Facing the future

Stewart Fisher on the legacy Tony Mowbray leaves at Easter Road

HIBS players lost a life coach as much as a football coach when Tony Mowbray left for West Bromwich Albion this week. At times during the Englishman’s two and a half years at Easter Road not only were the horizons around the club lifted beyond recognition, to a point where even the most idealised scenario of the most crazed fan suddenly seemed believable, but Mowbray also seemed to inhabit a moral universe where the normal realities of life were suspended and all the odds could be overturned by a belief in playing football and living your life in the right manner.

There is no finer footballing epitaph to his time in Scotland than the fact that when he denied he was leaving Hibs to become West Bromwich Albion’s new manager last Friday everyone respected his honesty so much that they regarded it as the end of the matter. But it wasn’t. When the full truth emerged, Mowbray disappointed everyone simply by being human.

But it is the sheer rationality of the decision that must have dismayed Hibs fans the most, and the sudden realisation of the shudderingly short shelflife that even the most insiprational managers outwith the Old Firm are forced to aspire to. When he takes over at the Hawthorns on Wednesday, Mowbray will have traded a Scottish team which must confront the prospect of selling its best players every season for a team which began the weekend in seventh place in the Championship, with genuine hopes of returning to the Premiership, possibly as early as next May. Unlike Ipswich, who ironically they met in a league match yesterday, there is money to spend and a decent calibre of squad to work with. Apart from a few notable exceptions – Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson definitely, and maybe Merouane Zemmama, Steven Fletcher and David Murphy – Hibs fans needn’t be too worried about him raiding his old club for their players. He inherits a squad that already includes established stars such as Pascal Zuberbhuler, Nathan Ellington, Zoltan Gera and Jason Koumas, and if they make it to the Premiership as planned he is even less likely to be troubling teams in the middle reaches of the SPL for their players.

It certainly won’t be the raw statistics of Mowbray’s reign that live on in the memory. He leaves a side in seventh place in the SPL table, struggling to recreate third and fourth place finishes in his two full seasons in charge. Twin Intertoto adventures also ended fruitlessly, as did a second leg Uefa Cup bashing from a Dnipro team which cruelly exposed his side’s occasional but undeniable naivete. In fact, the cruellest interpretation of his reign was the reminder that even his predecessor, Bobby Williamson came closer than him to actually winning anything, with their 2-0 CiS Cup final defeat to Livingston.

“It is certainly a regret in my head as I sit here today,” said Mark Venus, who is likely to join up with his old mentor at the Hawthorns before Mowbray formally takes charge on Wednesday. “It would have been the icing on the cake for him and for me. I believe and I always say this to the football players, that you can play football for 20 years and earn 20 grand a week but it doesn’t make you feel any better. He [Williamson] was unlucky, he got to a final, had a great run, knocked Rangers and Celtic out and got to the final. We got to two semi-finals and it wasn’t to be. Silverware has got to be the aim at the start of every season.”

Venus does harbour ambitions to manage in his own right and so far he and the club’s chief scout and academy director John Park have only been asked to see the club through this afternoon’s Edinburgh derby. It already seems implausible, however, that any of the three would be keen to see the break-up of a formidable team. The smart money would be on Venus arriving as Mowbray’s assistant as early as today, and possibly even Park following in the sporting and technical director role which was created in July but remains vacant. Such an eventuality would leave Mark Proctor, only recently arrived from Darlington, as the only tangible link with the old regime.

On Thursday afternoon, hours after Mowbray had broken the news of his departure to an unbelieving and tearful bunch of players, there was hope that their manager would live on as a state of mind amongst the players, particularly going into the derby.

“I am sure Tony’s philosophies are embedded in the player’s minds, and I am sure they will take that into the game on Sunday,” said Park. “His knowledge and game awareness, I am sure they will take that on to the pitch. I think we are quite fortunate that it is Hearts this weekend rather than AN Other. The Hearts game takes care of itself, because the boys will be pumping themselves up for that no end, they could probably play that without a manager.

“My own view is that Tony could manage England,” added Park. “He is different class. He will go a long, long way in the game. We have been fortunate to have him here for a few years, along with Mark. I can’t have enough praise for both of them here and it is actually a sad loss for us. His man-management, his skills towards people, and his humility, he has just been unbelievable.”

Whether or not this fabled spirit of Mowbray can indeed be bottled and kept is a moot point, but where his departure leaves Hibs immediately is in the horns of another managerial selection process. The club were circumspect last time around, spreading the net wide and taking references from all over before pulling a rabbit from the hat in the form of Mowbray, although it was approaching the end of the Scottish season that time around and the club wanted to respect the wishes of Ipswich, who were still involved in the play-offs.

They are likely to go down the same route this time, albeit marginally quicker, which suggests the name could come from left-field. Already there are no shortage of candidates involved. The Easter Road stands this afternoon will include Falkirk management duo John Hughes and Brian Rice, Archie Knox and Billy Brown, not to mention a seat reserved for Nottingham Forest manager Colin Calderwood, which may yet may be taken up instead by Forest’s first-team coach Ian McParland. Craig Brewster, another former Hibs player who has previously been unmentioned but is keen on bringing through youth players, and would view Hibs as a step-up from a backdrop of turmoil at Tannadice, will also be in attendance. Mixu Paatelainen, John Robertson, John Collins and Craig Levein are other names who have been linked with the post.

There is certainly no shortage of gratitude from the playing staff. “He has been a massive influence on my own career,” said Murphy, the left-back plucked from injury and obscurity at Middlesbrough by his former gaffer, and one who may just be worth coming back in for.

“In fact, he has changed it around. When I first came here, I had had a bad time with injuries, and he had faith in me. He knew I could be a player, and I think the results we’ve had show that he turned me into one. Sometimes I wonder where I would be if it hadn’t been for him.

“I think the main thing the gaffer did when he came here was that he tried to breed a lifestyle, you have got to live your life right. He didn’t mind you going out to have a drink as long as you trained right and lived your life right. Will it continue at this club if he goes? I would think so because he has changed a lot of people’s lives around at this club and I would like to think that would continue.

“I don’t know if I would say if it was his legacy, but a lot of people would carry it on. When he first came here, the likes of Scotty Brown were all young boys, you look at them now and they are all fantastic players. They have progressed so much.”

Where they, and indeed the entire club, go from here is anybody’s guess.

Taken from the Sunday Herald