Good to see John Toshack getting some well earned recognition from another former player,the goalkeeping legend,Neville Southall. Southall says that the current Wales manager,Gary Speed,is reaping the benefits of Toshack's youth policy when he was in charge. Toshack is often much maligned on this Board,not by me,I hasten to add,and I hope that his detractors can at least see some veracity in Southall's words. Full article ref.; http.//news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/football/15465713.stm
Agreed completely. I think he was the victim of the collective egos of Savage et al and was seriously harshly treated.
The whole youth level set-up was a complete shambles before Tosh put Flynn there. If nothing else, John should be respected for that!! I felt up to maybe 3 years ago, we could reap the rewards in the near future, once those 'building-blocks' were put in place. Don't get me started on the 'I feel I'm bigger than the National team types'!!.......
toshack was just that ...TOSH ..we are reaping rewards because of a better set up and nothing to do with him ...
Tosh had belief in the youth, unlike previous regimes. His results were not good, but there is no way half of our young players would be at the standard they are now without the exposure to international football. Glad he's gone, but glad he was there
if tosh then why did we slip to the bottom of the Rankin's and why since we have got rid of him have we climbed to 45 in the Rankin's.. tosh my arse, all he managed to do is make us a laughing stock of the football world...things are a lot brighter now he has gone that you cannot deny unless you have been living on the planet zonk....tosh pffffft
please log in to view this image I'm not a fan of Toshacks managerial skills, or shall we say the lack of them, and if anyone thinks that the exodus of our senior players was down to player petulance then they are deluded, Toshack was from a bygone era, and he never moved with the times, and his record with Wales stands as a testimony to that fact. Having said that, the one good thing he did get right, was giving Brain Flynn the job of reconstructing our youth setup, and Brian Flynn certainly turned out to be the man for the job, and I'm pleased that Flynn is still in charge of what is a very important position, there is still plenty to improve on though, with regard to youth development, it's far from perfect, and it would help if clubs like Neath and Llanelli, could develop some professionalism with the way they coach the youth, all this of course comes under the supervision of the FAW, so don't hold your breath!.......................... please log in to view this image
Dragon, you beat me to this. A lot of the credit should go to Mr Flynn. he has changed the under 21's in to a very competative side and now the full side is getting the benefits.
Wasn't Flynn the same guy who took a load of abuse for overseeing the longest losing streak at u-21 level? 20 games or something? Tosh put him there so he deserves some of that credit.
I could tell you a few stories regarding Toshack, Scotty, one of the stories was from his own village he used to live in up the road from me (Three Crosses), he was asked to officiate at the village function, and he told the village the fee would be £10,000 pounds!!!.........Well you can imagine the local reaction to that, needless to say they told him to sling his hook!................. please log in to view this image Further more Scotty, Toshack and I had something in common, that being the old Chairman of Swansea city, whose name was Malcolm Struel, now Malcolm Struel while being the Chairman of Swansea City when Toshack was in charge, was also my Solicitor and a business associate I had in those days, all the way up to the time when Malcolm Struel moved to Neath Rugby club, both Malcom and myself had plenty of conversations regarding Swansea City, and John Toshack, and sufficient to say that Toshack's man management skills are not the best, but I do recognise the great work he did for Swansea city in those days. When Malcolm Struel went into semi-retirement, he took up consultancy for Smith Llewellyn partnership where he managed many contracts for both rugby and football players, I was privileged to have lunch alongside Malcolm Struel and Jonathan Davies, after his signing to go north to rugby league. anyway the bottom line is, I could write a book on John toshack!...........................
I have to agree with Dragon and Dai on this one... Tosh I think did a lot of damage...I'm not so sure it was necesary to have so many youngsters in the team. A nice blend would have been ideal. But in the the time that Tosh has apparently been brave and played all the youngsters, we were losing matches and playing horrible football...But also, I'm not so sure Tosh had a choice about playing the youngsters...There was no one else! Or the only ones left were league 1 and championship journeymen. I don't want to have a downer on the guy, but he really did oversee an awful period in Welsh football history. Some credit has to go to him for being the person that was playing the youngsters, but really, I thought at the time, that he was probably doing more damage to them than good... But, lets not get ahead of ourselves about our current national team. We are no champions just yet...There is still a lot of work to be done...and results to pick up. (just like the rugby team funnily enough) This coming qualifying tournament could be a really good chance to do something. No teams really stand out to me. Maybe that was the best thing Tosh did. We lost so many games, that our position put us in the lowest possible seeded group, which somehow worked out for us, that we have got the most winnable group -not trying to be complacent, I understand that all the teams have a chance of beating everyone else - but it's and oppertunity!
Tosh didn't get a good blend because he couldn't put up with the big time charlies like Savage - so thay all left. He got the youngsters playing football, admittedly not winning football and now Speed is getting the benefit. Speed however, has to take the credit for getting us winning again!
tosh was to big for his boots and a bad manager that lost all respect that 18 players either retired early or would not play for him, he gets zilch credit for ruining what mark Hughes built up and making us a laughing stock. Flynn was the man who built the youth team up, thank god he has gone....
Players were leaving before Mark Hughes left - including Speed. Hughes had our best generation and cocked it up with a negative performance out in Serbia.
Mark Hughes had a pretty decent squad and blew it. Take a close look at his record - with the players he had at his disposal our results should have been much better. The 2-1 win against Italy was the high point then after that we sunk like a concrete Zeppelin. Tosh? You love him or hate him. I hated the results but I loved what he was trying to do. It was always going to be an impossible task given the kids and the lower league journeymen, masquerading as international players, that he was so often forced to play. Had the likes of Giggs stayed on for a while to help the kids come through, we might have seen better results. But that's another story.
tosh is responsible for players not wanting to play for wales, 18 players under his reign says so......he took wales to oblivion and despair. he should have gone much earlier as he never earned the big money he was on, you only have to look at the fans who left in droves, we had 72000 under mark Hughes but could not muster 10,000 under tosh......tells a big story that....
You can argue this one till the cows come home - there is an element of truth in everyones posts, but no one is going to totally agree!
Scottswan The manager who was in charge of that dreadful run of no wins for the u21s was Jimmy Shoulder I think. I'm sure it was as much as 30 odd games before they won. But I'd have to clarify that. It was a ridiculous amount of games without scoring too!! <Ok>
