Steve Coppell Resigns

Bet David James isn't too happy.

This could have similarities to that of the Notts County affair with Sven and Sol Cambell.

Reminder of when Coppell left (ever so briefly) to Manchester City

funky correct

Holy crap. I was hoping he would come here. A very lucky escape. Mind you with our record. he would have been sacked before he had a chance to walk.

Also interesting: How some managers thrive on being manager/love the pressure and go on and on - Think Warnock, think Jim Smith and Alex Ferguson - and some such as Coppell - and Gerry Francis, really don't

BBC

Steve Coppell remains an enigma after Bristol City exit

By Stuart Roach Steve Coppell biographer

Steve Coppell has been here before.

As the shock of his decision to quit Bristol City after two competitive games sinks in, immediate comparisons are being made with his still-unexplained exit from Manchester City after a mere 33 days.

The similarities are uncanny: two clubs in the second tier of English football but with high hopes and expectations of a return to better things; two painfully short tenures indicating all is not what it seems beneath the surface; and, at least for the time being, the air of mystery and intrigue that make Coppell such an enigma.

I got to know Steve Coppell the football manager during his six-year spell with Reading. But when he quit two seasons ago, I realised I really didn't know Coppell the man.

Few do, as became clear when I set off on a journey to discover "the real Steve Coppell" for On A Wing And A Prayer, my biography of the former Manchester United and England winger.

The likes of Tommy Docherty, Martin Buchan, Lou Macari, Geoff Thomas, Brian Barwick and Dick Knight shared insightful memories and side-splitting stories of their days playing with Coppell the mesmeric player or working with Coppell the pragmatic manager.

If he is not happy, if he doesn't feel right and doesn't think it's working, he will be man enough to walk away

Southampton boss Alan Pardew

But no-one could tell me exactly what had happened at Manchester City and why, seemingly without warning, Coppell quit one November morning in 1996 only a month after taking over the reins.

No questions were allowed at the press call to announce the departure of a manager who looked physically ill - grey and gaunt - as he faced the cameras before slipping out of a back door, a far cry from 33 days earlier when he had seemed effervescent with excitement.

"I'm delighted to come here - it's a golden opportunity and I'm just glad that it's fallen into my lap," Coppell said, as he sat alongside a smiling Francis Lee the day Manchester City's then chairman unveiled his new manager.

"I certainly don't view the job as the poisoned chalice that it's been described. As soon as I saw the set-up I knew I'd made the right decision to come here."

Fourteen years later, Bristol City chairman Steve Lansdown was beaming too as he listened to Gary Johnson's replacement address the gathered media.

"This club has a history in the top division and the chairman has huge ambitions for the team and the stadium," said Coppell. "I feel very fortunate that he has given me this opportunity."

This time, he was in situ for exactly 16 weeks, though that did include the summer holidays.
Highlights - Bristol City 0-3 Millwall

Bristol City 0-3 Millwall

When Coppell quit Manchester City, even his assistant, Phil Neal, was in the dark.

Coppell's former England room-mate had left his job with Cardiff to help his old pal at Maine Road, but told me: "It was a shock to all of us. It certainly wasn't something we had discussed. Stevie didn't even let me know his thoughts - he just came in to training and said 'you take the first team, I'm going'.

"It was a bolt out of the blue and he didn't explain his decision at all. He's quite an inward person like that and quite a secretive type. He said he wouldn't tell me the full reason and he got my goat a bit because he left me in an awkward position."

The Manchester City chapter may have covered the shortest period of time in On A Wing And A Prayer, but it became the longest chapter in the book.

To this day, Coppell has never revealed the real reasons for quitting and I doubt he ever will.

"It was a private moment in my life and I don't want to talk about it. But it wasn't what it seemed," he told me during his Reading reign, as close to spilling the beans as he is ever likely to come.

But what became clear to me was that there was no single reason, more an unwanted collection of unfortunate events.

Just as the overachieving teams Coppell has famously assembled - most notably the Crystal Palace team he guided to third place in the top flight and the Reading team he took to eighth in the Premier League - become a sum greater than their parts, so too did the stress levels that led to his Maine Road departure.

The break-up of his marriage and the distance between Coppell and the son, Mark, he doted on were crucial factors in his struggle to find any semblance of a work-life balance.

The realisation that he would not be able to sign the players he wanted, or spend the money he felt was needed only added to the strain - as would the warped rumours that did the rounds as people guessed at the real reasons behind his departure.

606: DEBATE
Are James and the rest going to hang around now?

Joan Crawford

There were also later suggestions of underlying health problems and, while in isolation any of those factors might have been bearable, add in the pressure of the expectations of Manchester City's fans and it is little wonder that Coppell's world caved in. If timing is everything in comedy, it must also be a vital ingredient in tragedy.

