Of course, with Hull being the world's biggest village, rumour control has practically exploded.In the last 2 hours we have had:-

Non-footballing reasons for Brown being placed on leave, namely slipping a length to a club employee

Chairman not happy about comments made on local radio after Saturday's game

Chairman's head turned by out-of-work manager expressing desire to manage club. it is supposedly one of the following-

Mark Hughes
Steve Coppell
Alan Curbishley
Dean Windass(!)

We've got some right jokers as fans, real head-in-the-sky merchants. Everyone knows Terry Dolan's coming back.

I hope he was sacked for saying that having a fight in front of the WI "shows you care".

I saw Hull in their last season in the Championship, and was amazed at how well organised they were, and how fluent some of their play was. It was pretty obvious that Brown was a bloody good coach. He had a bunch of kids mixed in with Prem cast-offs like Okocha, Barmby and Marney, a tactic which often results in a disconnected freak show, but he seemed to have got it just right. He was impressive at the press conference, too, a strong personality without being a twat. I thought "here's a bloke who'll succeed at the top level, sooner or later".

Didn't foresee him going mental. Never mind the on-pitch half-time bollocking, that thing about saving a woman from jumping off a bridge was the turning point for me.

Wasn't the rumour that the club employee was the chairman's daughter, allegedly or something.

Did we not have a thread about that mental story that broke the other day, with Nick Barmby and Jimmy Bullard having a punch-up in a local park in front of between 50 and 100 members of the local Women's Institute, and Brown having to publicly apologise to the WI afterwards?

I knew nothing about it until their match kicked off on Saturday evening and then it dominated all coverage of the game.

It may even have been the final straw for Brown's job. The WI is famously very influential. Prime Ministers cower before its power.

The whole Barmby/Bullard thing was a bit of handbags, and was leapt upon on the Friday (it happened on the Monday) by the same lazy, ignorant media wankers who don't so much as court Arsenal, but have several children by them

Is it all a pro-Arsenal/anti-Hull plot then?

It'll be the Guardian controlling it, mark my words.

Keegan eh?

That sexual shenanigans rumour was doing the rounds in November, I was told from someone at the BBC that he was going to get sacked that very next day

what about when you get to the point where your players don't listen anymore because they think you're a cunt (like davo) or move to get you kicked out (mourinho) or where you just go completely mad (like brown himself)

I do not understand any of this.

Well, there's this from The Guardian re: Brown's behaviour;

If grabbing a microphone and belting out a version of Sloop John B minutes after results elsewhere reprieved Hull, who had just lost at home to Manchester United, from Championship football last May raised doubts about Brown, that solo was far from his strangest moment.

Back in the autumn Hull's manager boasted to reporters about "sweet talking" a woman out of jumping off the Humber Bridge while leading his squad on a morale-boosting walk. Strangely no Hull player noticed any such exchange and the Humber Bridge Board, which monitors the crossing, has no record of the incident. When the Guardian subsequently put it to Brown that the episode had been a figment of his imagination, he looked distinctly sheepish, hung his head and eventually said: "No comment."

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/h/hull_city/8569118.stm

Poor old Sparky. It seems like only yesterday he was trying to entice Kaka to the Manchester City Project (TM), now he's destined to lose out to managerial legend Iain Dowie. Or Mr Popular Gary Megson.

Like Paul Jewell, he's only one bad career move away from spending his future Saturday afternoons sitting next to Phil Thompson.

Surely Hughes wouldn't want the job and they couldn't afford him?

Pearson seems to have made a right mess of this (unsurprisingly).

He is intent on only offering the new guy a contingent contract based on them staying up, and yet seems not to have lined anyone up on those unusual terms before firing Brown and filing the accounts that demonstrate that they will need to raise 21 million pounds in fire sales should they go down (and 16 million if they stay up).

Dalliance, you were saying that the ego doesn't gain primacy with the coaching, but that they work in tandem. While all successful coaches have a powerful self-regard, sometimes a manager's ego can get so out of control, it doesn't matter what coaching wisdom he is imparting, they're not listening because they think he's a cunt. That was definitely true with davo, and finished off jose at chelsea. If the manager is making it too much about him, then the players will eventually respond badly. Look at glenn hoddle. I bet he could be an absolutely brilliant coach, if only he wasn't an alien. I mean can you imagine what it must be like to play under phil brown.

Georgeous George wrote:
The whole Barmby/Bullard thing was a bit of handbags, and was leapt upon on the Friday (it happened on the Monday) by the same lazy, ignorant media wankers who don't so much as court Arsenal, but have several children by them

Yes cos Arsenal only get glowing press. Nobody in the media ever accuses them of being weak (mentally &/or physically), too fond of tippy-tappy football, too foreign, arrogant or points out that they haven't won anything in *gasp* 5 yrs. Come off it.

Interesting how Brown's reaction to getting a pen on Sat from an offside move differed to his righteous indignation after the FA Cup game last season, coupled with allegations against Cesc that he had no evidence for.

I think there are justified grounds for suggesting Arsenal do get an easy ride from the press, certainly in comparison to Liverpool, but I suppose how you see that depends on whether you like Arsenal or not.

Kubelgog. I wasn't meaning that at all with that previous comment. I was answering someone who had inferred the somewhat simplistic notion that because he thought he was a twat with a suntan, ergo he is a bad manager. And in no way is he a bad manager, or coach at least for reasons and myself and others have mentioned on this thread.

I think this whole personality stuff to do with him is all pretty circumspect really, none of it especially offends me as a neutral. He sings a Beach Boys song at an end of season party, whoopy doo. It's not as if he has been found out taking kick backs from transfer deals or bullying young players into joining his son's agency is it.

At worst it is irksome but managers who do well in their jobs earn the right to have the excesses of their personalities tolerated as a result. How else would Ferguson, Mourinho, Warnock and all still be all in gainful employment. And Brown has done well, he had universal respect from players and peers for the job he did with Allardyce at Bolton and with Hull he has taken them to heights they have never seen and probably will not now see again after this season.

Whenever I see them I see a team with poor defensive capabilities - to be honest a criticism I equally make of maybe two thirds of the division - but a team of tryers who seem to be giving their all for the manager. Look at the defeat that seems to have been the nail in his coffin, a last gasp defeat to an inform opponent they had held well despite playing much of the game with ten men. Hardly a feckless surrender by a poorly motivated side.

Kid A wrote:
Georgeous George wrote:
The whole Barmby/Bullard thing was a bit of handbags, and was leapt upon on the Friday (it happened on the Monday) by the same lazy, ignorant media wankers who don't so much as court Arsenal, but have several children by them

Yes cos Arsenal only get glowing press. Nobody in the media ever accuses them of being weak (mentally &/or physically), too fond of tippy-tappy football, too foreign, arrogant or points out that they haven't won anything in *gasp* 5 yrs. Come off it.

Interesting how Brown's reaction to getting a pen on Sat from an offside move differed to his righteous indignation after the FA Cup game last season, coupled with allegations against Cesc that he had no evidence for.

Do you mind awfully if i ignore you? Nothing personal, you understand, but it's just a number of your fellow gooners have developed a rather unhealthy obsession with our 'little' club, which manifests itself in several of their number flooding various message boards with their spiteful, patronising drivel. A bigger bunch of football supporting cunts i have ever had the misfortune to happen upon. Soz, like.