Post by QPR Report on Mar 28, 2010 6:23:23 GMT
The People 28 March 2010 -
SILLY SEASON Financial meltdown at Palace
The first chance Paul Hart will get to sit down and take stock of the craziest season of any managerial career will come on a holiday to Barbados in May.
"I'll reflect then," the 56-year-old told People Sport, "and I'll probably drop dead in my deckchair."
Gallows humour. There's little wonder that's what the Crystal Palace manager resorts to as he looks back on what has easily been the most tumultuous of his 40 seasons in football.
Fom Portsmouth to QPR and then Crystal Palace. From Sacha Gaydamak, Peter Storrie, Sulaiman al-Fahim and Ali al-Faraj, to Flavio Briatore and then the administrators.
You couldn't have made up Hart's season and it could yet take another - even more unlikely - turn if last week's reports are to be believed that rap star P Diddy wants to buy Palace.
But Hart added: "It's only when you come away from it that it hits you and I've not had enough time to sit back and reflect.
"Coming here all happened within hours. I was going to go away with my wife, I was under real pressure to have a holiday. She'd booked a break to Barbados - which I was going along with - but, fortunately, she managed to change it.
"We lost a couple of hundred quid on the flights, but we're going in May now.
"It was all very quick ... I think that's how I got away with it."
The mischievous chuckle suggests he copped a rocket over his decision to take a new job just outside Croydon over a holiday to the Caribbean.
But as he sits in his office at Palace's training ground it is clear that, even after the heartache of leaving Fratton Park and the craziness of Loftus Road, he wouldn't have had it any other way.
Hart said: "It's something to be proud of when people want to employ you. I think I've been there in these situations, all of them tough and not a lot of them are my own making.
"I've been in the game 40 years now and, if you saw me as a player, you'd realise how lucky I think I am.
"You see people far more eminent in the game than me losing their job on a whim. I've done pretty well, really.
"I didn't want to leave Portsmouth, I was quite happy there and, funnily enough, I thought I was doing a reasonable job.
"The players were performing. You can always say you got sacked on results and that was it, but I knew the players believed we could stay up at that point.
"The statement from Mark Jacobs, who sacked me, was that 'We played some great stuff but we can't carry on being unlucky.' "And yet the first game Avram Grant's in charge they played Manchester United and his first words were 'We were really unlucky today'.
"It was a bit hard to swallow. "Contractually, there was an opportunity to stay, but any man with any pride couldn't have walked in there for the money because of the personalities who were around. I was only out of work about three weeks and the opportunity came round at QPR.
"Like any manager, you always think you can change things and get the club back to where it should be, but it proved not to be the case and we decided it would be best for me to leave
The lads were good. The expectations from higher up were probably not realistic but it was my choice to go in there and my choice to leave."
Which brings him to the present day and the relegation battle he now faces at Palace. Hart added: "There were doubts about coming here.
"They were in a very precarious position, having lost 10 points, and it's hard working in these lower echelons.
"The reservations were there, not many, but once I walked in it was right.
"Palace is a great club and it has been refreshing coming here.
"They were without a manager and they needed somebody to help them through the last month or so.
"When you come here it's very obvious what a good football club it is, a proper football club."
No doubt Hart will still think that way when he finally takes stock in Barbados.
www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=silly-season%26method=full%26objectid=22143819%26siteid=93463-name_page.html
SILLY SEASON Financial meltdown at Palace
The first chance Paul Hart will get to sit down and take stock of the craziest season of any managerial career will come on a holiday to Barbados in May.
"I'll reflect then," the 56-year-old told People Sport, "and I'll probably drop dead in my deckchair."
Gallows humour. There's little wonder that's what the Crystal Palace manager resorts to as he looks back on what has easily been the most tumultuous of his 40 seasons in football.
Fom Portsmouth to QPR and then Crystal Palace. From Sacha Gaydamak, Peter Storrie, Sulaiman al-Fahim and Ali al-Faraj, to Flavio Briatore and then the administrators.
You couldn't have made up Hart's season and it could yet take another - even more unlikely - turn if last week's reports are to be believed that rap star P Diddy wants to buy Palace.
But Hart added: "It's only when you come away from it that it hits you and I've not had enough time to sit back and reflect.
"Coming here all happened within hours. I was going to go away with my wife, I was under real pressure to have a holiday. She'd booked a break to Barbados - which I was going along with - but, fortunately, she managed to change it.
"We lost a couple of hundred quid on the flights, but we're going in May now.
"It was all very quick ... I think that's how I got away with it."
The mischievous chuckle suggests he copped a rocket over his decision to take a new job just outside Croydon over a holiday to the Caribbean.
But as he sits in his office at Palace's training ground it is clear that, even after the heartache of leaving Fratton Park and the craziness of Loftus Road, he wouldn't have had it any other way.
Hart said: "It's something to be proud of when people want to employ you. I think I've been there in these situations, all of them tough and not a lot of them are my own making.
"I've been in the game 40 years now and, if you saw me as a player, you'd realise how lucky I think I am.
"You see people far more eminent in the game than me losing their job on a whim. I've done pretty well, really.
"I didn't want to leave Portsmouth, I was quite happy there and, funnily enough, I thought I was doing a reasonable job.
"The players were performing. You can always say you got sacked on results and that was it, but I knew the players believed we could stay up at that point.
"The statement from Mark Jacobs, who sacked me, was that 'We played some great stuff but we can't carry on being unlucky.' "And yet the first game Avram Grant's in charge they played Manchester United and his first words were 'We were really unlucky today'.
"It was a bit hard to swallow. "Contractually, there was an opportunity to stay, but any man with any pride couldn't have walked in there for the money because of the personalities who were around. I was only out of work about three weeks and the opportunity came round at QPR.
"Like any manager, you always think you can change things and get the club back to where it should be, but it proved not to be the case and we decided it would be best for me to leave
The lads were good. The expectations from higher up were probably not realistic but it was my choice to go in there and my choice to leave."
Which brings him to the present day and the relegation battle he now faces at Palace. Hart added: "There were doubts about coming here.
"They were in a very precarious position, having lost 10 points, and it's hard working in these lower echelons.
"The reservations were there, not many, but once I walked in it was right.
"Palace is a great club and it has been refreshing coming here.
"They were without a manager and they needed somebody to help them through the last month or so.
"When you come here it's very obvious what a good football club it is, a proper football club."
No doubt Hart will still think that way when he finally takes stock in Barbados.
www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_headline=silly-season%26method=full%26objectid=22143819%26siteid=93463-name_page.html
