A Man For All Seasons by Brian Owen & Rob Hadgraft

Author:Brian Owen & Rob Hadgraft
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Brian Owen, football star, Colchester United, Essex, England, player, physio, scout, football career
ISBN: 9781911476023
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2016-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

A Step Up the Ladder

A season of failure often leads to changes in personnel at a football club, and sometimes the creation of fresh opportunities for staff already on the books. So it was for Brian Owen after Wolves were relegated in May 1976 after nine seasons in Division One. Finishing twentieth was a calamity which led to an acrimonious parting of the ways with manager Bill McGarry, after which his right-hand man Sammy Chung rose to the manager’s role. Opportunity knocked for Brian Owen and he was duly promoted to coach at first team level.

Just two years after winning the League Cup at Wembley against favourites Manchester City, and qualifying again for the UEFA Cup, Wolves fell through the trapdoor and would have to celebrate the club’s centenary year as a Second Division club. By beating Liverpool on the season’s final day they might have saved themselves and prevented the Reds lifting the League title, but in a frenzied Molineux atmosphere the visitors triumphed 3-1 and a great escape failed to materialise.

‘Looking back I had some very good years at Wolves. Relegation was sad, but it led to me being able to coach at all levels, for I moved up to become first team coach when Sammy Chung took over the manager’s chair in that hot summer of 1976. I worked a lot behind the scenes with people like Norman Bodell and then Brian Garvey – my former Watford and Colchester teammate – who I travelled to lots of games with. It was always a very well-run club with plenty of good youngsters coming through.

‘A great highlight for me in that relegation year was the Wolves juniors winning their way to the final of the prestigious FA Youth Cup. We lost in the two-legged final to West Brom, but they were a good bunch of lads, and included George Berry and Bob Hazell in central defence and Martin Patching too. Soon after that, I remember begging Sammy Chung to try and sign someone I’d worked with on my many trips around the world with the England age-group sides. This lad had caught my eye and I knew he wasn’t happy at his club. It was none other than Bryan Robson, who was a total winner. Johnny Giles wasn’t using him regularly at West Brom at the time, but soon after Ron Atkinson went in as manager and the two of them got on famously, so that was that.’

In typical stormy fashion, McGarry ended up moving to Saudi Arabia to work, after his Wolves exit was confirmed at a late-night board meeting lasting nearly six hours. Apart from chairman John Ireland, who had fought his corner till the end, it had been a ‘witch hunt’ said McGarry. Chung was initially made caretaker-manager and a few weeks later confirmed as full-time manager on annual pay of £15,000. Simultaneously, McGarry became what was widely reported to be ‘the best-paid manager in the history of football’ taking charge of the Saudi Arabian national side on a tax-free salary of £40,000.

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