Moore's love affair with football still burns bright

Jun 8 2009 by Nick Hilton, Liverpool Daily Post

The Daily Post’s Tranmere Rovers reporter Nick Hilton reflects on Friday’s surprise sacking of manager Ronnie Moore

YOU can be sure Ronnie Moore won’t pass on the opportunity to offer some wry reflection on the unstable nature of the football management business when he stands up to address his wedding guests this week.

The man I have known professionally for the past 35 years isn’t the type to hide his thoughts from friends or strangers. And he has been around long enough to remember the kind of music hall jokes that begin: “A funny thing happened on my way to the ceremony ....”

This one ends with “I got sacked.”

Moore’s long experience in the game as a player, coach and manager with Tranmere and half a dozen other clubs has helped him to appreciate that it pays to always expect the unexpected.

Even so, the 56-year-old did not see his dismissal by Rovers coming. So much so that when first informed of his fate in a meeting with club owner and chairman Peter Johnson on Friday, Moore thought he was “being given the wind-up.”

After all, Moore won widespread praise in professional circles and among supporters for his work in guiding Tranmere to within a whisker of the League One play-offs on a limited budget in the 2008/09 campaign.

He arrived at the meeting with Johnson expecting to discuss plans for next season and left it soon afterwards without a job.

Moore said: “I thought we were going to have a conversation about where we were up to in preparations for next season, but unfortunately it was bad news instead. It came as a total surprise when you consider how well we performed last season.”

Tranmere’s official statement identified concerns over falling attendances at Prenton Park – down 19%t over three years of Moore’s stewardship – for the change.

“The club felt that now is the right time to move forward in any direction,” the statement said.

Johnson added: “We now need to focus on next season and we will start the process of finding a new manager immediately in preparation for pre-season training, which starts on July 1.”

Tranmere’s action in dispensing with the manager who had another year left on his contract suggests a successor may already be lined up.

The most popular story circulating among supporters links former Liverpool team-mates John Barnes and Jason McAteer to the post. Barnes is quoted as short odds favourite with some bookmakers. McAteer spent three seasons as a player and coach with Tranmere between 2004 and 2007 and Barnes is understood to be keen to have a crack at club management in England. However, he will have to alter the arrangements of his coaching role with the Jamaica national team if he moved in at Prenton Park.

There would be fewer complications if Rovers went for the Wirral-based partnership of Paul Ince and Ray Mathias.

The pair enjoyed success at League Two level with both Macclesfield and MK Dons before making a brief and ill-fated move into the Premier League with Blackburn last summer.

They left Ewood Park after six months. Mathias is a former long-serving player, captain, coach and manager of Tranmere with intimate knowledge of football in the lower divisions while Ince, the former Liverpool and England midfielder, has a wealth of contracts and experience at the top level. One report has even linked a McAteer/Mathias combination with the job.

While Tranmere fans speculated over the weekend about the next occupant of the Prenton Park hot seat, Moore went ahead with his stag night with friends in Rotherham.

On Thursday he marries Angela, his partner for the past seven years.

The couple planned to fit the wedding into the one month of the year when football managers can take a break from the demands of the job.

Instead they will be waking down the aisle into an uncertain future.

Moore’s record at Tranmere – and most particularly the work of the last season – should enhance a CV in club management covering spells at Southport, Rotherham – where he won back-to-back promotions – and Oldham Athletic.

This experience has not diminished his love of the game or appetite for another job in football.

He said: “I am proud of what I have done at Tranmere. I think I can walk away with my head held high.

“To get within a few minutes of the play-offs this season was a very good achievement when you consider the resources at our disposal.

“We were unbeaten in the league at home from October and only Leeds United have a better home record than us.

“Some of the performances in those home games were magnificent. Some were not so brilliant but we ground out the results. It was a pleasure to be involved with that team and to witness the football we played on occasions.

“I believe we were going along the right lines. We were trying to play attractive, attacking football.

“At the shareholders annual meeting two weeks before the end of the season I was told we were doing a great job.”

Moore had already made his first summer signing, recruiting Mark Allott from Oldham last week, and was lining up a replacement for assistant manager Peter Shirtliff, who made a surprise departure to Swindon. “Perhaps Shirts had read the script better than I did,” Moore said.

He added: “I know season ticket sales are down and the home support last season fell to about 5,800. But I don’t think you can fault the playing side for that because the team we were putting on the pitch was doing the job.

“I think what happened is a little bit harsh but the club want to go down a different route. Maybe they are looking for a more high-profile manager – I don’t know.

“Whoever comes in they have to do well to improve the results because we were winning at home. Whoever comes in will have a good standard to follow.”