Morrison: the new loyalty scheme

(Pic: Laurie Rampling)

I WAS going to make a gag about watching all 13 movies within the Halloween film series and it taking you about 20-and-a-half hours.

Alternatively, there was another jest about how you could sit through 12 hours of horrors from West Bromwich Albion’s period under Eric Ramsay and it saving yourself a good seven hours to get some sleep.

You choose.

Either way, I can't be bothered to go down that pathway of humour; nobody is laughing right now.

I’m not going to dissect Eric Ramsay’s period as manager, nor do I care much for Ryan Mason’s spell as boss. Suffice to say I hope we can learn to never speak of their 34 League games again.

It has been a miserable situation for all involved, including, dare I say, the two managers also. Imagine having to manage some of these players... jeez.

There is an inevitable focus on the Bilkul involvement within this dynamic. It feels like too much of a Route One strategy to heap too much criticism at their feet. If they don’t know it’s gone badly, they never will - be it through the appointment of Andrew Nestor, or the failed recruitment of three managers, the blundering Bilkul group have plundered their way through a series of chronic decisions. They won’t need reminding of that.

What happens between now and May defines all.

Behind the scenes there will be some feeling of optimism.

Perhaps.

A football club amid a crisis of results is an unpleasant environment. Within a training ground there will be a tip-toeing around of non-footballing staff, a general sense of paranoia, and, essentially, a fear of saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, to the wrong person. And that’s when there is merely a poor set of results to worry about. It is fairly toxic and unpleasant. I've been there. And, yes, it is shit.

So, I can only imagine how the gloom will feel among staff staring at the potential abyss of a demotion to the third tier, knowing their livelihoods rest on those who have, to all intents and purposes, not quite cut it across nearly 3100 minutes on the grass since August. You can’t comprehend the fear and angst of knowing you might lose your job if someone’s poorly-executed shot misses the target, or if a goalkeeper allows one to slip between his legs. Other errors or examples of poor play are available on request. They all count.

However, it is for these reasons why James Morrison might – just might – offer some salvation.

I’m not usually one for buying into the ‘knows the club’ bullshit which, frankly, is what it is. The 'knows the club' rhetoric is one of those ridiculous cliches peddled during radio phone-ins, delivered as a a defining act of salvation, as if an individual might prosper by knowing when the bins are emptied, or have crucial insight into when the window cleaner comes around for his monthly fee.

If said individual knows the shortcut between motorway and training ground, snap him up! He's your man.

It is, as I say, bullshit.

However, Morrison has lived and breathed the Black Country air since 2007. And there is something within that.

You don’t need me to remind you how good he was as a footballer. It was Roy Hodgson who transformed him from a Premier League-savvy wide player into a clever central midfield linchpin, before a time when words like ‘linchpin’ became outdated. As a personality he has always had a twinkle in his eye that speaks to a ferocious competitive spirit, but also he's had that ability to adapt, while embracing the ethos of the club he has represented for the best part of two decades.

He could be an awkward sod to interview when he was a player, offering you crumbs of quotes, before leaving you with a killer line just as you’d started to give up hope. He really didn't really care that the head of comms was probably rocking back and forth in despair, and openly weeping with panic in a darkened room. James was always his own man.

I liked that about him when he was a player; he always had a bit of devil about him. At times I thought he hated journalists. Maybe he did. Maybe it was just me. Or maybe all of us. I could never quite tell. But, again, not knowing what he really thought was part of his charm, more than a curse. There was something about him, that wasn't bland, anodyne and, best of all, was a world away from the media-trained landscape that contemporary footballers frequent.

If nothing else, Morrison, as a survivor of several generations at Albion, knows exactly what survival means to the many people sat behind him. And survivalism is exactly what we need.

I have no idea what Morrison is like as a coach, let alone as a manager. And, being honest, I never imagined the young Darlingtonian I first met in 2007 would trouble the technical area. I had him down as an ex-pro who would shuffle off to play golf, or open a chain of restaurants perhaps - back in the 90s he’d have gone into haulage or become a publican - or simply drift into a David Battyesque abyss. (Where is David Batty these days, by the way?)

Media? Nah, I never saw Mozza there either. He didn’t really care much for that. Chris Brunt? Yeah, definitely media - perhaps even a slot on WM or talkSPORT.

But Morrison… I was never sure where his destination would be.

And, yet, here we are. James Morrison: the manager.

However long he spends as a ‘manager’, let’s hope he can find the spark within this squad that his two predecessors failed to ignite. I just want him to work out well, for all those people who work alongside him, and love him to bits.

I expect the chewing of gum, black trainers with white soles, fitted trousers, initialised club wear, and cryptic media messaging when you're in front of the camera. It's your blank canvass Mozza. Make it yours!

James, good luck. Bring it home, as they say.