To be at loggerheads with one chairperson could be construed as unfortunate; to fall out with two, as Gary Megson did at West Bromwich Albion, suggests he either has a penchant for confrontation or resents figures in authority.
But it is not only spats with football club bosses that have earned the Yorkshireman the reputation of being capable of starting a row in an empty telephone box. Players, club staff and unsupportive media folk also fell foul of Megson during his time at The Hawthorns.
Megson, however, denies he is a control freak.
‘All I want to do is manage a team to the best of my ability,” he once said. And there was the root of his problems with successive West Brom chairmen, Paul Thompson and Jeremy Peace.
Megson wanted to be in charge of everything from transfers to facilities. Thompson, chair when Megson succeeded Brian Little in March 2000, disagreed; later, Peace followed suit.
The chief complaint about Thompson concerned him taking charge of the club’s scouting system and transfers, roles Megson believed were the province of the manager.
And it was the impasse over those two issues which prompted Thompson to end his 28-month spell in office. Megson had just guided West Brom into the Premiership for the first time so he was speaking from a position of strength, especially so far as supporters were concerned.
Moreover, the combination of Megson and the lifelong West Brom fan Peace, who took over as chairperson, appeared to be a marriage made in heaven.
For a time it was. Relations between them appeared cordial during the first season in the Premiership, but it was an uneasy truce.
Peace, mindful that Thompson was still the majority shareholder and could attempt to regain power in the wake of impending relegation, kept his counsel.
Megson’s comment that one or two players were delighted by West Brom’s imminent return to the first division coincided with Peace buying out Thompson, and shortly afterwards Megson is understood to have received the first of two solicitors’ letters warning him about comments made to the media about behind-the-scenes unrest at the club.
But, having seen Megson get the team promoted once, Peace ignored his reservations and allowed him to continue as manager. And, although increasingly unhappy with Megson’s management style and frequent jibes to the press about the board, he was powerless to act because the team remained in the automatic promotion berths for the entire season.
Megson, meanwhile, was frustrated by the club’s wage policy and the length of time it took to sign players. He was further aggravated by the lack of progress on a new contract. He wanted a lucrative long-term deal as a reward for getting promotion twice; Peace, however, favoured a one-year roll-on deal.
His frustration was increased by the delay in getting his squad together; he felt this hindered preparations for the new season. Nwankwo Kanu, for example, arrived on the eve of the new campaign. Megson put the delay down to Peace’s refusal to use agents.
Megson then demonstrated his increasing disenchantment by vacating his Hawthorns office and making it clear he expected to be sacked. But support for him from West Brom fans plus the decision of Mark Hughes —Peace’s preferred replacement — to join Blackburn Rovers kept him in his job. Until this week. —