Mark McGhee, the man branded a ‘Judas’ after walking out on Leicester City for Wolves in the 90’s, was being mentioned today as a possible managerial partner for Rob Kelly.
GT Fox on Rivals The Fox Fanzine prompted debate by posting that McGhee will ‘resign after Saturday’s match and team up with Kelly and Stowell’.
Whether that is even remotely possible and whether McGhee has expressed any interest in swopping a managership for a joint effort is anyone’s guess but unlikely.
Certainly Kelly are McGhee are old friends and City’s caretaker manager said on the official website yesterday: ‘I worked with Mark at Wolves for a season and I got on really well with him’. But, Kelly was discussing the upcoming match against Brighton not a job-share.
McGhee is the man who joined Leicester after Brian Little’s departure in November 1994 and failed to stop City sliding out of the Premiership with only six wins in their 42-games season.
The following year City were top of Division One when McGhee walked out to join Wolves and provoked an outcry among City fans.
McGhee has since expressed his regret about that and some fans have clearly forgiven him because a good selection of regular posters this morning, particularly on Talking Balls, said they would either welcome him or at least accept his return.
However, his Leicester walkout wasn’t the only black mark in McGhee’s managerial career.
On October 16, for instance, writing in the Scotsman, journalist Alan Robson referred to McGhee and his assistant Archie Knox as being dismissed by Millwall and ‘seemingly paying the price for an irretrievable breakdown in relations between the club’s players and supporters.’
Millwall were only six points off the top of the Nationwide Division One at the time but McGhee, in Robson’s words, ‘had increasingly found himself at loggerheads with his squad over a contracts stand-off in recent weeks and his exit was not seen as a great surprise.’
McGhee has managed five clubs since 1991.
At Brighton his record as listed on Soccerbase is: P118, W35, D34, L49.
At Millwall: P163, W75, D39, L49.
At Wolves: P159, W65, D39, L55.
At Leicester: P51, W16, D14, L21.
At Reading: P183, W79, D51, L53.
It is hard to imagine that Brighton would allow a manager to take control of a relegation rival he was likely to join on Monday so the scenario seems extremely unlikely to be played out.
But the apparent extent of fans forgiveness was a compliment to the sort of football McGhee encourages, if nothing else.
A final point concerns Kelly himself. He might have admitted to a good working relationship with McGhee but win or lose at Brighton, Kelly is an undoubtedly popular man at Leicester.
Quite apart from providing the lifeline of two unlikely Championship victories he has presided over a production line of young talent for the club as a coach.
Would he risk that esteem by linking himself with a man who walked out on City and who reportedly presided, in part, over so much disharmony at Millwall?
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