Jimmy Adamson

Jimmy Adamson had been a loyal and successful player at Burnley, captaining the side to their League title in 1960, and winning the Footballer of the Year award two years later as his side went down in the FA Cup Final to Spurs. Adamson was acting as assistant to England coach Walter Winterbottom - and was offered the chance to replace him when Winterbottom resigned. Adamson turned the job down - he felt he didn't have enough experience - and went on to coach at Burnley, leaving Alf Ramsey to take charge of the national side.

After 13 years coaching and managing Burnley during a period of financial decline for the club, Adamson quit in 1976, spent a couple of weeks with Sparta Rotterdam before realising that he didn't want to live abroad. A brief period at Sunderland saw him unable to turn their near-terminal decline around, and so it was a bit of a surprise to see him selected as the next Leeds manager. Some heroically unsuccessful signings (Alex Sabella, Derek Parlane) followed, and with the departure of the genius of Tony Currie and the useful Frank Gray, his problems mounted. The crowds fell, the fans protested, and after a protracted struggle, Adamson finally gave up and resigned. Adamson drifted away from full-time football, but must have smiled occasionally as he watched the fans who had demonstrated for his sacking grow even more disillusioned and the club slip ever lower.

Dave Clark says: He was rubbish. Come on, he was. You are far too nice about him. He signed some good players but was unable to get the best out of them - Parlane, Curtis - these were not rubbish. His best goalscorer was John Hawley, so he booted him out. He had no alternative but to sell Currie - but Brian Greenhoff as a replacement? A good, useful player, who Adamson never got the best out of, Greenhoff was not a playmaker. And he sold Frank Gray... He signs the honest journeyman Kevin Hird (fair enough, if you can't get the best you get the best available, I suppose) thus giving him 2 attacking full backs. Then he decides he can't have 2, so he sells Gray, the superior of the pair. According to Brian Clough's book, Gray was shocked and upset that Leeds showed him the door. To cap it all, he doesn't bother with a replacement. Much criticised? Adamson should have been in the stocks and is partly responsible for the relegation.