Bobby Williamson

I Stumbled accross this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] on an off chance. Not that interesting an article in truth. However, his comments about staplewallet were and echoes what Pulis complained about and ultimately made him more determined to leave for Stoke. Holloway too.

"Williamson had an awkward time of it at Plymouth, where he replaced Paul Sturrock. The former Dundee United winger became a legend in Devon, and when he moved on to Southampton, and Williamson stepped in, it was a far from clean break. “The biggest problem I had was my relationship with the chairman [Paul Stapleton],” recalls Williamson. “I spoke to the chairman about a player in the afternoon, and never got much encouragement from him. He phoned me back that evening and he said he was speaking to Paul earlier, ‘and he mentioned a player to me’. “I said: ‘chairman, he was the player I mentioned to you this morning’. He was listening to Paul more than he was listening to me.”

How was this clown ever allowed to be chairman for aslong as he was?

Bobby was far from ideal as a manager but we did get a few decent results against top quality sides.
I remember us beating Sunderland and Forest at home Cardiff away, going to Portman road and cruising into a 2-0 lead ending up losing 3-2.

Yes he was a bit rubbish but he took some unnecessary personal shite in as much as a smear campaign from the usual suspects over on Pasoti alleging that he was boozing every night down the Barbican.

Completely unproven and if I was him I would have dragged their sorry Pasoti arses all the way to the courts.

Punchdrunk wrote:

Bobby was far from ideal as a manager but we did get a few decent results against top quality sides.
I remember us beating Sunderland and Forest at home Cardiff away, going to Portman road and cruising into a 2-0 lead ending up losing 3-2.

Yes he was a bit rubbish but he took some unnecessary personal shite in as much as a smear campaign from the usual suspects over on Pasoti alleging that he was boozing every night down the Barbican.

Completely unproven and if I was him I would have dragged their sorry Pasoti arses all the way to the courts.

Out of his depth here that was true not the best guy to replace Luggy with IMO but as the bit i quoted it didnt matter if you were Bobby or an established manager like Pulis or a well liked manager as Holloway Staplewallet spent more time pandering to Luggy than dealing with them even when he was at Sheffield Wednesday or Swindon.

He got a rough ride on pasoti for summing them up brilliantly "sad and lonely"

Staple wallets relationship with Luggy was quite pathetic. Didn't he decide to go for a curry with Luggy the night before we were due to play Sheff utd?

On the footballing side I think I saw more disgraceful 'performances' under Williamson than any other Argyle manager. Him ending up in (and getting sacked from) some third rate African backwater never surprised me.

Big up Bobby.

Hugh Watt wrote:

Staple wallets relationship with Luggy was quite pathetic. Didn't he decide to go for a curry with Luggy the night before we were due to play Sheff utd?

Yup that was when Pulis was in charge.

I believe that was one of the things that shaped his decision to go back to Stoke...and the rest as they say is history.

Amazing at how anyone who dared to criticize the chairman at the time was marginalized or banned by Pasoti's finest and yet funny how so many of the nodding dogs under the spell at the time are now in denial about how they backed Stapes.

Its like the Nazis in the final stages of WW2 claiming that 'they knew nothing'.


******* creeps

I heard tell that Bobby had a deal agreed to sign Leroy Lita from Bristol City, with Coughlin moving in part exchange, but the board put a stop to the transfer because of the wages involved and I remember reading another interview with him where he said that he tried to sign Lilian Nalis long before Pulis eventually did. Bobby made some good signings towards the end of that first season, notably Buzz, Blackstock and Dodd, which kept us up in the end but he did make some duff ones too unfortunately-Crawford was a big disappointment, Lasley should have played more, Milne and Makel didn't last five minutes, Doumbe was the only real success from that batch of signings he made after promotion. Who knows what the financial constraints on him were in having to go to Scotland for his players though-it was actually a defining period for the club because the failure to maintain momentum and having to fight successive relegation battles was undoubtedly the catalyst for the fall off in gates and subsequently income. He didn't deserve the lies and smears that came his way no matter how good or bad he was and it says much for the way he was treated by the directorship that I knew about his sacking 5 hours before he did.

