Season 2009/10
I mentioned before that we weren’t the favourites of the powers that be at the Football League at this time. Having been relegated by the 10 point deduction two seasons prior then hit with the almost enough to send us down -17 the prior season (sadly, -30 was too much for Luton and they had succumbed to one of the relegation spots) a third season of punishment was enacted. A transfer embargo was imposed.
Not one of the ones you read about some clubs have had in the Championship lately where they can still sign players. This was absolute. We had a squad of 20 players and we were told nobody else could come in that season. As three of them were keepers of which one was a very young one a request was put in that if we released the third keeper could we sign another player instead. Word came back from the Football League that as long as there was no fee involved and the wages were appropriate that would be ok. We released the keeper then the FL changed their mind and said we couldn’t sign a replacement. So now we had a squad of 19 players.
The player that we had wanted to sign who had spent pre-season with us? Charlie Austin, then of Poole Town now of Southampton. Another brilliant spot from Howe but as he couldn’t come to us he went to Swindon Town instead where he banged them in (side-note, when Howe went to Burnley he signed Austin from Swindon so he got his man in the end!).
Meanwhile Howe’s half-brother Steve Lovell, a former youth team graduate who had carved out a respectible career as a striker in Scottish football but was coming back from an injury layoff, offered to help out his family member by playing for us on amateur terms. No signing on fee, no salary, nothing. The FL also said no to this. It wasn’t just that they didn’t want us to spend money, they didn’t want us to have any more players and that was that.
The embargo was water-tight. A quite odd coincidence that as they were so focused on ensuring we didn’t sign anyone since this was the season that fellow League 2 club Notts County appointed Sven Goran Eriksson as their Director of Football, signed Sol Campbell, Kasper Schmeichel and Lee Hughes amongst others. Strange times.
This left Howe with some serious challenges as the squad was imbalanced and he’d only been able to start to address that in the January but at the time he hadn’t really worked with the players as a coach so didn’t know what he had.
I’ll say it now. Forget everything that has gone since. This season is Howe’s greatest managerial achievement. I almost can’t find the words to describe some of the things I saw that season.
It’s fair to say our 19 man squad was soon injury ravaged at times. For example, here’s a link to a match report where we couldn’t even fill the bench:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_3/8328197.stm
Even then, many of the players that turned out for us were playing through injuries that they shouldn’t have done. The heyday day of the utility player was the 80s but in this season necessity was the mother of invention for us and Howe. I recall looking at the players line up and at least four of the players were starting in positions that were in no way natural to them. I don’t mean like how sometimes in the Premier League we’ll move King from striker to the wing tactically during a match. I mean, for example, central midfielder Anton Robinson starting as a right back where, as far as I know, he had never played before. Totally out of position.
Yet, we were still playing an attacking game. Trying to score goals and win games even with the most makeshift of line-ups. Trying to pass the ball and play the ‘right way’ if you believe there is such a thing.
Some of the forward play was ridiculous compared to what we were used to watching. An absolute joy to behold. The formation was still a 4-4-2 but you could start to see he was already evolving it with the movement around the pitch from the players far more intelligent than anything I can recall seeing before. Again, that may seem like a hindsight affirmation but I distinctly remember from that season a quote from the fan that wrote most of the forum match reports which, to paraphrase, went something like this “That was an attacking display the like of which I don’t know when I’ve seen last. Enjoy these days as Howe is going places where we won’t. He’s destined for the Premier League so we should just make the most of his time here whilst we can as we’ll remember these days for years to come”. He was almost right…
The fight for promotion and the title was truly on between us, Notts County and Rochdale but County ended up taking it only for the Middle East money to turn out to be a sham. We came second and Rochdale third.
I can’t describe the exhilaration I felt watching that season and at the promotion. Even the previous years achievement was celebrating survival rather than celebrating success in the classic sense. Sean O’Driscoll had taken us up from League 2 a number of years prior but only because the previous season he somehow got a squad relegated that should never have gone down. After years of doom and gloom and despite the best efforts of the Football League we could genuinely celebrate and all at the hands of a man with whom the fans had a special bond. It couldn’t get any better than that, right?
There were times that season when it looked like we couldn’t put a team out so there were a couple of instances when the FL relented and let us have a short term loan. However, the reality is injured players played when they shouldn’t have because we had no choice. I believe the career of Mark Moseley was ruined by the FL’s intractability that year. He played with niggles and ended up with one injury leading into another and another and… well you know how those careers go. He’s definitely a player that should have enjoyed a solid League 1 career at least and missed out as a result. He was aggressive and skillful, things which don’t often go hand-in-hand in a player at that level. He’s now on our coaching staff though – Howe doesn’t forget people that make a contribution – and he is apparently a very highly rated member of the staff.
Saving us the previous season Howe had picked up some headlines, not least because at the time he was the youngest manager in the league and looked even younger, but this season people really started to take note. The way he had moulded this small squad into a winning unit that attacked with such verve, passed the ball in League 2 and taken us up was something special. There are likely plenty of articles out there if you want to search some of the coverage he got. I do recall it felt like a novelty to be reading positive stories about something related to my football club!
That season the League 2 Manager of the Season went to Rochdale manager Keith Hill for getting them promoted out of the division after spending 41 years in it. For me, that was a sentimental choice and I’m still in complete awe at what Howe achieved that year. As I said before, for me it’s his greatest managerial accomplishment and I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to beat it.
I'm afraid 2010/11 and beyond will have to wait until later in the week.
