and expectations.
Funnily enough, Mick McCarthy was in the opposition dugout, and Alex Rae was playing for them as well.
Game itself ended 1-1, after Wolves conceded a late equaliser, canceling out Bullys brillant 1-0 goal.

I do have quite good memories of meeting McGhee as well as most of the players in the following days. Me and my mates, spend an awfuld lot of time, just hanging out around the club and the stadium (When you've finally reached the promised land, you better enjoy it) during the 10 days or so, that we were in Wolverhampton, and he, as well as the staff and the players where extremely friendly, and chatty with us.

I do of course remember how it all turned sour, and as most have referred to, he didnt help himself much.

Funnily enough, in 2003, I went to Brighton for a conference, and as they played at home, I decided to go to a Brigton game, where he had just taken charge. They were a mess, languishing in League One, and playing at Withdean.
However the atmosphere had the same feeling of hope, that McGhee would lead them on a new path, that I'd experienced 8 years before.
They did however end up losing 4-1, and I remember one Brighton fan's angrily saying to me: "Super Mark McGhee eh?"..

He did though turn them around though and in fairness to him, while his career probably never reached the heights he'd himself hoped for, he's done some good things, such as leading Millwall and Brighton to promotions as well as leading Motherwell into Europe.

 

[JOSWolf]

I remember the delight when we signed Corica and then the despair a few games after seeing him in action!

 

[whitnash wolf ex.dewsbury]

I remember the delight when we signed Corica and then the despair a few games after seeing him in action!

was fantastic in training!

 

[AndyWolves]

Apparently you couldn't get the ball of corica in training but then he'd melt on a Saturday.

I do wonder all these years later if he's someone who would have benefited from a sports psychologist

 

[SingYourHeartsOut]

I remember the opinion being impressed that "he'll just get us up and use us as a stepping stone to get a bigger job", if only....

 

[Jonzy54]

A few years after McGhee joined us we were on a beach at Noosa in Australia and a guy having noticed my Wolves top said a mate of his used to be our Manager.I asked him who he was referring to and he said Mark McGhee, and it turned out he was Mike Hickman the third man who joined us from Leicester.He kept his cards close to his chest but said he thought MM was a better coach than a Manager and would always have itchy feet .

 

[Burton Wolf]

Been shut for a few years

Long time since I lived there

 

[Saltyjim]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Can anyone recall who McGhee beat to the job? I see that when we appointed Graham Taylor, we were also considering Robson and Gerry Francis!

Pretty sure it was Dave Bassett? I definitely remember the season video showed a clip where Jonathan Hayward announced somebody else instead of McGhee when he was being unveiled as the new boss. Side splitting humour it was not.

Just echo what everybody else says really. Was glad we got McGhee in at the start. Lets not forget some of the football in the last days under Taylor was terrible. Felt uneasy when McGhee quickly slagged off the fitness of the players he'd inherited and that unease grew as we realised his penchant for doing other teams motivational speeches for them. Should have got promoted in his first full season as we won tons of away games, but our home form was dismal and a Bully sending off at Oldham? lost us momentum at the sharp end of the season.
Second season the league form was poor, but the Cup run to the semi-final saved him. Final straw for most was the team selection at Villa Park.

 

[SuperGran]

Pretty sure it was Dave Bassett? I definitely remember the season video showed a clip where Jonathan Hayward announced somebody else instead of McGhee when he was being unveiled as the new boss. Side splitting humour it was not.

Just echo what everybody else says really. Was glad we got McGhee in at the start. Lets not forget some of the football in the last days under Taylor was terrible. Felt uneasy when McGhee quickly slagged off the fitness of the players he'd inherited and that unease grew as we realised his penchant for doing other teams motivational speeches for them. Should have got promoted in his first full season as we won tons of away games, but our home form was dismal and a Bully sending off at Oldham? lost us momentum at the sharp end of the season.
Second season the league form was poor, but the Cup run to the semi-final saved him. Final straw for most was the team selection at Villa Park.

Completely forgot about Dave Bassett he’s 77 now. He was the Sam alladyce of the 90s

 

[WestChiltingtonwolf]

The best thing about Mark McGhee is that without him we wouldn’t have had a 6-1 celebration party the first time we played after his sacking. Wolfies fight with the the pigs. Lots of tension eased that day.

 

[SuperGran]

The best thing about Mark McGhee is that without him we wouldn’t have had a 6-1 celebration party the first time we played after his sacking. Wolfies fight with the the pigs. Lots of tension eased that day.

That was such a great day.

 

[JR WAS KING]

Is he still in the bookies on Perton?

It's a Funeral Directors now

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

If only we’d stuck by Graham Taylor

 

[Jonzy54]

If only we’d stuck by Graham Taylor

I disagree .We were near the bottom and that final performance against 10 man Charlton was abysmal .Yes he ultimately got Watford up but how long were we going to wait for him to turn things round ?

 

[SuperGran]

If only we’d stuck by Graham Taylor

No we were terrible under Taylor

 

[BlahBlah]

He was a big headed fool, who beleived he would be the next Alex Ferguson.
It showed how clueless Jonathon Hayward was when he sacked Graham Taylor, after an underwhelming start to the season, and cost the club a fortune in compensation to Leicester to obtain McGhee and Lee.
His signings were expensive and mainly poor e.g.
Corica
Iwan Roberts
AdrIan Williams
Simon Osbourne,
but his biggest **** up was the Leicester goalkeeper Zejlko Kalac who cost us £650,000 and we couldnt get a work permit to play him! He should have been sacked just for that alone.

There werevmore expensive signings, we messed up promotion yet again, and of course his actions prompted the “golden tit” interview from SJH.

