Alan Knill

By Jake Walton.

Today I am going to go on one of my most heartfelt rants that I can. As you can tell by the title it is about a ginger cretin called Alan Knill. Now, I appreciate that some of you don’t know much about lower league football so I’ll give you a run down of Alan Knill’s playing and managerial career. As a player Alan Knill was a defender who racked up 564 appearances and scored 31 goals for the likes of Halifax Town, Swansea City, Bury, Cardiff, Scunthorpe United and Rotherham United. Now, I was too young too remember Knill playing for Scunny as by the time he left in 1997 I would of been 1 at the oldest so I can’t comment on his playing style but playing for us in the early 90’s meant you were normally dreadful. Anyway, it’s Knill’s managerial skills we’re here to comment on. As a manager he managed Rotherham United from 2005-07, Bury from 2008-2011, Scunthorpe United from 2011-12 and Torquay United 20th February 2013 – to this date.

I’m just going to come out and say it. Knill is a club wrecker. There’s no two ways about it, he is a club wrecker. He is without a doubt the most incompetent manager I have ever seen in person. Couple this with the fact he claims he ‘could have died’ after being knocked off his bike by a squirrel for fucks sake and you have a laughing stock of a person and a manager. Shouldn’t dwell on ‘squirrel gate’ and concentrate on his awful managing. When Knill took over from Ian Barraclough on the 31st March 2011 we were basically dead and buried in the Championship. Relegation was almost a foregone conclusion but we put up a pretty good fight, we lost 6-0 to Norwich away in Knills first game, which no matter what you say is dreadful. This is where Knill’s tactical ineptitude was first displayed to Iron fans. On 33 minutes with us losing 2-0 and down to 10 men Knill took off our only creative force, Ramon Nunez and brung on a disgustingly bad player Sam Togwell. The mind boggles. These results were followed by an excellent 4-1 home win over Championship leaders QPR, in which we annihilated QPR, a 2-0 home loss to Reading, 2-1 away win at Palace, 1-1 draw away at Coventry, 2-1 home defeat to Millwall which effectively relegated us on the 25th April 2011, a 5-1 away defeat to Forest and a 1-1 home draw to Portsmouth. Now this was acceptable, next season was where he came into his own as a club wrecker.

2011-12 season was Knill’s first full season as manager and us Iron fans were relatively optimistic, we thought we could secure play offs especially with some of the seemingly good transfers Knill made, Jordan Robertson from St. Johnstone, