What's new
PNE Online
Welcome to PNE-Online. Why not register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox! You can also join up as a forum Patron to help support in the running costs of the forum.

The sad exit of Mr Gentry

PNEMAD said:
Maybe we could ask the club to reach out to the family and advise them his legacy lives on?

No better way to honour the gentry than respect its founder
Click to expand...

Perhaps somehow the next Gentry Day could have an Alan Ball Snr theme - appropriate since it will just over 50 years since he made his comment. I am not certain how that could be effected unless people wanted to buy replicas of the shirt we wore at the time he was manager:

www.toffs.com

Preston North End 1970s Retro Football Shirt

Regular Fit. Embroidered Badge. Long sleeve. Round Neck. Heavy weight 100% cotton jersey in a soft durable 2 ply Combed Cotton 270/275 gsmFine gauge tight knit fabric that retains its shape when machine washedMade in Great BritainMachine washable.
www.toffs.com www.toffs.com

As I said earlier when a football manager is dismissed they have to leave immediately - it just isn't feasible to have them hanging around - but the way things were handled in this instance does just seem to have been somewhat ungracious.

Anyhow here is a reminder of one of the highlights of Alan Ball's tenure - our goal in the win at Fulham in the penultimate game of that promotion season:

 
Now that I’ve been educated a bit more with regards to Alan Ball snr’s departure I think it would be a cracking idea for our club to retrospectively apologise with regards to how he was treated at the end and have a Gentry Day themed in his honour.
As ernests video shows I think the win at Fulham in the red shirts would feature highly as it’s one of THE iconic PNE moments.
 
bigtallsi said:
As mentioned above it was aimed at my wife's late Grandfather, Director of the club at the time and pulled the trigger, so to speak. Good man, Howard Kendall lodged with them for a fair while. But accept it was/isn't popular
Click to expand...

Don’t let history be rewritten. The hard truth is that it was a popular decision to sack Ball at the time. As it was McGrath when he was potted and as it was Peters. Football is a cruel game.

i remember as a very young primary school kid signing a “ ball out” petition before I think a 5-0 home defeat v Portsmouth which I’m pretty sure was his last game.
 
chorleythehord said:
Don’t let history be rewritten. The hard truth is that it was a popular decision to sack Ball at the time. As it was McGrath when he was potted and as it was Peters. Football is a cruel game.

i remember as a very young primary school kid signing a “ ball out” petition before I think a 5-0 home defeat v Portsmouth which I’m pretty sure was his last game.
Click to expand...
The man who said our fans were Gentry was sacked and left standing in a car park with his belongings in a black bin liner...history can’t be rewritten but my club dropped a bollock with regards to how he was treated at the end and if we are the Gentry it wouldn’t do any harm to acknowledge this.
 
Yoowell said:
The man who said our fans were Gentry was sacked and left standing in a car park with his belongings in a black bin liner...history can’t be rewritten but my club dropped a bollock with regards to how he was treated at the end and if we are the Gentry it wouldn’t do any harm to acknowledge this.
Click to expand...

Agree it was a poor and undignified way to part company. But the sacking was supported by the majority of fans at the time. That’s the hard truth.
 
Getting the boot in any line of work is never dignified. Usually acoompanied by some chocolate fireguard Unite rep in the corner saying fuck all. So I've heard like
 
Cracking goal by Alan Ball jnr for Southampton against us - top corner from the edge of the box.
We've all been sacked or had family members sacked by one company or other. Doesn't mean we stick two fingers up every time we drive past it for the next ten years.
 
BeteNoir said:
Memories of Jimmy Milne one of the saddest endings. If anyone deserved an apology it was he.
Click to expand...
I'm sure all our sacked managers have been publicly thanked for their hard work and given the club's best wishes in a statement, but are we suggesting we should now apologise to some of them? I'm not sure I'd go that far!
 
chorleythehord said:
I think a 5-0 home defeat v Portsmouth which I’m pretty sure was his last game.
Click to expand...

It was. I was there right behind the Town End goals - their first goal was a 25-yard thunderbolt into that net.
BeteNoir said:
Memories of Jimmy Milne one of the saddest endings. If anyone deserved an apology it was he.
Click to expand...
My memory of that is that it was a mutually agreed handover to Bobby Seith and that Milne was not 'sacked' as such. But in truth Milne's tenure had run out of steam and a change was needed.
 
Dirty Harry said:
I'm sure all our sacked managers have been publicly thanked for their hard work and given the club's best wishes in a statement, but are we suggesting we should now apologise to some of them? I'm not sure I'd go that far!
Click to expand...
There’s no need to apologise about the sacking but leaving him with no transport and standing outside the ground with his stuff in a black bin liner is very un Gentry.
 
Yoowell said:
There’s no need to apologise about the sacking but leaving him with no transport and standing outside the ground with his stuff in a black bin liner is very un Gentry.
Click to expand...

I suspect we are not the only club to have acted that way but then I don't expect PNE to act in that way. It was sad and unseemly. As I suggested above why not try to make next season's Gentry Day in some way an Alan Ball Snr Day. If the scheduling actually allowed it to be at Fulham where he achieved what was arguably his finest result then that would be particularly appropriate.
 
Top