Cotterill

[Belgianclaret]

Why was he so unpopular in Burnley? Didn’t do such a bad job in view of the circumstances, no?

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... as-a-coach

[Burnley1989]

I didn't dislike him but my god did he make me fall out of love with football, it was a painful last season under him.
Admittedly when you look back he did make some decent signings and put some solid foundations in for the next manager.

[Clovius Boofus]

I don't think he was unpopular. He was a likeable guy. Back then, most fans understood the financial restraints he worked under, or at least the people I mix with did.

[Woodleyclaret]

I always thought Steve would make a good assistant to a more established coach aways better suited as a 2nd.

[Pearcey]

Was a great manager for us imo. He maintained our championship status with absolutely no money and made some great signings. Like most managers though, he had to go at the end of a dreadful run.

[Buxtonclaret]

He was just what we needed. We were a financial mess.
The footy wasn't easy to watch but he steadied the ship.
And in doing so, helped make sure we still had a club to watch!
He also helped lay the foundations of what happened later.
At least, that's how I saw his tenure.

[Goliath]

Its a strange one, I think people just got bored of finishing mid-table every year and blamed Cotterill. To be honest I think hes been quite unlucky to be managing lower down the ladder for most of his career, he got labelled as playing ugly football which wasn't always the case (ask Bristol City fans).
I still think he could do a good job at Championship level, but he'd find it hard to get acceptance from most teams supporters which is always a problem.

[Big Vinny K]

Did really well for us I thought.
We need stability and to stop leaking goals after some horrendous seasons and in McGreal and Sinclair he brought in one of my favourite centre back partnerships ever in supporting Burnley. JM (who was back end of his career) was in particular absolute class - he was such a good player.
Also brought in Wade Elliot. We had played a cup game and he murdered us and SC not long after brought him to Burnley which was an inspired signing.
Think he brought Duff here too for £30,000.

Of course it was tough at the end with that long run without a win but for a manager who was largely starved of any funds i think he was great for us and in no small part contributed to where we are today.

[cblantfanclub]

Identity and ideas. Wonder what VK's take is on that.

[Bordeauxclaret]

I wouldn’t say he was unpopular. Overstayed his welcome by the end of it though.

It was boring, tedious stuff for a lot of the time but I think a lot of people accepted it was needed at the time.

The crowd never really turned on him despite two horrific runs.

[Devils_Advocate]

First season great, second season acceptable (despite the football and the league position) but after that it was pretty dire. Post ITV Digital collapse he was the right person at the right time to steer us through some troubled waters but thank god we got rid when we did and replaced him with someone like Coyle who could get the fans excited again

[Jimmymaccer]

Not unpopular in general but by the end………..there was frustration………if I remember rightly was v Hull midweek at The Turf…….lost and Duff, when trying to hump it down the park sliced the clearance and it almost went sideways through a hospitality window! After the match, Kilby appeared in the hospitality bit looking v angry and apologised to the crowd for the match, and the absence of any player for the usual presentations……

I think Cotterill left the following day……….

[ClaretTony]

Someone I have so much time for and someone I call a friend so I can’t criticise him too much.

Given the circumstances, I thought he did a really good job for us but it was probably right that he left when he did although I do know that Brendan Flood tried to bring him back in over two years later.

I know how much he still cares about our football club. Not bad given the first two words he said to be when I first met him ended in off.

[ClaretTony]

Not unpopular in general but by the end………..there was frustration………if I remember rightly was v Hull midweek at The Turf…….lost and Duff, when trying to hump it down the park sliced the clearance and it almost went sideways through a hospitality window! After the match, Kilby appeared in the hospitality bit looking v angry and apologised to the crowd for the match, and the absence of any player for the usual presentations……

I think Cotterill left the following day……….

Duff couldn’t have played because he had done his cruciate and Kilby was away at the time. Cotterill left two days later.

[daveisaclaret]

Agree with others that it's not really right to say he was unpopular. Fans in the ground didn't really turn when we went 19 games/4 months without a win (although I think attendances were below 10,000 by the time the run ended).

