Michael Walker: Fireman Sam the final throw of the dice for desperate Leeds - Irish Times 6/5/23

A colourful managerial career that began at Limerick takes another twist as experienced boss snaps up a lucrative opportunity to keep club in the top flight

Michael Walker

“Piss off!”

Those were the first words of Sam Allardyce’s managerial career.

They were said to Father Joe Young, a priest in Limerick. It was a short conversation – two words, in fact – but as Allardyce has recalled, the phone immediately rang again and this time he listened to the voice calling Lancashire from the west of Ireland. Allardyce realised this was no prank; the chat lasted a bit longer.

It was the summer of 1991 and Allardyce was 37. He had just been dismissed as a player-coach on West Bromwich Albion’s backroom staff. His career as a head-it, kick-him centre half was coming to a close.

Allardyce had not made a lot of money in professional football and had diversified into other businesses, a pub, snooker hall and then a late bar in Bolton called Monterey’s. His house was used as collateral. Financially, he was stressed.

But Allardyce and Father Joe made Limerick work, despite the situation Allardyce described in his autobiography: “There was a social club at one end with dressing rooms attached, a crumbling wall around the pitch and a grass bank with some terracing next to it. Limerick was nicknamed ‘Stab City’ . . . which didn’t exactly encourage me to sign on the dotted line.”

But he did – for 200 punts a week, Thursday to Sunday.

Limerick had been relegated to the second tier of the League of Ireland and had around 300 regulars at Markets Field. The social club, the major source of revenue, burned down; Allardyce was relaxed about it until he discovered there was no insurance.

Yet Limerick won promotion and Allardyce’s managerial career had its start. On Wednesday, 32 years on, he took his seat at Thorp Arch, home of Leeds United’s training base and spoke of the beautiful pitches. Via 11 other clubs, eight of them in the Premier League, plus a cut-short stint with England, the 68-year-old has arrived in Yorkshire, financially stressed no more.

The environment is different but the message is the same as it was all those years ago in Limerick: ‘Get us out of this!’ Big Sam the firefighter, the trouble-shooter, has again received a call. “Yes, please” was his two-word answer this time.

Flirty Leeds, fourth-bottom of the Premier League, are doing a relegation tap-dance. They have lost four of their last five games and Allardyce is their third head coach of the season following Jesse Marsch and Javi Gracia. Leeds have conceded 67 goals in 34 games and on Saturday travel to Manchester City. All the best.

Allardyce’s appointment has brought a rush of curiosity and a focus again on who he is and what he does. Allardyce likes this: the status, the attention, and as someone who grew up in a house without a fridge, the cash.

Yet his sudden arrival at Elland Road says more about the club than the man. For Leeds, who had Marcelo Bielsa at the wheel not so long ago, it’s another swerve away from a general direction of travel that could be termed ‘progressive’.

Allardyce does not care about that – his remit is four games. Should they go well, though, that will change, because he understands professional football, from players to boardrooms. As he said soon after keeping Sunderland in the top division in 2016, when he had already sniffed doubts about future investment: “I know how to build; it’s, can we build?”

Chiselling the four or six points required to stay up would have ramifications – Allardyce is ambitious.

Then there is the Irish accent he has with him now.

Robbie Keane is a rather different presence to Father Joe in Limerick. This is a punt on various levels and Keane is part of it. At 42 it is not quite a career turning-point, though if it succeeds it could be. Were Keane to be a piece of a Leeds recovery, his coaching stock would rise. He has the Pro Licence, which takes commitment. He is on one of Uefa’s boards, alongside the likes of Luis Figo.

But since Keane left the FAI and Middlesbrough in 2020, he has been out of day-to-day involvement on the grass. His FAI contribution has been overshadowed by the contract saga and his perceived proximity to John Delaney; at Boro they recall an enthusiastic coach who loved to join in sessions, someone who can bring energy to Thorp Arch.

He has been there before, of course.

Keane joined Leeds from Inter Milan when David O’Leary’s ‘babies’ were taking on the adults. He was sold to Tottenham just over a year later as Leeds’ toys flew from the pram, but Keane has referred to a WhatsApp group he is still in with players from then such as Gary Kelly and Robbie Fowler and clearly retains affection for the club.

Whether that makes Keane “Leeds through and through”, as Allardyce said, is uncertain – Keane was at Spurs for over nine years in two spells, playing more than 300 games and scoring 122 goals. But it is an overlap.

There are others. Had things fallen differently Allardyce would have been Pep Guardiola’s first managerial opposite at City in 2016. Hence Guardiola referenced “Big Sam” in his initial press conference at City, although by the time of the game Allardyce had left Sunderland for England and David Moyes, a player Allardyce had recommended to Preston in 1993, was in charge.

Allardyce had previously been at Newcastle United – Leeds’ second opposition in this four-game run – and later was at West Ham, now managed by Moyes. West Ham just happen to be Leeds’ third opponent.

Keane joined them on loan in 2011, signed by Avram Grant, but West Ham went down. So Keane returned to Spurs, who go to Elland Road on the season’s last afternoon. Coincidence abounds.

Imagine the state of the place if Leeds have a chance of staying up that day?

It will be hysterical – because memories of the last time Leeds went down from the Premier League in 2004 remain fresh; they slumped into League One and chomped through 14 managers in 16 years before getting back to the top flight. That 2004 fall was sealed by a 4-1 defeat at Bolton, managed by Allardyce.

He now has another walk-on part; jeopardy is back, too.

And it can go wrong. There is another overlap today via the young man born in Leeds, Erling Haaland, who is likely to roast the visitors. What could that do to an already fragile team?

This gamble could work – Allardyce has nous. But there is also scope for livid Leeds followers to loudly bookend his managerial career using the two words with which it began.