1. Basil Hayward 2. Neal Cooper 3. Paul Taylor 4. Mike Flanagan 5. Glenn Roeder pretty grim all of them!
Gotta be room for Keith Burkenshaw in there. Not sure he did anything particularly bad, but he came with a top flight resume behind him and I for one expected great things. I suppose you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I would put Iffy and the Doc somewhere in that list - they presided over some of the most spineless Gills performances I've ever witnessed. A hugely depressing 0-4 at the City Ground springs to mind - we really should have lost 10-0 but thankfully Derek Stillie kept the score down.
I remember his incoming brief interview on TVS when we all had great expectations that he would be our saviour. He said he would try his hardest but he could not work miracles. He didn't!...and down we went, after being the longest serving team in Div 3 (League 1). Yes, he was a disapointment, but at least he was honest.
1 Paul Taylor, a complete disaster and his reign was the beginning of the dark dark days. 2 Mick Flanagan, tactically hopeless and when interviewed totally out of his depth 3 Neale Cooper, some really poor signings from north of the border who would have been more suited playing sunday league pub football. 4 Ronnie Jepson, left us with a squad that would have taken us down into the conference. 5 Stan Ternant, was in charge when we were relegated from the championship and then walked out, not a fan.
Iffy? Great player but tooo laid back to be a manager. I saw his last game before the arrival of the Bald One (Bristol Rovers at home) He came strolling out after half time, way behind the players. He face was a picture when the game kicked off, and the Pirates put one in our net before he even reached the bench!
Right for starters Stan Ternant was a decent manager you can't have him. Keith Peaccock was clearly our best manager if you liked to watch entertaining football. the worst five are............... 1. Hessy 2nd Around 2. Hessy 1st time around 3. Ronnie Jepson 4. Neal Cooper 5. Mick Flanagan
Ternant had to pick up the mess that Hessy left the squad in. Hessy jumped ship when things were going tits up, people forget that fact. Stan was a class act but had nothing to work with.
Lets not forget that Hess took possibly the most talented squad of players in the clubs history and failed to build on it. He took a club on the up and caused it to nose dive
Lets not forget Hess took on a club in financial melt-down and had to sell all the best players, Ternant was given money to bring in 2 premiership players and then ran out when it didn't work.
Financial meltdown? I would have thought that the club was in its best financial position for a long while, championship attendance and prize monies. As for the selling of the best players both Taylor and Saabs went under Taylor... but I am intrigued do go on
BSG, We were between £12 or £13m in debt but I guess that was Hess's fault as well, as for Taylor and sarbs your own post states " the most talented squad of players in the clubs history" so you obviously didn't include those 2 as among the most talented.
Fair point on the debt, but we all know that was the fault of ITV Digital , not that Scally ever brings that up!! I think that the Taylor squad was collectively better than the Pulis squad including Taylor and Saabs. But your point of being forced to sale was misleading, the best players like Pennock, Ashby, Smith were allowed to play past their best. Hess was allowed to strengthen the squad despite the debt but the players he brought in, excluding King, weren't up to it (Perpentuni et al)
The players Hess brought in were mostly cheap in Championship terms, Pulis spent a fortune building his team in comparison (Stimson also did a lot of spending)
Hessy kept us in the second tier of football for 4 or 5 unforgettable seasons. Which i don t think we will ever see again. Legend !!!!
I guess it all depends on what you class as success, if you are looking purely at league position then you are forced to say that Hess was the best. But then you are forced to say that Hess was a better manager than Taylor and Pulis which feels wrong. If you look at promotion then Allen is the best in the last 30 or so year, again this doesn't seem right. How I like to look at it is that is the club in a better position than when the manager took over. Under Hess the first time we did have a couple of very good season before we began to decline, I felt the writing was on the rule after the third season, the team was in decline after that and Hess couldn't stop the rot. If Hess had stepped aside at that time I think he would have been successful in my opinion, alas he stayed on and this damaged his reputation. Arguably I think Hess' second time was better than the first, Hess steadied the ship and the club improved under his tenure
Asaba played in the play off final (Taylors last match) so he was sold by Hess when after we went up. As for the worst managers mine would be Cooper, Jepson, and Flanagan, Cooper came with a good reputation and I was pleased with his appointment at the time, but he started badly signed poor players and we have been trying to recover ever since.