Find it quite interesting that Duff credits Cotterill and Dyche equally for influencing him as a manager.

[Carlos the Great]

Did we not go for months without scoring with cotterill hence the term cotterball ? ..

[claretonthecoast1882]

Did an ok job for us but should have gone at the end of the previous season.

The football was mind numbing

[Raconteur]

I still remember the press conference Burnley held after he left. Cotterill was actually in it, taking part and answering questions.

I found it quite bizarre at the time as i had never seen a manager who had just been relieved of their duties, to actually take part in the the club press conference.

The football wasn't the best and how can we forgot that winless run. Was it 19 games?

He didn't have much money to spend in fees but from what i remember, he had a decent wage bill

[warksclaret]

His knowledge of good players in the lower leagues was unrivalled. He was also exceptional at selling the club to players and getting them to sign for us. One of his greatest signings was Gary Cahill who was playing for Villa's U-21's, but players like McGreal, Micah Hyde and Sinclair , Andy Gray, Wade Elliott, Akinbiyi, Robbie Blake (second time), Clarke Carlisle and many more,were perfect for us at the time when we had no money.It formed the foundation for the Coyle era.The relationship between Cotterill and the club came to an end owing to our style of football and poor results

[ClaretTony]

Find it quite interesting that Duff credits Cotterill and Dyche equally for influencing him as a manager.

At one of his testimonial evenings, Duff was asked about his Burnley managers

Cotterill - owe my career to him but at times he was too intense
Coyle -the most unprofessional squad he’d been involved with that the senior players pulled us through
Laws - was never given a chance
Howe - he never spoke to me
Dyche - a modern manager with old fashioned values

[KRBFC]

I certainly didn’t get the impression Cotterill was unpopular, his football certainly was. He signed some cracking players though!

17 year old Nathan Dyer was the dogs nuts!

[Vegas Claret]

I have a friend who has a severely disabled child and Cotterill went above and beyond with the little lad. My mate took him down to training once and Cotterill went over and had a chat. For a good while he then properly helped out, always said they were welcome at training, got them a tour of the ground and tickets for games. Sadly most of the time the noise was too much for the young lad so they never made it to a second half. Very sad for my mate, a lot to cope with but honestly whilst Cotterill was here he made a huge difference to their life.

[Jimmymaccer]

Duff couldn’t have played because he had done his cruciate and Kilby was away at the time. Cotterill left two days later.

Ah right, must have been another miserable night………….i stand corrected.

[agreenwood]

He was better when we had no money.

The season he left we’d put together a decent squad, but he couldn’t get a tune out of them. The quality of the squad was evidenced with what came next.

[Goliath]

Wasnt the story that a fan actually overheard Brendan Flood on the train talking about the impending sacking and then told Flood he was a Burnley fan.
They then had to urgently scramble around and get the press conference done quickly before the big rumour mill started.

[ClaretTony]

Wasnt the story that a fan actually overheard Brendan Flood on the train talking about the impending sacking and then told Flood he was a Burnley fan.
They then had to urgently scramble around and get the press conference done quickly before the big rumour mill started.

I think it was Flood telling Kilby what he was doing. Kilby was in Germany trying to sort out the John Cofie situation.

[ClaretTony]

He was better when we had no money.

The season he left we’d put together a decent squad, but he couldn’t get a tune out of them. The quality of the squad was evidenced with what came next.

I know one of his regrets was not being able to bring Berisha on at Grimsby in the League Cup. He got the ACL injury in the next week. But he had an eye for a player and made some terrific signings for us. That season started well enough but we were beginning to slide again.

[Big Vinny K]

That last game against Hull was horrible.
Yep our confidence was low and we were playing awful football but my memory of that evening was the despicable behaviour of Phil “Judith Chalmers” Brown and his coaches and substitutes and their touch line antics.
Funnily enough they reminded me very much of a Watford team who once came here with Malcky Mackay and a certain Sean Dyche one of his assistants (I think). To see this kind of behaviour close up with the time wasting and constant abuse they gave to the officials was a real eye opener.

