Roy's Keen To Be A Tractor Boy

Having spent the last few months knackering his poor dog the ex-Forest, Man Utd, Celtic and Rep. Of Ireland legend returns to football management at Portman Road, home of Ipshit. Roy has pledged to take the Tractor Boys back to the Premiership and you have to say that East Anglia should be able to produce one team capable of holding its own at the highest level in English club football.

Away from matters on the field I was having a conversation with a client last night whilst delivering copies of the Budget report. The client is the photo editor of a large regional newspaper, one that depends on a lot of its income from football supporters buying a copy every Monday to check on their teams results. Without giving too much away the team were docked ten points today and will spend at least next season in the 'old Third Division'. The club has gone into administration and there was a real possibility at one point that they might fold altogether. My client pointed out that had this happened the knock-on effect, not only on the newspaper but on the city in general, would be economically disastrous. Sales of the paper down means fewer adverts and a drop in adverting revenue, fewer papers means staff laid off - not just at the paper but at the wholesalers and newsagents, then there's the businesses that are dependent on income from the adverts themselves. It brought home how integrated and dependent the whole economy is.

Today I visited another client, its a husband and wife partnership and the wife and I go back to our childhood - although we lost touch for the best part of thirty years. Anyway Debbie's younger step brother is a professional footballer and a current international. The manager of the Championship club he was playing for didn't fancy him when he took over and sold him to another Championship side. Everything was going well there until a change of management meant that he suddenly found himself number three in the pecking order for goalies and went out on loan. The point being that he asked to go out on loan rather than sit on his arse earning a lot of money for doing nothing proving, what a lot of people forget in these days of obscene salaries, that kids want to become footballers in the first place to play football.

Anyway, today his first football league club appointed Roy Keane as their manager and who knows, perhaps the wheel of fortune will take him back to the club he wanted to play for and was forced out of by a manager who wanted to fill the team with people 'he knew' - lot of good that did him!