Tranmere Rovers
Vote for Your Manager in Our Team of the Decade (2000's)
By Deadly Submarine
April 4 2011
As our series of polls comes to an end, we are asking you to vote for your favourite Tranmere Manager of the last decade to take on the responsibility of managing the eleven players that you have already voted into our Team of the Decade (2000's)........
Last week, Eugene Dadi became the eleventh and final player to be voted into our Tranmere Rovers Team of the Decade (2000’s), as he became the second striker to be voted into the team and therefore joined up with Chris Greenacre in the attack.
This week, as we bring this series of polls to it’s conclusion, we ask you to vote for Tranmere's best Manager of the past ten years, and with football the way it is at the moment there a number of candidates to choose from.
You have seven days to vote for your favourite Manager, with the winner taking a spot in the dugout to take charge of the other eleven Rovers legends currently in the side.
The candidates for the Managers vote are as follows...
John Aldridge
The Manager who began the decade in charge of Rovers, Aldo will be best remembered for the famous cup runs of 1999-2001 perhaps more than he will be remembered for being in charge for most of Tranmere’s relegation season in 2000/01.
In total he was Manager for five years from 1996-2001 after taking charge whilst still a player when Johnny King’s second spell as Rovers Manager came to an end.
Dave Watson
After Rovers were relegated to what is now League One in 2001, Rovers decided not to give the job to caretaker Manager Ray Mathias who had taken over from John Aldridge when he resigned in March and instead opted to give former Everton defender Dave Watson his first managerial job.
After Rovers failed to make an immediate return to the division above the following season, Watson was somewhat bizarrely and perhaps a little harshly, sacked after a 7-0 pre-season friendly defeat to Manchester City in August 2002.
Ray Mathias
After the sacking of Dave Watson, it was finally Ray Mathias’s time to take the reins on a permanent basis and he came so close to earning Tranemre the promotion they desired after Rovers amassed a huge total of 80 points by the end of the season but still missed out on the play-offs by a single point.
A poor start to the following season, perhaps assisted by the loss of assistant Manager David Kelly, saw Mathias harshly sacked September 2003 after little more than a year in charge in total and just over a month in charge for the new season.
Brian Little
John McMahon took over briefly after Mathias was sacked and his tenure included a 6-0 away defeat at Plymouth just a day or so before Brian Little became Tranmere’s third new Manager of the decade.
After steadying Tranmere’s poor start to the 2003/04 season which saw the end of Mathias’s managerial reign, Little went one better than Mathias the following season as Rovers finished third in League One behind Luton Town and Hull City to make the play-offs which sadly Rovers lost out on penalties in to Hartlepool United over two legs in the semi-final.
The summer of 2005 saw Little lose three of his key players from the play off season in Hume, Taylor and Hall and Rovers suffered, only staying in League One on the penultimate weekend of the season after which Little sadly resigned.
Ronnie Moore
Little was replaced by Ronnie Moore in June 2006 and he remained in charge until his controversial sacking in the summer of 2009 after Rovers again just missed out on the play-offs on the final day of the season after drawing at Scunthorpe.
During Moore’s spell in charge, fan opinion on the man and his style of football was divided as Rovers seemed to underachieve for a couple of successive seasons. However by the time Moore has been sacked, few fans seemed to argue that the decision was anything but harsh.
John Barnes
To make matters worse after Moore’s sacking, the subsequent appointment of former Liverpool player and Celtic Manager John Barnes as Manager and Jason McAteer as his assistant was controversial to say the least and Barnes was up harshly up against it with the Rovers fans from day one.
In the end after a poor run of results his reign lasted just a few months and he was sacked in October 2009 after a 5-0 league defeat at Millwall and a 2-1 JPT defeat away at Bury in the same week.
Les Parry
After Barnes left, it was temporarily left to Physio and Club legend Les Parry to steady the ship, a job which he did well enough to earn the job on a full time basis and still remains in charge today after keeping Tranmere in League One thanks to a final day win at Stockport last May.
