Patience with managers has long been a hot topic in football, especially in the demanding world of
the Premier League, where a winless run of just three games can cause club chairmen to panic.
But what is the quickest managerial sacking of the Premier League era?
Well, that’s a strange story.
After almost fifteen years in charge of Charlton Athletic,
in the spring of 2006 Alan Curbishley announced that he would be stepping down as manager.
During his decade and a half at The Valley, Curbishley had twice been promoted to the
Premier League and despite once being relegated, by the time of his departure
he had delivered six straight years of top-flight football, finishing consistently in mid-table.
Replacing him and the continuity he offered wasn’t going to be easy,
but nobody knew quite how difficult it would be.
Charlton had two goes at it.
First, in the summer following Curbishley’s departure,
the club hired Iain Dowie, who had recently left Crystal Palace.
Palace had just failed to secure promotion from the Championship in May 2006,
losing in a playoff semi-final to Watford. At season’s end,
Dowie and then-Palace chairman Simon Jordan agreed to the mutual termination of his contract.
Nevertheless, barely a week later Dowie was appointed by Charlton. It was a move which
incensed Jordan. Dowie reportedly had a clause in his contract which entitled
Palace to £1m compensation were he to join another club – compensation which,
because Dowie had had his contract terminated, they would no longer receive.
The result was protracted acrimony. Dowie would actually be served with
a writ on Jordan’s behalf during his unveiling as the new Charlton manager,
with a court official having to be wrestled out of the press-conference.
An out of court settlement between the parties would be reached in 2008. Unfortunately,
the case lasted far longer than his time at The Valley – Dowie didn’t even make it to Christmas.
In November 2006, after just two wins from fifteen games and an internal review, he was dismissed.
And his successor would be gone even quicker.
Charlton replaced Dowie internally, opting to promote his assistant, Les Reed.
Reed wasn’t without credentials, having been part of the England set-up under Kevin Keegan and
later, serving as the Football Association’s Technical Director between 2002 and 2004.
In his one and only senior head-coaching role, he would not get off to a quick start. Following an
away defeat to Reading, the BBC noted that while “new-manager syndrome can sometimes reinvigorate
a team…Reed's appointment showed little impact in lifting a beleaguered Charlton.”
Everton were held to a 1-1 a week later and Blackburn were
then beaten by a stoppage-time goal to nil a week after that.
It was just Charlton’s third victory of the season at that stage,
and would produce their 10th, 11th and 12th points of the campaign. It
even teased an upturn in fortune – albeit only briefly, and shortly before the run
that would set the Addicks on their path to relegation and Reed to an unwanted record.
First, Tottenham and Dimitar Berbatov would inflict a 5-1 humbling at White Hart Lane.
Discussing the game with the media afterwards, Reed bemoaned a regression, saying that
“everything we did right in the win over Blackburn went wrong today”. But he was nevertheless
encouraged by a heart-to-heart he and his players had had in the dressing-room afterwards.
That optimism was mis-placed. Liverpool won comprehensively 3-0 at the Valley the
following weekend, with Xabi Alonso setting the tone with a third minute
penalty, before Craig Bellamy and Steven Gerrard ran up the score.
"We've got to work hard and dig in”,
said Reed. “It's going to be a long job but we have to be better and show more passion."
But it wasn’t to be a long job and the nadir of his short reign was approaching.
The sole source of optimism within Charlton’s season to that point had been their progress
through the League Cup and to what looked like a very winnable quarter-final against League
Two’s Wycombe Wanderers, who were 53 places below them in the football league pyramid.
But Charlton would be comfortably outplayed. The Athletic’s Duncan Alexander remembers
being at the game, and the Charlton fans turning on their own players and managers
as soon as Wycombe’s Jermaine Easter scored what would prove the only goal of the game.
Charlton were out and had been humiliated. A mocking media, who had christened Reed
“Les Miserables”, only grew bolder in their derision as the inevitable end approached.
And it would come the very next week. The day after a 2-0 away defeat to Middlesbrough,
on Christmas Eve, it was announced that Reed and Charlton had parted ways
“the board believed I had the necessary skills and qualifications to do the job
and were prepared to back me in the transfer window,” he reflected in the days following.
"In discussing our strategy going forward, it became clear that the continuous speculation
surrounding my position was counter-productive to our plans and Charlton’s future.”
Reed would leave, yes, but Charlton wouldn’t move on – at least not in a positive direction.
Alan Pardew would be appointed with the club in 19th place, but despite a brief
upturn in results during the Spring of 2007, he couldn’t prevent relegation. In a final,
cruel twist, their demotion was sealed by another loss to Tottenham which began
with a goal scored by Jermain Defoe, who had once been part of the club’s academy.
But it’s not what the season is remembered for. Nor, even, is it Iain Dowie’s writ or
that circus of a press-conference. No, it was Les Reed’s 41 days in charge, the shortest
managerial tenure in Premier League history, and a record likely to stand for many more seasons.