Shotts never cut it as a manager. Throwing his scarf into the beech road stand as a parting gift. Whenever questioned post match on an away defeat all we got was "Well, you were there, what do you think?" Absolute legend but came up short when in charge.....perhaps.".distance lends enchancement" and all that. Great that our result is the first he looks for. Top man.
Did a job when first came in as manager and turned round a similarly lacking in confidence OUFC squad as now in a short time..... in the longer term he was forced to sell players to balance the books and was soon very disillusioned by the chairman's aspirations for oùfc vastly differing from his......yes it didn't end Well,shotts tenure as manager, but, how much of that situation was down to the then owner? What happened behind the scenes at that time I guess we'll never know the details of
He did indeed save our bacon when he first took on the job. He even received a number of Sports Personality of the Year nominations I believe, as noted by the presenters if memory serves!
Still remember the goosebumps for his first game in charge, despite not having seen him as a player.
On his ultimate failure as a manger, I have no doubt that he was in a very difficult position with difficult circumstances. However, I also feel that his apparent Major General style of management is the kind that leads to short term benefits - and particularly when a team is struggling - but becomes increasingly unpopular and unsuccessful over a longer period of time.
Particularly given the personalities of modern footballers who don’t respond well to being constantly bellowed at.
That’s all conjecture however and he of course remains an Oxford legend - perhaps even the greatest of them all in many eyes.
Finally, am I right in thinking that a coded message for Shotton was left in his ghost written programme notes for what proved to be his last game? I seem to recall that someone in the back office was irked by his behaviour and decided to start each paragraph with a letter which spelt out a less than flattering phrase. Someone on here will know I’m sure!
