Glenn Gibbons: QPR wrong to question Neil Warnock’s commitment

Published on Saturday 14 January 2012 03:50

Neil Warnock could hardly be described as the poor man of Good King Wenceslas fame gathering winter fuel, but it would have been no picnic, either, to have been sacked by the end of the first week of the new year.

Nor would the departing Queens Park Rangers manager have drawn any consolation from being accompanied out the door by the wounding words of the directors who inflicted the misery. “The board’s commitment to retaining our Premier League status ultimately led to this decision,” said the statement, an allusion to the team’s present precarious perch one point above the relegation pit.

Could the board’s commitment to such an objective possibly be any deeper than that of Warnock? Their words suggest that they believe it is, at a stroke betraying a preposterous arrogance and directing a slight at the manager that might almost be actionable.

Whatever mistakes and failings may mark their tenure, managers are renowned for a pathological attachment to a relentlessly demanding job that makes them – this is widely accepted – a little less sane than the rest of us.

None, not even the frequently irritating Warnock, warrants the slightest doubt over his ambition and commitment; these are the twin forces that keep him slightly mad.

But the QPR board’s insult chimes with that which is regularly hurled at directors themselves by supporters’ bodies. This takes the form of agitation by the latter to have “a fan” on the board, with its unmissable implication that the sitting tenants are not themselves supporters.

Since the board members of the overwhelming majority of clubs in Scotland support their club in the most declarative way of all, by willingly “investing” money that is recognised as irrecoverable even before it is handed over, this insinuation may be seen as the most hurtful insult of all.

The implied censure seems to be most often the tool of supporters’ “trusts”. These are organisations who appear to be distinguishable from old-fashioned “associations”, or even “clubs”, only by their self-elevation, an assumed superiority rooted in the belief that they are smarter than the average fan.

Their feverish desire to have one of their own on their club’s board, however, seems to ignore the very real probability that the nominee, if successful, would himself no longer be an “ordinary fan”, but a director.

But surely no football supporter raised in Scotland, the cradle of British socialism, should need reminding that the short route to consultation with the board is withdrawal of patronage. One match of near-total absenteeism would be enough to get the average chairman and his colleagues round the table, listening to grievances.

In such a circumstance, the unsettled supporter might even learn something of the enormous difficulties and complexities of running a football club.

If mistakes have been made by the directors, they could then be admitted and addressed, an outcome that would surely appease the bulk of even the most implacable fans.

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