Differing fortunes for top managers

Ian Paul

14 Sep 1990

THERE is success and there is success.

Alex MacDonald, of Hearts, took his team out of the doldrums into the premier-division sunlight and ended up receiving the order of the boot, a message very few managers are able to avoid.

Jim Leishman, of Dunfermline, steered his team from the depths of the second division to the heady delights of the top league and ended up being offered a desk job that he interpreted as a gentler way of administering the old heave-ho.

As they ponder the vicissitudes of the sporting job in which only a miniscule percentage of performers survive, they would no doubt prefer not to hear about one of their number who is enjoying another kind of success altogether.

Franz Beckenbauer, the West German of guardsman bearing who led the international team to their World Cup triumph during the summer, is to be paid £4300 a day to oversee the fortunes -- that has to be the right word -- of Marseilles.

Beckenbauer had the choice of a collection of new jobs, but Bernard Tapie, the owner of the French club, has a rather persuasive manner, not to mention enough francs to wipe out half of Latin America's debt.

Yet how much of a role did Franz's talent play in the direction of the Germans to their great, if not memorable, accomplishment in Rome? The tactical awareness of the man and his ability to man-manage highly paid, egocentric, and no doubt self-motivated internationalists must be taken as read, based on results.

But was his a more difficult task than pulling together a motley collection of moderate footballers, improving them, and inspiring them to become far better than they otherwise could have imagined? MacDonald and Leishman were in at the beginning of their clubs' revivals.

They were there when the discussions about procuring £50,000 players had to be long and exhaustive.

It was they who had to make decisions about blends and skills and personalities, cajoling the lazy and encouraging the introspective.

Franz was never asked to sit in the dug-out at Forfar on a freezing November night watching hardy, but limited, lads attempting to lay the foundations of a dream that was as near impossible as makes no difference.

The fact that they realised that dream might well be the reward MacDonald and Leishman can cuddle for the rest of their lives along with the handsome pay-offs they surely received, but the frustration they must feel is a legacy that perhaps will last just as long.

Only time will tell whether Hearts and Dunfermline were right, but Iain Munro, in the case of Dunfermline, and Mr X, in Hearts' instance, know that they have some acts to follow.

Munro, of course, has been very much part of the motivation behind the Fifers and provides a continuity that should serve the club well.

At Tynecastle the new man must face the fact that, in his case, success is winning a major trophy.

No more, no less.

It was the only gap in MacDonald's managerial spell, one he came heartbreakingly close to closing in the championship a few years ago.

If that target is a daunting prospect, it will not prevent the managerial high-fliers queuing up at Wallace Mercer's door.

There is one born every minute .

.

.

and one sacked every hour.

Taken from the Herald