Atkinson’s TV return stokes up emotions

SO Ron Atkinson’s back in football. Or should that be television. Or, more accurately, perhaps showbiz.

It’s difficult to tell after learning that Atkinson’s proposed role at struggling League One club Swindon is wrapped up in a television deal which hands over a six-figure fee in return for the making of a warts-and-all documentary entitled Big Ron Manager.

I’ve no problems with Atkinson returning to football. Although I understand where they are coming from, I’m not in the camp which would flog him in public each and every week for his well-documented comments back in April 2004. Those remarks deservedly cost Atkinson his £200,000-a-year commentary job with ITV and an estimated £1m more from other career opportunities which unsurprisingly bit the dust. He has also apologised copiously, if not always as grovellingly as some would like. But there is no doubt he has been punished, just as there is no question that he is not and never was a racist. Stupid and brash? Yes. Egotistical? Without doubt. But not a racist. His West Brom, Manchester United and Sheffield Wednesday teams of yesteryear contained too many black players, some nurtured, others like Cyrille Regis befriended, for that to be so.

The problem with Atkinson’s return is the sickening smack of blatant opportunism. It smells of one of those fly-on-the-wall stitch-ups which purport to present real life but actually manipulate situations for dramatic effect.

How convenient Swindon’s boss just happens to be Iffy Onuora, one of just four black managers in the professional game.

Already, we hear, he has confronted Atkinson about those racist comments. “I was blunt with Ron and told him how appalled I was, but we’ve got to move on as people,” Onuora is reported to have said. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

Commendable sentiments, but you cannot help wondering just how sincere was he in offering to Atkinson the hand of reconciliation which had been denied by so many other black football folk, most publicly including former Arsenal striker Ian Wright.

Which is why for Onuora, a young man taking his first steps in the piranha world of football management, getting into ‘bed’ with Atkinson, even in a so-called “advisory capacity,” is such a bad idea.

With Swindon rock bottom in League One and in danger of relegation Onuora already has one of the toughest and most precarious jobs in football.

Atkinson’s arrival will turn it into a circus which no manager should have to endure and no self-respecting board should entertain.

NOT a fortnight ago Harry Redknapp was telling anyone who would listen that leaving Portsmouth was the worst decision of his career.

Since then he has discovered a shambles of a club, packed with foreigners with little understanding of English football and none whatsoever of the English language.

Portsmouth’s Premiership future hangs on Redknapp’s ability to wheel and deal in the January transfer window.

Either that or he’ll be claiming returning to Portsmouth was his worst decision.

IN a bit of knockabout fun on Match of the Day Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen loosely debated who was the best footballer out of Chelsea’s Frank Lampard, Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard and Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney.

When pushed, Hansen insisted Gerrard was better than Lampard, but needed no coaxing to offer that Rooney was the best of the lot.

Even though Lampard was runner-up to Ronaldinho in the World Player of the Year poll, I would not argue with that assessment. Neither would the bookies.

It is why England currently are second favourites behind Brazil for the World Cup.

“WE are being treated like mugs again.”

Just the latest plaintive call from football supporters, this time from Charlton, who made the 600-mile round-trip to Newcastle only to find the game postponed 25 minutes before kick-off.

Don’t blame the ground staff, nor the local council and police who had safety in mind, even if it did seem ridiculously late to realise that the north-east is prone to a spot of frost.

Blame the Premier League, who insist on arranging long-distance trips at this time of year for their mugs. Sorry, customers.