| Jabba's Comments |
Kevin Blackwell had a long career as a player, keeping goal in
the lower divisions for Barnet, Scarborough, Notts County, Torquay,
Huddersfield, Plymouth, Bury, Sheffield United and Boston - for
whom he saved a penalty in the FA Trophy Final.
As a coach he worked with Neil Warnock who he first encountered
at Scarborough, making his reputation at Bramall Lane as an
under-resourced team of apparent journeymen and young players
showed their fitness and superior tactics both in the league and
the cup, with two notable victories over Terry Venables' Leeds
United side.
Peter Reid invited him to come to Elland Road in summer 2003,
and he worked as a coach first under Reid, then under caretaker
boss Eddie Gray as the club slid down the Premier League and into
the drop zone with a demoralised and unfit squad inherited from
Venables and which Reid failed to reshape with an influx of loan
signings. When relegation was finally confirmed, Gray stepped down
and Blackwell picked up the reigns for the final game of the
2003-04 season at Stamford Bridge.
He looked set to be offered the job in May, but with the club
apparently on the brink of a takeover, he was humiliatingly told to
wait and see when the press had been briefed and were ready to see
him unveiled as the new boss. But when the takeover attempt became
the latest of many to stumble at the final hurdle, Blackwell's
appointment was rushed through to try to get some positive spin on
the news on the day that Alan Smith was sold to Manchester
United.
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