George Graham - views

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Not a Graham fan but the constructive things I can is; that he won us the league cup (oddly for Graham going 3 at the back when we went down to 10 men). Before Graham we had spent most of the 90s flirting with relegation (1991/92,1993/94& 1997/98 in particular) and inherited a Gerry Francis/Christian Gross team that was injury plagued and relegation candidates again, Graham turned the injury situation around and moulded the team into a mid table side. Our home form was up there as one of the best in the league (victories over Man Utd, Woolwich and Liverpool at home were not uncommon), Steve Carr excelled under him and he gave Simon Davies and Ledley King their debuts and put trust in the young centre back when the team's form was suffering. He got us to two FA cup semi finals and was sacked a fortnight before the semi final due to a clash with Levi over transfer funds, which wasn't great timing from Levi as Graham was always a big game manager.

I would say in mitigation to Graham, he was Alan Sugar's last throw of the dice and found himself caught in a power struggle with DoF David Pleat and often felt undermined by him over transfer policy. He also suffered with an arthritic condition that affected most of his body and I read somewhere that he was quoted that this led him to spend 10-15 fewer hours a week at work than he did when he was at Woolwich (Graham never worked in management again after Spurs).

However his defensive football methods had become outdated and stale at the turn of the century as the rest of the football world was taking a more attacking form and he couldn't push us onto the next level and with Hoddle replacing him, a new buzz was created at the lane. But one of my favourite moments of his time was when we went away to Arsene Wenger's double winning team and we parked the bus, got pummeled for 90 mins by them and we come away with a 0-0 draw. Basically we had out Woolwich-ed them and the joy of their fans ringing up capital gold phone to complain about the injustice of it was beautiful! - one fans voice even went crokey and tearful.
 
Makes me proud to think he is never spoken of, airbrushed from our history. Any reference of him spoken is as the man in the raincoat.

Many years ago, me and a few mates kicked arround the idea of taking a pub arround White Hart Lane. The conversation took us arround opening another for away fans (purely a money spinner, although we came to the conclusion it would make any) and we thought about calling it The Man in The Raincoat. The picture to be used outside the pub was to be a grey suited man, dressed also in a raincoat, holding the cup in front of his face so it was never to be seen.
Bit like that famous work of art
Magritte_TheSonOfMan.jpg

Anyway he is a total cunt, along with his Son. Imagine hireing Wegner as our manager now? And for him to pay homage to his love of his life by having their emblem emblazoned in your swimming pool floor!! We were a calamitous football club then, disrespecting our fans and our history, there was no pride, just shame and embarrassment.
 
Don't get anyone sticking up for this clusterfucker. Dreadful influence on our proud club. Shitstain. A league cup? Please. I'd rather have not won it than have a Gooner fanboy running our show. Makes me fucking puke.
 
Never liked him but I still think levy made his first mistake when he sacked him for hoddle just before we played Woolwich in the fa cup semi. I thought at the time that graham could have set us up pragmatically to beat that lot.
 
Mate of mine was part of an 'organised' protest to invade the pitch and sit in the centre circle in protest at the Gooners appointment as manager. As it turned out he was the only one that got on the pitch (or made the effort) & sat there all on his tod. There is a picture of it floating about somewhere (i cant find it though).
 
Audere said:
He was a cunt.

I wish this thread had never been started. Terry Neil was before my time but equally a cunt. I know I would have died inside then like I did when this specimen got paid by our coin.

Just cannot believe this happened.
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I remember Terry Neill and he was as big a cunt as George Graham!

Took us back years the pair of the Scum wankers!

I found out he later owned a pub near the Old Bailey so I went in there to give him abuse but was thrown out shortly after I started!

Happy days!

:wansum:
 
He was a cunt.

I wish this thread had never been started. Terry Neil was before my time but equally a cunt. I know I would have died inside then like I did when this specimen got paid by our coin.

Just cannot believe this happened.
 
Certainly see the points above ^^^ as completely valid. As I said, at one stage I could not have disliked the bloke more than I did.

