| So Farewell Then
The jury was still out then, although the messageboards, chants and results have gradually come to say the same thing. It’s taken too long for the inevitable to happen but, now that he’s gone and we’ve got a better season in prospect, it’s worth taking a little time to wonder how we’ll remember this most singular of managers. For whilst Roddy has similarities to a few others who’ve led the team his main claim to any affectionate place in the hearts of the Blue Army will surely be that he was –arguably – the greatest character ever to have taken on the role. The understated Ashman and the downright dour Stokoe may be the real legends but Roddy’s self-belief was something else. Al Woodcock had it right in his retrospective ‘Roddy Collins would have made a great winner.’ Hell, if the team had delivered on the pitch a striding Roddy in his matchday suit would have been worth a goal start in the shabby apologies for grounds that pass muster as homes to half of the third division. A couple of days after Roddy got his job I did a phone in on Radio Cumbria as we discussed events ahead of the 2001 kick off. I did some homework ringing some mates in Ireland. I can’t remember the exchanges word for word but a couple went like this: - What do you reckon to Roddy Collins? And - What do you reckon to Roddy Collins? All of which suggested that even the Irish didn’t really know whether the guy had the ability. They did know that Roddy had attitude. Which, when all is said and done, is the one thing we’ll remember above all else. Long after we’ve lost touch with the sequence of results that saw us creep off the bottom and turn over a few teams two seasons ago we’ll remember Roddy making his least favourite players train in the city centre. Similarly we’ll remember the times when it got deep down and dirty and the only option was guts. The second and third last games of last season for starters. The one prediction I managed to make about Shrewsbury was that there would never be twenty two players on the pitch at the end. To be honest, I’m surprised we finished with a full complement in Shropshire. I’m not surprised Roddy got a team slogging for survival to fight harder than Torquay and Shrewsbury when the only other option was complete failure. But we’re better than that, despite the results of the last five seasons. And we deserve a better boss. So how good was he? Well, not great. Any real star could have shown something in the time Roddy had. So many signings, some never seen in anger, just over a quarter of his games won. Some of our other famous nightmare managers worked with less. Aiden McCaffery for one. Aiden seemingly got the job because he was willing to do it and worked on no money, no talent and no hope. Roddy came into better and had enough flair in the side – especially last season - to have achieved something better league wise. Faced with McCaffery’s slender squad, heavily packed with the terminally talentless and walking wounded seeing out their last contracted months I doubt if Roddy could have kept us away from Stevenage and Gravesend. Roddy had better financial support by the end than some who’ve achieved more. Clive Middlemass took us to the top of the bottom division with a team woefully short of real flair. Admittedly, he seemed to have learned at the Workington Academy of no Nonsense Kick and Run football. But you’d have thought after Roddy’s results in the equally grim set up in Ireland that the same thing was possible with him at the helm. In his defence Roddy did deliver something McCaffery and Middlemass could never have managed. The trip to Cardiff might have owed something to luck, frozen pitches and better teams drawing each other in the Northern half of the draw, but there were moments when a roaring Roddy did get an extra effort from his players. Never more so than when they held Bristol City at bay for most of the match. We knew it couldn’t last but Roddy looked the part strutting around before kick off and waving the team forward in the deafening din of the Millennium Stadium. It’s the one memory of him I’ll always treasure. It might have been a liability at times – like away at Boston – but the man was always a fighter. You’d have to sink to the pathetic levels of Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson, Martin Wilkinson or Michael Knighton before you find a Carlisle manager genuinely as bad as Roddy on results and yet in other areas his abilities outshine those apparently more gifted. Bobby Moncur had mediocrity written all over his diminutive mug. To Moncur’s credit he opened his ‘New Managers Book of the Blindingly Obvious’ to bring in youth, restart a reserve team, snap up a few bargains, and adopt formations you’d recognise as having some tactical merit. Roddy’s approach to similar matters had a more scattergun approach. Where Moncur listened to old mates and snagged Beardsley, Roddy seemed happy to sign up half of County Wexford in the hope of finding one winner. For all that, Moncur never enjoyed the affection we lavished on Roddy in the early days. Above all we love a fighter. Roddy’s apologists were in evidence to the very last days on the Internet boards. Wilkinson was near enough universally hated for a whole season, and it still continues. September 16th at the Sixfields can’t come soon enough for most of us. Roddy’s fighting qualities were in there with the other greatest enigmas to manage Carlisle, Ian Atkins and Ian MacFarlane. Atkins in particular inspired us all despite the results and scared the hell out of me the one time I met him right after a game. A snarling, swearing monster who’d just seen his team unjustly beaten by Orient. Every bit as tough as Roddy, and all the better for it. So, the man’s crowd pleasing was way ahead of his tactical grasp. The affection we hold for him may increase over time, something that’ll never happen for Martin Wilkinson or Bobby Moncur. Managerially he’d have to go down just above the real nightmares. Somewhere shoulder to shoulder with David McCreery – although I doubt either would enjoy hanging out with the other for long. Yet the odd thing is, despite the bluster, the nerve shredding hours spent watching moves almost coming off, and the total mismatch of Roddy’s promises with the actual achievements, he’s hard to dislike once he’s out of the way. More reminiscent of some mad uncle who might just deliver one day. And that, when you get right down to it, is the real memory I for one will take from Roddy Collins. The man who would never walk away from a fight. That much drive and commitment can pay off and for Roddy it might just do so one day. Some of the other names here managed Carlisle and found their true levels assisting and scouting for others. ‘Pop’ Robson contributed to Manchester United’s current success but at such a low level that most Manchester United fans couldn’t tell you where he fitted into the background. Roddy on the other hand, will never fit behind the scenes. Somewhere, someday he might just appear big, loud and successful on our television screens. I doubt if it will involve leading out a successful football team. I wonder if he’s ever considered managing and training boxers. Neil Nixon |
