Tony Adams, ‘kicking arses’ and the parody Brit abroad

Sarah Winterburn

Rory Smith’s wonderful book Mister is billed as an in-depth look into ‘The men who gave the world the game’, and details the story of football’s missionaries who left England to teach the world a game that had been forged in the north of England. They spread the word and the word was good.

Since then, British coaches have been notoriously reluctant to give the world anything at all, although there have been notable exceptions in men like Bobby Robson, Roy Hodgson and John Toshack, who all had a gravitas that can be translated into different languages and cultures. They not so much spread the word but talked, listened and assimilated.

And now we have Tony Adams, whose word is apparently ‘arse’. And at this point we will stop using the word ‘spread’.

When you watch 1970s sitcoms with a 2017 sensibility, every character looks like a caricature and every joke – however funny – seems signposted. As Adams was unveiled as the interim coach for a club in one of Europe’s elite leagues, he was Captain Mainwaring, Captain Peacock and Major Gowen all rolled into one: A parody of an Englishman striding into town to roll up his sleeves and be really, really bloody English.

“I’m here to give the players a kick up the arse and win games,” Adams said during his first press conference after being announced as Granada head coach. Tactics? Irrelevant. Philosophy? Are you a girl? There are few problems that cannot be solved with some good, old-fashioned kicking of the arse, and who is better equipped to do that than the man with “40 years of experience”? As he’s only 50, he must have been one bloody horrible ten-year-old.

He then detailed how he would “try some things in training to liven up the team” and we could not help but think of press-ups, laps around the pitch, punishing runs up sand dunes and endless games of ‘red-arse’. We can only imagine the bemusement of a squad that recently made history by being the first side in La Liga history to field an XI of 11 different nationalities. Over half the squad is on loan from elsewhere so of course they will be incredibly motivated to have their arses kicked by a man whose last managerial job was in Azerbaijan five years ago. Sergi Samper learned a great deal at La Masia, but he has never been kicked up the arse by an Englishman the size of Tony Adams.

Had we put any real time into thinking about this parodic English reign in Spain we would have speculated that Adams would – on seeing this squad of young players from Chelsea and Barcelona and Manchester United – decide that what he really needed was more Britishness, presumably having seen how well that has been going for David Moyes at Sunderland. Had we been blessed with time, we might have looked at a list of out-of-contract Englishmen and come up with the names of Nigel Reo-Coker and Kieran Richardson. And then we would have laughed heartily for surely nobody could be so predictable.

Darel Russell must be pretty miffed.

In echoes of Graeme Souness’ disastrous reign at Benfica, when he decided that what this great Portuguese club needed was ageing journeymen Scott Minto, Brian Deane, Michael Thomas, Dean Saunders, Mark Pembridge, Steve Harkness and Gary Charles, Adams’ solution to a foreign club lacking the gumption to get out of relegation difficulty was to bring in two semi-retired Englishmen on trial, both of whom have extensive experience of relegation difficulty.

If it were anybody but Adams, we would expect the glorious triptych of the Englishman abroad (after arse-threatening and Brit-drafting) to be completed with a massive breakfast and a massive piss-up. The Granada players will be spared the dentist’s chair but they will not be spared a massive bollocking if they don’t dig in against Celta Vigo on Sunday. If it works, Hull will wonder why they appointed Marco Silva instead of the man with the lion heart.

There are British coaches stationed across the world – in Indonesia, Brazil, Guam, Vanuatu – who do not turn up threatening to kick arses or insist on surrounding themselves with other Brits, but they do not have 66 England caps, the status of ‘Arsenal legend’ or a friend with a controlling interest in a top-flight club. They have to do things differently because they are there as football coaches rather than famous colonisers.

It may seem a little mealy-mouthed to dismiss Adams’ appointment as Granada manager when we have asked several times why supposedly marginalised British bosses do not spread their wings abroad, but neither Adams nor Gary Neville before him would have described themselves as football managers a matter of months before their appointments. Few would back Adams to do any better than his compatriot.

Moyes’ reign at Real Sociedad may not have ended in triumph but he at least resisted the urge to buy half his old Everton side until he landed in Sunderland, and Steve McClaren tried so hard to integrate in Holland that he became Schteve. Neither will inspire books claiming they gave the world the game, but nor did they do the equivalent of demanding a roast dinner in a tapas bar.

Sarah Winterburn

F365 Says Tony Adams