This is an interesting read from 16 years back. We certainly don't have much to thank Alan Sugar for...it's a reminder of very dark times

George Graham: after the fall
 
The way he treated David Ginola was criminal . Arguably the best player in the league ,
Player of the year . He was to archaic to build a team around such a talent.
Graham' = boring Fucker
Terry Neil = wanker
Willie Young = haggis prick .
Campbell = traitor cunt , pompous thick as shit .

Let them rot all in hell .
 
Blanchflower said:
It was to do with the fines money (fines for players turning up late to training, wearing wrong kit, bookings, sending offs, etc) - he was in charge of collecting it and couldn't explain where it was when the time came to hand it over to the chosen charities. We had players like Ben Thatcher at the time, so it was quite a large amount of money.
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Very Woolwich that, starting with the founder of the travelling embezzlers, Norris.
 
Colonel_K said:
Dodgy brown envelope then? You'd have thought he'd learnt his lesson after his Woolwich departure. Fucking Stroller and his best mate El Tel were definitely of an era of bungs and brown envelopes. Guess they were all at it in those days but those two were the highest profile offenders at the time.
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Did you ever watch a programme called the Manageress? About a fictional club ,managed by a woman(Cheri Lungi).They had a scene in there where she was doing a deal with another clubs manager over the signing of a player,and it fell through because she wouldn't play ball over brown envelopes.The other boss was so obviously Brian Clough
 
Tottenham Sean said:
Not sure about that.But sounds about right
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Henry Winter article from 1993 in the Independent....

A PICTURE of a football world peopled by men on the make, meeting in motorway cafes to swap bags of money, was painted at the High Court yesterday.

The case before the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Donald Nicholls, in a heaving, overheated Court 35 was 'In the Matter of Tottenham Hotspur plc' - the latest stage in the legal dispute between Alan Sugar, the club's major shareholder, and Terry Venables, the chief executive he is attempting to sack.

Matters involved more than two men and a club; allegations in affidavits read by QCs about the sale of the striker Teddy Sheringham by Nottingham Forest point to a murkier side of what Pele called the 'beautiful game'. From foreign fields to domestic deals, English football is taking a hammering.

In his sworn statement, Sugar claimed that Venables had told him that Brian Clough, the Forest manager at the time of Sheringham's move last August, 'likes a bung'. 'Bungs' - a reward in readies for easing a transfer through - have been rumoured for some time but this was their first public airing.

'Mr Venables told me that what actually happened was that people would meet Mr Clough in a motorway cafe and hand him a bag of money,' Sugar claimed. 'I told Mr Venables it was out of the question. It was not the way I like to conduct business.'

Clough and Venables both deny this unusual practice. 'Not a penny was passed between Terry Venables and me,' Clough retorted from his home. 'The last time I was in a motorway service station, I went for a wee.'

In his affidavit, Venables said: 'The allegation that I told Mr Sugar that Brian Clough 'liked a bung' is untrue. I have never used that expression and I have never used those words or words to that effect to Mr Sugar. As to what I am alleged to have said to Mr Sugar about Mr Clough meeting people in motorway cafes to collect bags of money, it really is a lot of nonsense. Mr Sugar is either making it up or is repeating something he heard from another source.'

The mini-mob of pro-Venables Spurs supporters listened spellbound to these allegations of underhand, under-the-table manoeuvres. Were our motorways full of football club employees or agents speeding up and down dropping off 'bungs'?

Spurs' forwards were certainly in the front line. The sale of Gary Lineker, Sheringham's predecessor, to the Japanese club, Grampus 8, was debated in depth. 'Another example of Mr Venables' so-called mastery of the transfer system was when I realised Tottenham were only receiving pounds 850,000 for Lineker - as opposed to the pounds 4m that I understood we were to get,' another Sugar affidavit disclosed.

'Venables laughed and said that the deal was worth over pounds 4m to Lineker but no one could be expected to believe Tottenham would get more than pounds 1m.'

Venables countered: 'There was no question of Lineker being worth pounds 4m. We bought him from Barcelona for pounds 1.2m aged 28 and he is obviously worth considerably less at 31. Tottenham were getting their money back.'

Venables was surrounded all day by well-wishers; Sugar, at one point, by a phalanx of policemen as the supporters voiced their anger at a businessman's attempt to oust a club legend.

