The Sports Psychology Blog
This Sports Psychology blog, comes as Brighton & Hove Albion sack manager Micky Adams, after a disappointing season.
Football: Micky Adams - No Going Back
So Micky Adams is sacked as Brighton manager. Many of the Albion faithful, have been calling for his head for months now. And this, after he was welcomed in May 2008, as the returning Messiah. It just goes to prove, that in football, you should never go back.
There are very few instances of managers, who having been lured back to successful old haunts, repeat their success. It's understandable that a successful manager from the past, should want to return to an old job. The fans see that manager, as someone who knows how to get success. Understands the clubs values. Has a rapport with the fans. Gets the best out of players. And that was true. Then.
This is now. Players move on. And managers can stay the same. The conditions, which have led to past success, are no longer in place. Things aren't as they were. Success must happen, people think. Why? Because it happened before.
No one can put their finger, on why it isn't happening. But The Messiah seems to have lost his magic touch. See Kevin Keegan at Newcastle United. Paul Fairclough at Stevenage. Alan Buckley at Grimsby Town. Mark Wright is trying unsuccessfully, to recreate the best of the past, at Chester. There are others. But it rarely works out.
Sometimes, certain conditions are in place, which create a successful team. A combination of management team and style; leaders and winners, on and off the pitch; the right blend of players; a sympathetic board; the club needing direction. It all comes together, in that time and place. And only then.
It's romantic to look back at the past, and want to recreate it in the present. But the lesson of Micky Adams and Brighton, tells us, that it is nothing more than an illusion.