Currently his pedigree is under question from some of the Rovers fans but last season’s great escape remains the memorable point of his tenure so far.
Who then, will be the Manager our Team of the Decade (2000’s)? You can decide by voting between now and Sunday 10th April when the votes will be counted and the winner announced and a feature story published on www.total-tranmere.co.uk.
The poll can be found on all pages of this website either at the bottom of the left hand side menu or sometimes on the right side of the page depending on which page you are currently viewing. Your vote could be important to the result so make sure you cast yours!
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04/04/2011 18:53
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:04:12:17:50:50 by Deadly Submarine.
I'll probably go for Little.
Watson, no, Barnes, no, Les, no.
Think I'll sit this vote out..
Then I ate his Liver.......... with some baked beans and a can of coke.
Little ultimately failed with the best budget we've probably had in this division, and arguably the best squad of players. He should have taken us up 04/05.
That leaves Mathias, Aldo and Ronnie. Moore worked wonders with our squad and we were very unlucky to miss out on the play-offs. The same goes for Mathias.
Aldo got us relegated, but his cup achievements were superb - he took us to a League Cup final during that decade.
For me it's between Ronnie and Aldo...
04/04/2011 23:01
05/04/2011 11:54
Parry is a no, no for me. I know he has his backers, and in equal measure his haters. I'm neither, kind of an inbetweener. I appreciate what he has done as an elongated stop gap, but he is far from 'manager' of the decade.
That narrows it down to Aldo, Moore, Mathias and Little. Difficult one when we haven't had much success this decade. Erm...
Mathias had a great season in charge and narrowly missed out on the play-offs, but things went downhill rapidly after Kelly left. So it was only one good season in a decade from him, so in my opinion it can't be him.
Moore played a steady, unnatractive, yet productive style of football. It would have been interesting to see how we would have progressed had he not been unceremoniously sacked in the manner he was. But we'll never know. It could be him.
Little got us into the play-offs, probably the closest we have come within this decade to success of sorts, but he couldn't emulate that achievement the following season, hence his departure from the club. It could be him.
I think I'm going to plump for Aldo. If not purely for nostalgic reasons. His tenure as manager was the most exciting period at the start of this decade and provided more highs than lows, despite the fateful relegation season, which all the other names on this list have failed to remedy either through lack of inspiration or technical know how, despite their best efforts.
05/04/2011 18:14
Someone is getting people to vote for Barnes! He's got over 5% of the vote! LOL!
Oh dear me!
Oh dear dear dear!
Who the hell is voting for Barnes? he should be 'nil point' (to quote Eurovision) along with that Goliath Watson
Clearly reminding himself of what they're like to win, then the bittersweetness of realising that he'd never do it again.
Caledonian Thistle anyone?
Then I ate his Liver.......... with some baked beans and a can of coke.
Quote:i voted for barnes fist as a little joke after yet another poor season just thought i would make you all smile little for me aldo was good but in the end he put more into the cup runs than the league which got us relegated still a legend thoughpcandchris
Oh Dear!
Oh dear me!
Oh dear dear dear!
Who the hell is voting for Barnes? he should be 'nil point' (to quote Eurovision) along with that Goliath Watson
Aldo walked because he couldn't stomach those two results against Grimsby and Barnsley being 3-2 defeats, when they were both 2-0 scorelines at half time. 6 dropped points in consecutive games. He even said as much too.
Plus I think he would have had more to spend on the team, if Johnson had actually gotten the reported fee for Simonsen instead of the mates rates one that the club got instead.
Then he might have been able to get a better striker than lazy old cut and run Seyni N'daiye.
Plus I don't think the fact the club had to redevelop the ground, put the finances as competitive as they were before and signing letdowns like Rideout and Barlow did nothing either.
I don't think Wayne Gill was altogether sparkling either.
Then I ate his Liver.......... with some baked beans and a can of coke.