McGhee set us back years meanwhile the Premier League got richer and richer, and of course harder to get in and survive.

There was one interview when we were doing badly, and he was asked about the pressure he was under.
His answer was "I'm cruisin' through it". Went down very well...

When he was sacked it ended his relationship with Colin Lee who stayed and took his job. Lee of course, did alright/average for a bloke who was doggy paddling, but we had no more proper team investment and the quality was dropping off further until Dave Jones came in and SJH had gone through a few years of sulking and family arguments.
The years 1995-2000 were pretty much a write off.

 

[Macman]

No we were terrible under Taylor

I feel the same with all our managers, even McCarthy and Nuno. Every manager who was sacked (or left by mutual consent) was serving up football that was clearly in decline, and it was obvious our fortunes could never change for the better while they remained in charge.

Turner, Taylor, McGhee, Lee, etc had all reached a pinnacle (as far as that respective manager could take us) in their Wolves career and we were on the downward spiral when they each left the club.

The only Wolves manager who was sacked that I genuinely felt sorry for was Brian Little.

 

[Highlandwolf2]

I feel the same with all our managers, even McCarthy and Nuno. Every manager who was sacked (or left by mutual consent) was serving up football that was clearly in decline, and it was obvious our fortunes could never change for the better while they remained in charge.

Turner, Taylor, McGhee, Lee, etc had all reached a pinnacle (as far as that respective manager could take us) in their Wolves career and we were on the downward spiral when they each left the club.

The only Wolves manager who was sacked that I genuinely felt sorry for was Brian Little.

In the excellent book Between The. Golden Lines (David Instone) it mentions that Little was universally liked by players, staff, media etc

 

[Macman]

In the excellent book Between The. Golden Lines (David Instone) it mentions that Little was universally liked by players, staff, media etc

Yes, Brian Little had actually stopped the rot. We had suffered three consecutive relegations, and with relegation to non league a new thing in 1986/1987, there was a horrible feeling if the relegations continued we really would be in trouble. We were far from perfect under Little, but at least under him we started to stop losing every week! Graham Turner then became available and the rest is history.

imagine we were a snowball rolling down the hill, constantly getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster as the downward trajectory was in freefall. Brian Little managed to apply the initial brakes to slow it down to stop it falling over the edge. Graham Turner made it fully stop and reverse its direction!

forever grateful to Brian Little.

 

[Tring Wolf]

Strange time. He was being spoken of as one of the up and coming Managers and a possible long-term successor to Ferguson at Old Trafford.

His Reading team looked great against us so when he signed Osborn and Williams from them, along with Corica who had previously been been amazing against us and Sedgley who had been a really good sweeper for Ipswich, I genuinely thought that he would put together a proper footballing team that would be far too good for The Championship.

Turned out to be one of the biggest false dawns in my Wolves-supporting lifetime. Came across as extremely arrogant too so didn’t shed any tears after he left.

 

[lobodelsur]

Steve Corica tho - I mean, why? Looks like he went on to do well as a coach but as a player he was way below the standard needed for English football. Perhaps he had the skill but not the physicality or temperament, and he was also injured a fair bit. Hard to blame Corica when it was MM piling on the pressure and picking him.

I saw us lose 1-0 at Leicester a short time before McGhee joined us and Corica was absolutely sensational for them, as he had been all season apparently. Why he couldn't reproduce that form for us only he (and MM) would know.

 

[crocos]

We were a bloated noisy boat, with no wind anywhere, with a kipper for a skipper.

 

[WestChiltingtonwolf]

“We were a bloated noisy boat,
with no wind anywhere,
with a kipper for a skipper,
And a bull benched in a semi for a dare…”

 

[WestChiltingtonwolf]

“We were a bloated noisy boat,
with no wind anywhere,
with a kipper for a skipper,
And a bull benched in a semi for a dare…”

Sorry @crocos quote post didn’t work

 

[topcat99]

McGoo certainly gave Barnsley motivation in the promotion run in by belittling their club.

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

I disagree .We were near the bottom and that final performance against 10 man Charlton was abysmal .Yes he ultimately got Watford up but how long were we going to wait for him to turn things round ?

Longer than 18 months I would have hoped

 

[Jonzy54]

Longer than 18 months I would have hoped

I wanted him to do well but we were dropping like a stone and the football was dire

 

[Norway Wolves]

I wanted him to do well but we dropping like a stone and the football was dire

Exactly right.

History has been er-written by some regarding Taylors reign. Given the resources we had he should never have failed to get us up that 1st season.

Then the season after that seemed like terminal decline. I would liken it to Nuno’s last 10 games in charge, including the 0-4 home loss to Burnley. He was done, the players did not buy into it any more.

 

[meeee67]

pompey fans remembering claridge said he was a fans favourite where ever he played and scored goals
couldn`t be bothered to give them my opinion!

Don't really need an opinion.. Facts speak for themselves.. Barn door springs to mind with him.....

 

[Frank Lincoln]

I was really pleased when we got McGhee as manager.

It shows what I know…

 

[Jonzy54]

I was really pleased when we got McGhee as manager.

It shows what I know…

I was too

 

[Norman Bell]

It's a Funeral Directors now

So it went from Betting shop to Funeral home, I can see Ray Winstone stood there now saying " Burial or cremation have a bang on that but remember to die responsibly ! "

 

[WickedWolfie]

Exactly right.

History has been er-written by some regarding Taylors reign. Given the resources we had he should never have failed to get us up that 1st season.

Then the season after that seemed like terminal decline. I would liken it to Nuno’s last 10 games in charge, including the 0-4 home loss to Burnley. He was done, the players did not buy into it any more.

With respect to rewriting of history and Graham Taylor just look at the injuries that season.