Southampton manager Alan Pardew, who played under Coppell at Palace, has a more simplistic view: "If he is not happy, if he doesn't feel right and doesn't think it's working, he will be man enough to walk away," Pardew told me.

Already the guessing games have started as to the real reasons behind his departure from Bristol City.

It is possible we will never know.
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Early Coppell departure no surprise

Friday 13 August 2010 10:30

FourFourTwo.com writer and Bristol City fan James Martini reflects on an unexpected early twist in the Ashton Gate club's season

Fans of Manchester City and Bristol City no longer have just the burden of expectation in common, they now also share a disliking for the 'bottling' antics of Steve Coppell, after the scouser's resignation from his Ashton Gate post this week.

As the shock of his retirement from football begins to dawn on Robins fans - only two games into a one-year contract - obvious comparisons are being drawn with Coppell's 33-day stint in charge at Maine Road back in 1996.

Put under the microscope, the similarities between the two clubs are uncanny. At the time Manchester City were under Coppell's guidance, they were deemed a sleeping giant, underachieving in the second tier of English football, just as Bristol City are today. Both teams harboured ambitions of Coppell being the man to restore them to their former glories, and both teams suffered as the former Manchester United winger ran away from his commitments.


Man City are probably over Coppell's departure by now...

Less than six months ago, Coppell was sat in the Sky Sports studios telling viewers of his desire to wait for the 'right job to come along' and 'a new challenge that excites' him, but something never sat quite right with the Liverpudlian's appointment at from the off.

First there was the one-year contract that he signed which, on the face of it, appeared to show a lack of commitment from the start. Then came comments that this pre-season was the toughest of his career, having been denied of eight first-team regulars throughout his preparations. Shortly after came Coppell's surprise at the singing of England keeper David James. He almost insinuated that the signing was perpetuated by City chairman Steve Lansdown without his say so.

Most bizarrely of all was Coppell's absence at the annual photocall last Tuesday. You know, the time when all the new, exciting players your club signed over the summer get together for the squad photo? Not at Ashton Gate this year anyway.

Usually the City manager, whoever he may be, takes the time out to talk to the local press in a smarm offensive ahead of the new season. But this time there was an uncomfortable atmosphere in the ground as Coppell, who had just grinned for the squad picture, left the assembled ranks of the press waiting for the best part of an hour before sending his assistant Keith Millen out to face the press instead.

NEWS: Coppell quits Bristol City

The reason given for Coppell's absence was that he had sped off early for a scouting mission. Speaking to some of the local press that day, it was the first time that any of them had been left high and dry by any City manager. No soundbite. No interview. Nothing.

It had become clear that Coppell was frustrated at the lack of signings and he hinted as much in the few interviews he did give, suggesting that City's tight wage budget was hindering his progress in the transfer market. He saw moves for Jon Stead and Ibrahima Sonko collapse in the same way as his negotiations for Stoke's ginger-haired striker Dave Kitson, who Coppell managed to great success at Reading.

All in all, Coppell only managed to land seven of 21 targets he had been either close to signing or had made a bid for.

City chairman Steve Lansdown has a role in all of this too. Some accuse the financial services magnate of taking his eye off the ball as he pushes for a new 32,000 all-seater stadium at nearby Ashton Vale. While other believe he should have been investing his money in a squad that has been left ridiculously unbalanced and lacking any sort of strength in depth following Gary Johnson's tenure.


"Errrrm, I think I left something in my car..."

Instead, Lansdown, who became a tax exile by fleeing to Guernsey earlier this year, has been focusing his attentions on battling the local council to get planning for a Sainsbury's supermarket on the current Ashton Gate site, whilst the squad gets weaker and weaker. The Bristol City Council voted against it, stopping an estimated £20 million worth of essential funding towards the new stadium, throwing another spanner into the works.

All this of course, leads us to presume that the chairman and Coppell had a relationship lacking any sort of personal touch. In the past, Lansdown and Johnson were as thick as thieves but the chairman's move to Guernsey prevented a similar relationship developing with Coppell. It became apparent the chairman was refusing to sanction the expensive flops he afforded Johnson last season and that Coppell was banging his head up against a brick wall when it came to competing with other clubs in the transfer market.

The truth is, we just don't know what went on in Coppell's head - even his biographer deems him an enigma, having being left in shock at this decision to walk out on Reading two years ago. But after lightening struck twice with us and our Manchester counterparts, I find it hard to believe he can claim to still feel he has 'a contribution to make to the game sometime in the future'.

Surely twice walking out on his employers in such a fashion makes him 'damaged goods'?

fourfourtwo.com/blogs/upthefootballleaguewego/archive/2010/08/13/all-signs-pointed-to-early-coppell-departure.aspx

That scummy football club deserves everything bad that goes it's way! Mindless fans thinking they should win everything and achieving nothing... If you met them you would understand what they are about.
As for Coppell, i did tell him that you can't make s**t shine. LESSON LEARNED Coppell.