The Impact of Tony Mowbray

These thought were posted by Steve Treanor on BCFC The Project Facebook page. They resonated with me and so I asked Steve if I could post it here. He kindly said yes. You can also catch Steve’s musings on YouTube.

I was thinking last night how incredible it is that Tony Mowbray has coped with this basket case of a club and got us all pulling together again in such a short space of time.

I didn’t know a lot about Tony Mowbray when he first came and although I supported the move for him at the time I really didn’t know what to expect. When you look at the state of our fractured club when he arrived it’s easy to see what a huge job he faced.

A squad made up of short term contracted players, loans and a mix of older heads, new signings and kids that had experienced the calm management and togetherness that JE established followed by the total implosion brought about by the crazy appointment of Wayne Rooney that was only ever going to end in tears you can see what he walked into when he took the job.

The fan base was totally split, some supporting the club and the Rooney appointment the others total opposed to him and voicing their opinion on both social media and at St Andrews.

The players that had been united by JE and evidently were close to him were asked to play in a way that they just didn’t like/weren’t capable of and seemed to down tools when Rooney started to name and shame them and were left in limbo when he was sacked.

Enter Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus, an unexpected appointment in the main. Some fans were unrealistic in who they expected to be appointed and Mowbray wouldn’t have been many fans choice but he was welcomed by the majority of us.

In a short period of time his team have made an impression on the club and the support in a way that few of us expected. He accepted Maik Taylor, Pete Shuttleworth and Ashley Cole into his coaching staff and set about choosing the players that would form the base of the team that would be tasked with keeping us up this season.

What we now have is a fairly stable group of first teamers that will form the majority of the squad for the rest of the season. This is no small accomplishment when you consider how hard it must be to get 100% out of players who have a pretty good idea that they may not be here next season as loans end, contracts expire and new players are brought in.

I for one really appreciate how TM has used his management skills and coaching ability to bring the best out of the players at his disposal and bring a brand of football to St Andrews that I haven’t seen for many years.

His likeable approach and honesty in pressers has impressed everyone and has the whole support base behind him.

We sent a compilation of get well messages to Tony on Tuesday via the club and the fondness and love for Tony was evident for everyone to see, we were inundated by messages and had to close the thread.

Come back to work soon boss we all miss you….

Steve