The gallery greeted Sugar's arrival for the morning session with hisses and a single cry of 'scumbag'. The scenes when the entrepreneur left at lunch-time were far uglier: abuse rained down on Sugar, cries of 'scum' 'get out' and 'Judas' echoing round the court vestibule.

Outside in the Strand, many drivers hooted in support of those singing 'Terry Venables' blue-and-white army; Alan Sugar's power barmy'.

Sugar had left by the back door, but the 150 supporters did not have long to wait for a target: when two black cabs appeared bearing stickers extolling Woolwich - Tottenham's much- loathed London rivals - the gesticulations and taunts really took off.
 
Colonel_K said:
Henry Winter article from 1993 in the Independent....

A PICTURE of a football world peopled by men on the make, meeting in motorway cafes to swap bags of money, was painted at the High Court yesterday.

The case before the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Donald Nicholls, in a heaving, overheated Court 35 was 'In the Matter of Tottenham Hotspur plc' - the latest stage in the legal dispute between Alan Sugar, the club's major shareholder, and Terry Venables, the chief executive he is attempting to sack.

Matters involved more than two men and a club; allegations in affidavits read by QCs about the sale of the striker Teddy Sheringham by Nottingham Forest point to a murkier side of what Pele called the 'beautiful game'. From foreign fields to domestic deals, English football is taking a hammering.

In his sworn statement, Sugar claimed that Venables had told him that Brian Clough, the Forest manager at the time of Sheringham's move last August, 'likes a bung'. 'Bungs' - a reward in readies for easing a transfer through - have been rumoured for some time but this was their first public airing.

'Mr Venables told me that what actually happened was that people would meet Mr Clough in a motorway cafe and hand him a bag of money,' Sugar claimed. 'I told Mr Venables it was out of the question. It was not the way I like to conduct business.'

Clough and Venables both deny this unusual practice. 'Not a penny was passed between Terry Venables and me,' Clough retorted from his home. 'The last time I was in a motorway service station, I went for a wee.'

In his affidavit, Venables said: 'The allegation that I told Mr Sugar that Brian Clough 'liked a bung' is untrue. I have never used that expression and I have never used those words or words to that effect to Mr Sugar. As to what I am alleged to have said to Mr Sugar about Mr Clough meeting people in motorway cafes to collect bags of money, it really is a lot of nonsense. Mr Sugar is either making it up or is repeating something he heard from another source.'

The mini-mob of pro-Venables Spurs supporters listened spellbound to these allegations of underhand, under-the-table manoeuvres. Were our motorways full of football club employees or agents speeding up and down dropping off 'bungs'?

Spurs' forwards were certainly in the front line. The sale of Gary Lineker, Sheringham's predecessor, to the Japanese club, Grampus 8, was debated in depth. 'Another example of Mr Venables' so-called mastery of the transfer system was when I realised Tottenham were only receiving pounds 850,000 for Lineker - as opposed to the pounds 4m that I understood we were to get,' another Sugar affidavit disclosed.

'Venables laughed and said that the deal was worth over pounds 4m to Lineker but no one could be expected to believe Tottenham would get more than pounds 1m.'

Venables countered: 'There was no question of Lineker being worth pounds 4m. We bought him from Barcelona for pounds 1.2m aged 28 and he is obviously worth considerably less at 31. Tottenham were getting their money back.'

Venables was surrounded all day by well-wishers; Sugar, at one point, by a phalanx of policemen as the supporters voiced their anger at a businessman's attempt to oust a club legend.

The gallery greeted Sugar's arrival for the morning session with hisses and a single cry of 'scumbag'. The scenes when the entrepreneur left at lunch-time were far uglier: abuse rained down on Sugar, cries of 'scum' 'get out' and 'Judas' echoing round the court vestibule.

Outside in the Strand, many drivers hooted in support of those singing 'Terry Venables' blue-and-white army; Alan Sugar's power barmy'.

Sugar had left by the back door, but the 150 supporters did not have long to wait for a target: when two black cabs appeared bearing stickers extolling Woolwich - Tottenham's much- loathed London rivals - the gesticulations and taunts really took off.
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Best thing Sugar ever did for the club was save it from Venables
 
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