WILKO-NEVER SAY DIE-KNOCK IT LONG

 

Remember this drama? Manchester United in the Champions League Final at the Nou Camp, against Bayern Munich; 0-1 down after 6 minutes and in the final minutes, injury time happened with Teddy Sheringham scoring in the first minute and Gunnar Solskjaer made it 2-1 a minute later. This link will give you a few moments more to drool over. As I write, Ole speaks on Talksport-it's never over "until the fat lady sings!" Use the link and have a trip through past come backs.

https://www.footballsite.co.uk/DYK/DYK09-ItsNeverOver.htm

I met Howard Wilkinson's brother-in-law, yesterday at my gym. We were sharing the spacious and Covid secure male changing facility. He had a towel that had the England FA logo on it. I asked how? He told me his  b-i-l was HW and then we got chatting.

I did my Full Badge at Bisham Abbey a while back and HW was one of the lead coaches, working under Charles Hughes, whom many senior readers will remember was the POMO man (possibility of maximum opportunity). 

Wilkinson was born in Sheffield in 1943 and played at Hallam, Sheffield United (very briefly), Wednesday (22), Brighton (129) where I saw him play, Boston Utd (219) including the Northern Premier League title up to 1976.  Next was managing at Mossley, England C, Notts County, Sheff W for 5 years, Leeds Utd (1988-1996) including the Premier League title and handling Eric Cantona. Also he coached Leicester City and to Shanghai.

He soon drilled discipline into a lacklustre squad and earned the affectionate nickname "Sergeant Wilko", a play on the old TV character Sergeant Bilko.. The team won the Second Division in 1989-90 after the signing Gordon Strachan,, who became captain, hardman Vinnie Jones (who Wilkinson guided to a whole season with only three yellow cards). He helped players who had come up through the youth team, such as Garry Speed and David Batty, to mature into football and many other well knowns; Dirogo, McAllister, Chapman, Sterland, Wallace, Hodge.........

In Leeds' first season in the First Division they performed very well for a newly promoted team and ended the season fourth in the league. Wilkinson felt further improvement was required on the squad and added Eric Cantona, in February 1992. Leeds won the last championship of the old style Football League First Division in 1992. As of 2021, Wilkinson is the last English manager to have coached a team to the English League Championship title.

However, his subsequent time at Leeds was less successful. Leeds finished 17th in the 1992-3 season, which is among the worst performances by a team who were reigning English champions. Following a poor start to the 1996-7 season, including a 4–0 home defeat to bitter rivals Manchester United, on 9 September 1996, Wilkinson was sacked.

Howard Wilkinson made the decision to sell Cantona to Alex Ferguson's Manchester United on 27 November 1992 for £1.2m. The Frenchman went on to become a linchpin in the side that won four Premier League titles in five seasons. After Leeds, HW was used by the FA as a temporary senior coach to the England team. Four months after leaving Leeds, in January 1997, Wilkinson was hired by the FA to act as its Technical Director, overseeing coaching and other training programmes at all levels of the game. Under him the FA began the National Football Centre project.

In this role, he managed the England team as a caretaker, in 1999 for a friendly against France following the sacking of Glenn Hoddle. Following this, he acted for a time as the permanent coach of the England U21s, controversially selecting himself to replace Hoddle's choice of manager, Peter Taylor. Wilkinson was unsuccessful in this role; despite inheriting a team who were unbeaten and yet to concede a goal, he lost three of his six matches in charge. Wilkinson resigned from the post in June 2001, to be replaced by David Platt (Taylor would end up back in charge three years later). He returned to the role of caretaker of the senior team in October 2000 following the resignation of Hoddle's permanent successor Kevin Keegan, overseeing a 0–0 draw in a World Cup qualifying match against Finalnd.

In 1999, Wilkinson was asked some very pointed questions by a Radio 5 reporter about a far from perfect performance. Wilkinson is said to have snapped and asked him what qualified him, as a mere reporter, to question professionals in this way. "Forty-three England caps, fifteen as captain" came the reply. The reporter concerned was Jimmy Armfield!!!

Wilkinson  also had a degree in Education  from Sheffield Hallam Uni, was the FA Technical Director at the National Football Centre, Lilleshall and later worked at St George's Park, once it was opened.