Dave Kidd: West Brom appear to have found themselves a diamond in Darren Moore but it’s too late for an older generation of black players with managerial aspirations
Former Baggies defender is four games unbeaten as boss... but club only turned to him when already doomed
DARREN MOORE became West Brom’s caretaker manager only when the club had given up all hope.
He was seen as a thoroughly decent bloke who would handle the inevitability of relegation with great dignity and then return to his place in the backroom ranks.
Yet after four games unbeaten, including victories at Old Trafford and St James’ Park, it seems Albion might have accidentally stumbled upon a damned good manager.
Sure, the pressure has been off and successful caretakers who are given the job often end up bombing once their appointment is made permanent.
But every comment from West Brom’s players makes it obvious they believe Moore has a far more coherent gameplan than Alan Pardew, that hardy perennial of the managerial jungle.
And had he been appointed a couple of games earlier, the Baggies might well have stayed up.
As English football moves, gradually but surely, towards a version of the Rooney Rule – whereby clubs must interview a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) candidate whenever such a person has applied — Moore seems a perfect example of the sort of coach who would have benefited.
Moore, 44, now has a very good chance of becoming West Brom boss but that is thanks to no great planning from The Hawthorns’ hierarchy.
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Had the Rooney Rule been in place years ago, Moore’s abilities might have been identified far earlier.
The former centre-half is one of six BAME men currently in charge of league clubs — although Keith Curle will leave his role as Carlisle boss after this weekend, reducing the number to five.
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At the last count, BAME coaches held just 22 of 482 leading roles in the English game.
That figure is utterly pitiful and has barely changed over a generation.
Now, positive discrimination rarely sits easily, with even some black former players opposing the Rooney Rule. It is a last resort, an admission of systemic failure.
But the Football League introduced a version on New Year’s Day this year — although clubs may still appoint managers or coaches without any interview process at all — while the FA have been proactive in implementing the Rooney Rule across the England set-up. For an older generation of black former players who hoped to go into management these moves may all be too late, though.
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One example is Brian Deane — an England international centre-forward with years of top-flight experience, most famous for scoring the first ever goal in the Premier League.
Yet, aged 50, Deane has never managed in English football and, despite several years of trying, he tells me he has only ever been interviewed once — and then only at two hours’ notice.
Deane certainly doesn’t think football owes him a living — but it is not as if he hasn’t put in the hard yards.
Fully “badged up” and after a stint coaching at Leeds University, Deane spent two seasons establishing a club called Sarpsborg 08 in the Norwegian top flight.
As in his playing days, when he played for Benfica, Deane was keen to “get out of his comfort zone” and prove his credentials abroad. Deane told me: “Having done a good job with a part-time club in a very competitive league, I thought I’d have to get given a half-decent job at least — but I was wrong.
“When you apply for jobs in football management you realise how black you are.
“For at least a couple of years after I came back from Norway (in 2014) I was ringing chief executives and asking to be part of the interview process and hearing nothing back.
“One problem is that you don’t have mentors or role models from your culture and you don’t have the same networks of contacts.
“After a while it felt like chasing a beautiful woman who doesn’t want to know you.
“You have to move on. So while I wouldn’t say I have given up hope, it’s no longer something I actively hanker for.”
Deane, currently working for a football agency, is far from untypical. So what is his view on the Rooney Rule?
Deane added: “First and foremost, I think it’s sad it has to come to it but I do believe it is necessary.
“Even though people are often going to go for interview knowing they are simply part of a quota.
“But you see Joey Barton getting the Fleetwood job, where his mate is the owner, and you think, ‘If a black guy had done the things he’s done, he’d not get that job’.
“When you look at the number of black players and then at the tiny number of black managers, we are talking about absolute facts here, it’s not a case of opinions.”
Deane doesn’t believe that racism is entirely overt in English football boardrooms but he says, “There’s often a very thin veneer”.
He has been impressed by the job Moore is doing as West Brom’s caretaker-manager.
But he adds: “If he doesn’t get that job on a full-time basis, then what hope is there for any of us?”
WE knew Roy Hodgson’s record at clubs of a similar size to Crystal Palace was outstanding after successful stints at Fulham and West Brom.
But the fears among many who know him when he took over at Selhurst Park were that Hodgson would struggle for authority after the Iceland debacle with England, and that he was no longer as sharp a thinker as he once was.
After Palace virtually secured their safety with a 5-0 hiding of Leicester, he has proved us utterly wrong and fully deserves an ‘I told you so’.
JUST a penalty shootout away from the Premier League last season, Reading head into the final round of Championship matches on Sunday lunchtime still threatened by relegation.
So why after Saturday’s 4-0 home defeat by Ipswich were their players sent on a ‘lap of appreciation’ in a virtually empty stadium?
Does football have no room for common sense?
PLENTY of people are suddenly predicting that Huddersfield will be relegated, given they have three supposedly difficult fixtures left.
But David Wagner and his team entertain Arsenal on the final day of the season.
So if the Gunners pull off a shock win against Atletico Madrid tomorrow night, they’ll be resting players for the Europa League final.
And if they don’t, they’ll probably b***s up Arsene Wenger’s final match anyway.
SOMETIMES a manager takes a job and you wonder why on Earth they’ve done it. Chris Coleman at Sunderland was one.
And Steven Gerrard at Rangers feels like another.
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IT’S sad to say, but the one thing we’ll miss most about Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal is Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness verbally dismantling them on the telly.
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