[Jimmymaccer]

Just had a Quick Look CT……..yer right, never in doubt!

no Duff in the lineup (Jordan/Carlisle) - on 6th Nov 2007 we lost 0-1 at home to Hull so it must have been another mighty claret who performed that technical clearance which sticks in my mind! - I was in the Centre Spot or whatever it was called at the time with a customer who I’d treated! There was deffo someone after the match, could swear it was Kilby but stand corrected, who said no one from the playing staff would be making an appearance……as you say, it’s in the news on the 8th that Cotts had left by mutual consent…….

Never in doubt CT - yer spot on!

Cheers

[elwaclaret]

For me Cotterill did a good job of stabilising the club. Only met him a few times, I worked in Whalley at the time and he was a regular with his family at CJ’s sandwich shop. While I avoided interrupting him I had a few chats when we were both waiting for our lunches. He was fine but always looked like there was a slightly bad smell under his nose, which I suppose was just his way; but I can understand others who met him disliked him for it.

[distortiondave]

I look back on his time now with greater warmth than I gave it at the time, but at the very least he provided us with some decent gallows humour moments, like the American Beauty-esque plastic bag against Luton, the aforementioned press conference, doing his nut at a fan who had the temerity to call him Steve, getting over a million for Wayne Thomas, getting 50k for Ian Moore and we were generally pretty good until we had to sell our striker every season.

[ClaretTony]

For me Cotterill did a good job of stabilising the club. Only met him a few times, I worked in Whalley at the time and he was a regular with his family at CJ’s sandwich shop. While I avoided interrupting him I had a few chats when we were both waiting for our lunches. He was fine but always looked like there was a slightly bad smell under his nose, which I suppose was just his way; but I can understand others who met him disliked him for it.

I can understand the dislike. It was just his way and I’d have hated to interview him, he always seemed to be almost challenging the interviewer. I had a couple of run ins with him but at least he listened when I challenged him.

[GetIntoEm]

i personally dont think we would be where we are now if it wasnt for Steve.

thought he did a great job of stabilizing us at a difficult time

[Goliath]

I know one of his regrets was not being able to bring Berisha on at Grimsby in the League Cup. He got the ACL injury in the next week. But he had an eye for a player and made some terrific signings for us. That season started well enough but we were beginning to slide again.

That Berisha injury was a shame, there was huge excitement around his signing at the time. It may have ended differently for Cotterill if hed stayed fit.

His strikers didnt really turn up for him that season if i remember rightly, Gray had gone off the boil, Akinbiyi had lost his pace, Blake wasnt a real goalscorer anymore and Lafferty was too young.
Strange really, it was the one season where he had real strength in depth up front, or so we thought.

[Goliath]

That Berisha injury was a shame, there was huge excitement around his signing at the time. It may have ended differently for Cotterill if hed stayed fit.

His strikers didnt really turn up for him that season if i remember rightly, Gray had gone off the boil, Akinbiyi had lost his pace, Blake wasnt a real goalscorer anymore and Lafferty was too young.
Strange really, it was the one season where he had real strength in depth up front, or so we thought.

Just checked this and looks like my memorys playing tricks. We were scoring plenty of goals but couldnt keep them out at the other end by the looks of things. Strange really, the run we were on wasnt even too bad, looks like it was the memory of the 19 game run the season before that got him the sack. Although that Hull game was impressively crap

[Big Vinny K]

i personally dont think we would be where we are now if it wasnt for Steve.

thought he did a great job of stabilizing us at a difficult time

Agree with that.
Wasn’t it the couple of seasons before we had conceded an absolute shed full of goals under Stan ?

[warksclaret]

Agree with that.
Wasn’t it the couple of seasons before we had conceded an absolute shed full of goals under Stan ?

Yes indeed-and if you were a goalkeeper under Stan that season, you developed "Net-rash"

[Devils_Advocate]

i personally dont think we would be where we are now if it wasnt for Steve.

thought he did a great job of stabilizing us at a difficult time

You can say that about of our managers for the last 30 years. I think there is a fair case for saying Mullen, Ternent, Cotterill, Coyle, Howe and Dyche have all had a major role in where we have got to but out of those 6 managers I would say 4 of them (Mullen, Ternent, Coyle & Dyche) have played a more important and influential role then Coterrill.

