Walker Vs Worthy

[First Wizard 0]

OK, the more astute amongst you will notice the time of my posting, I ain''t at Everton today, damn it!.

As everything in City land is great at the moment, and being at a loss as to what to do today, except worry for the lads, I thought I''d ask, who do you think had/has the edge as manager of NCFC?.

Now I''m a Walker man myself, his flair and passion for attractive football were well known to all the media, and public alike. OK, we got stuffed sometimes, but there were times when we also did the stuffing, remember the five at Everton!.

Even Walker Mk2 started to show signs of this until he was disgracefully sacked.

So what about Worthy?, up until a few months ago I would have said ''no contest'', but now, I just don''t know. MW inherited Stringers boys, so a lot of the foundations were already in place. But he also had to work under Chase.

Nigel has had to start form scratch so to speak, but with Delia instead of THAT man. Their styles are different, even their tactics are different. but they both had/have the same desire and passion for the club to do well.

I would really value your thoughts on this, I''m glad we had Mike Walker, I''m pleased we have Nigel Worthington, HELP.

I used to slagg off Worthy somthing rotten, lets be honest about that, but the man proved us doubters wrong, and left us to choke on our words. And that took a real man to do that. His capture of Hucks and Co was inspirational. So just how highly do YOU rate him against other past managers?.

Ain''t life great at the moment?. Win or lose today.

[grinner 0]

1st wizard i agree with you on your points on this one. difficult one to call. i think with my hand on my heart nw gets the nod. why, well i have never and i mean never felt so into my football ie ncfc, thats comeing from season ticket holder for the past 30 years. so yes nh gets it. i to am at home today,so its nearly 2pm time for mr adams and mr waller radio norfolk. what ever the result bring on bradford.

[Intenso 0]

The main difference is that Mike Walker inherited a side which during the previous three years had a 4th place finish in the top division and reached two FA Cup semi finals. The credit for that must go to Dave Stringer, while not forgetting Ken Brown, both of whom worked under Robert Chase. Let us not forget that Stringer never managed outside the top division, MW1 was only in charge for seventeen months. My thoughts of MK2 bring back memories of Ipswich 5 Norwich 0 while the likes of Port Vale and WBA scored eleven goals past us during a period of three days. I know his defence was that he was sacked following two 5-0 home wins but what he doesn''t say is that we were in 20th place going into April.
I would compare Nigel Worthington''s achievements with those of Ron Saunders as both had to start from scratch, so to reach our present lofty position I would certainly say well done Worthy. What the future holds is in the lap of the Gods but I do have a nagging feeling that Worthy, like Walker, might think the other man''s grass is greener. In which case he should look at Walker''s CV covering his Everton experience.

[Mook 0]

Yup, intenso points out that David Stringer was indeed responsible for Mike Walker''s team (first time round) and when he inherited a worse side he was incapable of changing it.

I always felt that Walker had a touch of the Venables about him, and I mean that in a bad way. A media-friendly guy that can talk a good game but couldn''t really cut it when the chips were down. As 1st Wizard mentioned, Walker made his desire for attractive football well-known to all but in the second period of his reign I don''t remember seeing it much!

Worthy gets my vote for his work after the DISASTER of Hamilton, and his obvious skills of man-management. Well done NW.

[Tumbleweed 106]

MW''s achievements were fantastic but as has been said before it was a team built by another man. That man would have had us in Europe had English clubs not been banned and took us to two FA Cup semi finals. NW has had to build from nothing when we were populated by under achievers and no hopers, taken us to Cardiff (rather than the Olympic stadium) and to the top of the league.

Howver, the picture is clouded because although MW took over someone else''s team, he was able to achieve so much more with them than Stringer. DS himself said that he felt he was "past his sell by date" and had done all he could. None of us ever dreamed of what would happen in that short dizzy spell. To see the league tables over the last dozen years in a national newspaper accompanying an article on who won the championship when leading at Christmas, I saw us there above Man Utd and it really sank in what MW achieved.

But, and its a big but, taking over another mans team and tweaking them into a much more potent force is diferent from building a team, slowly but surely, with limited resources and against a background of a fair amount of criticism when the fans are all desperate for a swift return to the promised land. To assemble that team and then turn them into a yet more potent force, even though we are in div 1 rather than the UEFA cup, has got to be a greater achievement. Last season we gave Chelsea a jolly good scare and Everton got one as well yesterday. OK we lost both but I think they show that with just a bit more work we won''t be far away from, well at least Everton. Chelsea have moved on a bit.

For me the real question is Stringer or Worthington. That''s a touch more tricky................