Toshack "Where It All Went Wrong"
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| And the end of that season was the peak of Swansea's success. Relegation followed just twelve months later - where did it all go wrong does John think? "We were working well with a good youth policy and we knew that would have to be finally what we would have to go for. We had a young side of Darren Gale, Jimmy Loveridge, Dean Saunders, Huw Lake, Gary Richards, Dudley Lewis, Chris Marustik, Chris Sander, Nigel Stevenson all working away below that I felt that within a couple of years would be ready to come through. What we didn't bargain on was a spate of injuries that we had the second season. A lot of these players were experienced players and I think the first season had taken a lot out of them. Especially being involved in five competitions. We had seven players operated on and we had three players who had to pack the game in. John Mahoney, Hadziabdic and Colin Irwin who had a very bad knee injury at Aston Villa and never played again. And we didn't possibly have the strength of squad to operate in those circumstances. The average gate dropped to 11,000 which was a surprise - we lost a lot of money each month and there was a transfer embargo put on the club and it became very difficult. A lot of these lads that needed a year or two to be ready were rushed into the side earlier than we hoped. There was a lot of board room squabbling - people came off the board and others came in." Many managers though will tell you that board room issues are not their worry and they just concentrate on the playing side - does Tosh agree with this? "I think it does hinder. Particularly at Swansea at that time because everything had been nice and rosy in the garden. There wasn't any kind of hint of any trouble." And of course the Toshack era was coming to an end - in fact John was sacked and then re-instated at the club "I don't remember it that clearly. I remember leaving and then coming back. I played a game at Ninian Park for Swansea - one of my last games and then leaving again soon after - they were difficult times for me personally. I put an awful lot of work on there in a short period of time and a lot of things had happened. It was the best apprenticeship that I could have had but a tough one as well. I'm still not sure of what happened in the board room but I do know that the main reason things started to go wrong was the incredible injury problems that we had." A couple of years after Toshack left, the club went through one of it's worst spells which culminated in a winding up order and an eleventh hour rescue package in December 1985, was this something that Toshack kept up to date with? "Not really, When I left Swansea they were difficult times personally and I moved over to Sporting Lisbon in 1984 and after a year I moved to Sociedad and during that period I didn't get back too often and didn't know exactly what was going on. "It's over twenty years now since I left and during that period the club has had little sprinklings of success. Terry Yorath won promotion with them, John Hollins won a championship and got them up to a higher level. They have never seemed able to hold any level of consistency or to build on anything. People talk about managers changing hands and this and that but there has always seemed to have been difficulties behind the scenes. At the moment even battling to stay away in the division they haven't got a chairman. And it is important that the manager and the players have somebody there to answer to otherwise it gives people an easy get out if things are not going so well. There doesn't seem to be a stomach or anything solid behind the team and until that is put right then you are just going to be going through the motions from one week to the next." So that was his view on Swansea at the moment, what of recent stories linking him with a return to another former club in Cardiff City? "That was something that I took up with Bobby Woodruff, Brian Clarke, Ronnie Bird ex-Cardiff City players who went to watch them play a home game, nothing more than that. It's a problem that I have had over the years. If I'm out of a job and I go to watch a team play anywhere and it happens a lot in Spain, people put two and two together and they make five - nothing else to be said about the matter really. It's one of those things. I used to walk past Ninian Park every day and passed the other day and went into see Birdy and have a cup of tea with him and when I walked out five journalists came running behind me." Could he ever though see a return to British Football? "You never know. You can never tell. When I left Liverpool in 1978 if someone had said to me over the next 25 years some of the things that have happened I would never have believed them. If someone had said that I would have been sacked twice by Real Madrid then I would have asked them where should I sign? Or that you will go from the fourth to the first division with a club that has never been there before. Or that you will work and sign people like Rivaldo and Bebeto I would never have believed them. In football you never say never." But what about Swansea? "You just don't know what is waiting around the corner" And finally on Swansea, does Toshack believe that the club will stay up this season? "Yes I think that they will make it. It is going to be tight and it will go right to the last game. They have got an important game coming up now against Shrewsbury and they have still to play Exeter at the Vetch. I think the good thing at the moment is there is about eight sides involved in what is going on and it is not as though there is just four and two have to go. The other sides have games in hand though. But they have to remember no-one does them any favours in football - it is no good thinking that someone else is going to help them - Swansea can't do anything about what is happening at a ground two hundred miles away they have got to go and think that the other sides are going to win their games and get the result themselves. During the week you have got to try and relax and prepare in the best way so that when you go on the field on Saturday you are mentally prepared for what is ahead. It's going to be touch and go. If they win their three home games then I think that will be enough. They may find that they get beat a couple of games but so will other sides." So there you have it - Toshack has confidence in us beating the drop and we can't argue with his calibre in football management. It was a pleasant fourty-five minutes speaking with John over a coffee and remembering events that although twenty years ago, still seem like yesterday. I thank him for the time that he allowed me and for sharing some of his thoughts and, like all Swansea fans, wish him all the very best for the future wherever it takes him. Thanks also to Nigel Hamer for setting up and arranging this interview - like so many Tosh was a hero of mine as I grew up and maybe that was the presence that I felt when I was talking to him?? |
Part 1: The Foundations For Success |
Part 2: Promotion and Division 1 |
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