Cotterill and Howe both did a good job in terms of inheriting the club in a bit of a mess and doing a good stabilise and rebuild job to lay a platform for the managers who followed but Mullen, Ternent, Coyle and most importantly Dyche were the ones who drove the club forward and upwards to new levels.

[dougcollins]

Wasn't Cotterill the man charged with repairing an injured David Beckham prior to a World Cup finals?

[Hipper]

Suffered from having to sell key players - Chaplow, Blake, Akinbiyi - but was pretty good in the transfer market - Wayne Thomas anyone, not to mention Ian Moore to Leeds for actual money.

[ClaretTony]

Suffered from having to sell key players - Chaplow, Blake, Akinbiyi - but was pretty good in the transfer market - Wayne Thomas anyone, not to mention Ian Moore to Leeds for actual money.

I know the full Wayne Thomas story as told to me by both Steve and Barry Kilby. It was SC's doing that we got all that money for him.

[boyyanno]

I thought he did a fantastic job for us.

The club was in an absolute mess when he came in and we had to cobble together some horrific line ups.

His best player at the time was frequently sold and he still managed to keep us in the division. He's an important part of our recent history.

[aggi]

It started off OK but it just gradually got worse as his time progressed. The football got worse with the infamous run of 19 games without a win (and I think it was only about half a dozen of those where we actually scored) and the finances got worse with higher and higher wages leading to higher and higher losses.

I was amused by this line The other half was spent on Ade Akinbiyi. When he was sold for a profit, Cotterill reinvested a third of the proceeds and "banked the rest for a rainy day." . Every season was a rainy day at that point.

[Casper2]

Was it no wins in 18 , and no wins in 12 , then you get some saying we wouldn’t be where we are today without him , what nonsense, also what heights did he reach after he left

[bfcjg]

His mantra was to keep us up at all costs and he did a wonderful job doing that,made some great signings, I think we had just 7 professionals when he was brought in, the football at the end was poor.
He was popular though, I remember the ovation he got he came back as a pundit.

[ClaretTony]

It started off OK but it just gradually got worse as his time progressed. The football got worse with the infamous run of 19 games without a win (and I think it was only about half a dozen of those where we actually scored) and the finances got worse with higher and higher wages leading to higher and higher losses.

I was amused by this line The other half was spent on Ade Akinbiyi. When he was sold for a profit, Cotterill reinvested a third of the proceeds and "banked the rest for a rainy day." . Every season was a rainy day at that point.

Just to get some facts on the run - yes, we only scored in six of the games, two against Sunderland so seven goals in total. We drew eight of them and lost ten. Seven of the defeats were by one goal and three of them by two goals. What was more incredible was the fact that we'd started the season so well and were third in the league and looking like promotion contenders. But in the game before the run, a 2-1 win against Leeds, we lost both Andy Gray and Steve Jones to injury. I recall Cotterill joking when Gray got his injury that at least we weren't going to sell his striker from under him in January. Jones wasn't that good but at the time he and Elliott were playing really well on the flanks. When they both got fully fit, we suddenly won five out of six to end the run.

[claret_in_exile]

He did a great job for us when we needed him to. It's a shame that his career stalled after we sacked him. I thought he was a bit more worthy than others who have had no trouble in finding some higher-level roles since.

[Nori1958]

I know the full Wayne Thomas story as told to me by both Steve and Barry Kilby. It was SC's doing that we got all that money for him.

I got told the same.... And he was well rewarded

[mkmel]

Many years ago I was talking with ex Luton Town player Tony Thorpe at the time that Steve Cotterill became our manager.

According to Tony Thorpe SC was not liked in the game and had a big ego and was way up his own arse I think was the way he phrased it.

[Goliath]

Many years ago I was talking with ex Luton Town player Tony Thorpe at the time that Steve Cotterill became our manager.

According to Tony Thorpe SC was not liked in the game and had a big ego and was way up his own arse I think was the way he phrased it.

Paul Weller had a few rants on Twitter in recent years saying similar.