Bob Murray has finally come to his senses and parted company with Peter Reid after seven years in charge. Monkey Heed has taken with him his back-room staff of Adrian Heath, Bobby Saxton, Tony Book and Mike Walsh.
Worryingly for the Mackem’s they have left Naill Quinn in charge, who was also on the coaching staff. The cheating Irishman has been tipped to be a candidate for the vacant position, although the likes of George Graham and David O’Leary will be hot favourites.
Reid saved them from the brink of Division Two in 1995 and followed that by winning promotion to the Premier League, only to be relegated the very next season. A second promotion saw them finish seventh in 2000 but since then they have been pedalling backwards.
But the time had come, Monkey Heed had ran out of ideas and wasn’t taking the Mackem’s anywhere fast, he relied so much on the partnership of Quinn and Kevin Phillips, that it was always going to fail.
Numerous mediocre buys culminated in the panic buying of Torre Andre Flo and Marcus Stewart at the start of this season. He failed to attract the big names to the club, one thing that Robbo had in his favour at Boro, and was snubbed by several top players, the most recent being Robbie Keane who ended up at Spurs.
It’s a pity that the Mackem’s couldn’t hold on to their man until Christmas when the situation could have been irreversilble but now they have a chance to put thing right. He outstayed his welcome by two years in almost a carbon copy of Robbo’s time at Boro.
So, finally and probably for the last time, lets shout it from the roof tops, "Cheer up Peter Reid. . ." We will wait with baited breath to see who will be the next ‘sad Mackem bastard’ ?