Hugh Watt wrote:

Staple wallets relationship with Luggy was quite pathetic. Didn't he decide to go for a curry with Luggy the night before we were due to play Sheff utd?

yes and the samenight he was meant to talk over a new contract with pulis too.

i will say i dont know the truth of many f the bobby rumours that went around the block but i do know one of the times he was reported to be thrown out of the dolphi for being drunk was untrue as i was in there at the time.

Greenskin wrote:

Who knows what the financial constraints on him were in having to go to Scotland for his players though-it was actually a defining period for the club because the failure to maintain momentum and having to fight successive relegation battles was undoubtedly the catalyst for the fall off in gates and subsequently income. He didn't deserve the lies and smears that came his way no matter how good or bad he was and it says much for the way he was treated by the directorship that I knew about his sacking 5 hours before he did.

Very true!

Greenskin wrote:

He didn't deserve the lies and smears that came his way no matter how good or bad he was and it says much for the way he was treated by the directorship that I knew about his sacking 5 hours before he did.

Absolutely. I remember reading about his dismissal before it had happened on the BBC's old 606 messageboard (those were the days - the Championship forum on that was brilliant).

That 2004-5 season was good fun, I was still very much a fully-fledged Aviva at that point and it was brilliant to see 21,000 people at Home Park for the visits of teams like West Ham (I seem to remember Carl Fletcher playing for them - is that right?), and trips to Sunderland and Leeds were an enjoyable novelty. We were such a soft touch though, I have never seen us defend as badly as when we lost 5-0 at Upton Park (the occasion when Bjarni Gudjonsson decided to punch the ball in our penalty area). It could and should have been double figures. Pulis did a remarkable job to get us to 14th the following season.

Angry wrote:

i will say i dont know the truth of many f the bobby rumours that went around the block but i do know one of the times he was reported to be thrown out of the dolphi for being drunk was untrue as i was in there at the time.

Which pretty much gives the idea that most of them would have been bollocks then (if not all).

Used to see a fair bit of Trigger in those days and he was telling us from very early in his first season that there was disharmony between Bobby W and the old guard who felt they were being forced out by replacements no better than they were.

Not surprisingly, given how close Luggy still was to the old guard and Stapleton.

green_genie wrote:

Used to see a fair bit of Trigger in those days and he was telling us from very early in his first season that there was disharmony between Bobby W and the old guard who felt they were being forced out by replacements no better than they were.

Wotton was the biggest Williamson dissenter in the dressing-room. I'm sure Damon will confirm that he and Gill in particular were lobbied by some of the senior players and that it spilled over into social media.

Hitch wrote:

green_genie wrote:

Used to see a fair bit of Trigger in those days and he was telling us from very early in his first season that there was disharmony between Bobby W and the old guard who felt they were being forced out by replacements no better than they were.

Wotton was the biggest Williamson dissenter in the dressing-room. I'm sure Damon will confirm that he and Gill in particular were lobbied by some of the senior players and that it spilled over into social media.

Gill and Trigger were setting up their building venture at the time and it was a problem that Directors were close to the players.

green_genie wrote:

Hitch wrote:

green_genie wrote:

Used to see a fair bit of Trigger in those days and he was telling us from very early in his first season that there was disharmony between Bobby W and the old guard who felt they were being forced out by replacements no better than they were.

Wotton was the biggest Williamson dissenter in the dressing-room. I'm sure Damon will confirm that he and Gill in particular were lobbied by some of the senior players and that it spilled over into social media.

Gill and Trigger were setting up their building venture at the time and it was a problem that Directors were close to the players.

Indeed

Whoever took over from Luggy at that time was going to be meet with dissension given the cliq like atmosphere in the dressing room and boardroom he created.