Adrian Heath - Thoughts?

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I thought it was genius how he saved wasting time with post match interviews, and made his excuses for losing pre-match instead.
 
1danewhitehouse said:
Very, very poor manager for us but did make some decent signings in Martin Smith, Shaun Murphy and Marcus Bent considering the budget we were operating on.
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Exactly how I remember it. He had a decent eye for a player and may well have been a good coach but he was a wank manager.

He took Spackman's promotion seekers (less a few sales - thanks, Mike McDonlad) and turned them into relegation fodder.

He was a nasty narky little twat as a player and had a fight with Littlejohn for no good reason.

Grade A tosspot in my book.
 
I should coco said:
Exactly how I remember it. He had a decent eye for a player and may well have been a good coach but he was a wank manager.

He took Spackman's promotion seekers (less a few sales - thanks, Mike McDonlad) and turned them into relegation fodder.

He was a nasty narky little twat as a player and had a fight with Littlejohn for no good reason.

Grade A tosspot in my book.
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I understand from a reliable source that he had a similar issue to Robson. This was according to someone who worked with him at another club.
 
Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but my memory of Heath when he was in charge of us is that he was a bit of a grey drip. These days, he's reinvented himself as some sort of bellowing, chest beating, fist pumping, Neil Warnock rip off.

His teams are still shit though.
 

WalthamstowBlade said:
Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but my memory of Heath when he was in charge of us is that he was a bit of a grey drip. These days, he's reinvented himself as some sort of bellowing, chest beating, fist pumping, Neil Warnock rip off.

His teams are still shit though.
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He was dull and sounded a bit lost. Can't imagine as chief cheerleader, too many pancakes and syrup for breakfast maybe!
 
A stand out memory for me was releasing Tri Dellas saying "I've seen how many games he played last season and I don't think he'll be missed".

Dellas went on to play for Roma and was a key player as Greece won the European Championship in 2004.

Wouldn't really call him a cunt though, just out of his depth like Weir.
 
Extremely poor for us but one thing I will say is he had an eye for a player.

Shaun Murphy
Martin Smith
Marcus Bent

All signed by Heath during his short time with the club for very little money and went on to be decent players for us.... just not under him.
 
YES Blade said:
The match that many callers would say on radio Sheffield that they were there that night, you would have thought it was a record high attendance.

Just for the record, I was there that night! Big Blade me! :D
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Beat me to it.

I was there too

:)
 
SwissBlade said:
They're mammals
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No, they're not. They're fish. I think you may be getting confused with whales and dolphins? Anyhow, now we know what sharks are, we still have to decide what Adrian Heath is/was. I think he is an insect.
 
CrookesBlade said:
A stand out memory for me was releasing Tri Dellas saying "I've seen how many games he played last season and I don't think he'll be missed".

Dellas went on to play for Roma and was a key player as Greece won the European Championship in 2004.

Wouldn't really call him a cunt though, just out of his depth like Weir.
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I think that's bang on actually. So, Heath was another in a long line of managers, before and since, that the club have chosen to appoint even though they have no previous management experience. OK, so all good managers have to start somewhere. But the place for doing that is in the non-leagues and learning your trade, the way Wilder has done for example. What you don't do is take a complete rookie and put him in charge of a monster of a club that is going through difficult times - as Sheffield United was back then - under the infamous McDonald chairmanship. Our club has made this mistake time and time again.

Adrian Heath was a very good footballer, a big name in a small frame. Our Board at the time felt that it was giving them cuedos attracting such a big name player to come in as manager. But he really hadn't a clue how to manage - and Sheffield United was no place for him to learn his trade.

He was, as you say, clearly out of his depth and he at least had the dignity to recognise that and walk away.

When I think back of him as a manager, I think he was a poor one at the time, but then again what on earth did we expect? He wasn't a lady's front part for me, but the idiots who appointed him were.
 
Is my memory playing tricks or was he our assistant manager for a time too? I seem to recall that when he left that post we had a dip in form, and using some twisted logic there was actually optimism at his returning as manager.
 
Blade for Sale said:
Is my memory playing tricks or was he our assistant manager for a time too? I seem to recall that when he left that post we had a dip in form, and using some twisted logic there was actually optimism at his returning as manager.
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Was a playing assistant manager under Kendall for a while.
 
Cerberus Blade said:
But the place for doing that is in the non-leagues and learning your trade, the way Wilder has done for example. What you don't do is take a complete rookie and put him in charge of a monster of a club that is going through difficult times
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Ahh. but it worked so well with Martin Peters it was always worth trying again.
 
Cerberus Blade said:
I think that's bang on actually. So, Heath was another in a long line of managers, before and since, that the club have chosen to appoint even though they have no previous management experience. OK, so all good managers have to start somewhere. But the place for doing that is in the non-leagues and learning your trade, the way Wilder has done for example. What you don't do is take a complete rookie and put him in charge of a monster of a club that is going through difficult times - as Sheffield United was back then - under the infamous McDonald chairmanship. Our club has made this mistake time and time again.

Adrian Heath was a very good footballer, a big name in a small frame. Our Board at the time felt that it was giving them cuedos attracting such a big name player to come in as manager. But he really hadn't a clue how to manage - and Sheffield United was no place for him to learn his trade.

He was, as you say, clearly out of his depth and he at least had the dignity to recognise that and walk away.

When I think back of him as a manager, I think he was a poor one at the time, but then again what on earth did we expect? He wasn't a lady's front part for me, but the idiots who appointed him were.
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Whilst I think Heath was a poor manager, particularly tactically, he did have previous managerial experience. He was manager at Burnley towards the end of 1995-6 and all of 1996-7.

Heath didn't get the job because of his name. He got the job because he knew Mike McDonald and would do as he was told.

I agree with your wider point. Rookie managers are a bad idea as a rule.

Permanent United managers with no previous managerial experience:

Joe Mercer
Martin Peters
Billy McEwan
Nigel Spackman
Steve Bruce
Gary Speed
David Weir

Mercer eventually got the hang of it after a bad start at United. Bruce gets mixed reviews but knows what he's doing. The others...not so good.
 
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They were getting turned over by Columbus Crew t'other day and the commentator said summat like "There aren't many better motivators than Adrian Heath" I nearly choked on my maple syrup.

That said, I did finally get to see Maxime Chanot play. He turned out for New York alongside 57 year old David Villa.
 

Cerberus Blade said:
No, they're not. They're fish. I think you may be getting confused with whales and dolphins? Anyhow, now we know what sharks are, we still have to decide what Adrian Heath is/was. I think he is an insect.
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Aye we had this discussion months ago ;)
 
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