Excerpt from a Western Mail article printed on Monday 10th April 2000.
Job-for-life Offer Is On Cards For Hollins If Swans Make The Climb
Karl Woodward Chief Soccer Writer – Western Mail
SWANS are ready to offer John Hollins a long-term future as manager of a team needing eight points from the last five games to secure automatic promotion.
Neil McClure – whose company, Ninth Floor, owns the club – and chairman Steve Hamer want the 53-year-old former Chelsea manager to stay at the Vetch Field for the rest of his career.
“John has 12 months of his contract to run with an option for another year,” said McClure. “If we go up everything at the club will need looking at.
“The board will review contracts and John Hollins will certainly get my vote for an extended contract. He is doing an excellent job and an awful lot of good work with the youngsters as well as with the first team.”
When is this administration going to learn from its previous mistakes?
In the past 3 years we have seen them waste money paying off the contracts of a succession of managers and players. Add to that, compensation paid to admin staff and it is no wonder there has been hardly anything spent on team improvement.
After a record like this you’d think they’d be safeguarding their options not creating another hostage to fortune.
Sadly, offering any manager a job for life, just shows how remote these people are from reality.
Can anyone remember the success Frank Burrows had at Cardiff this time last year?
Was his achievement any more remarkable than that of John Hollins?
Where is Frankie boy now?
Not the manager of Cardiff.
Why is it assumed that John Hollins is immune to the ill-fortune that befell Frankie? Hopefully he is, but it’s not guaranteed.
By all means reward him with an ex-gratia payment if you must, as there is no doubting he has achieved success with very little financial support from the boardroom.
But please gentlemen, do not tie the club down to another crippling pay-off that may hamsrtring any future manager’s scope for manoeuvre.
The fans won’t take a “We had to pay off John Hollins so can’t afford to spend on the team” excuse again.
Some problems are unavoidable – let’s not stack the odds against us as well.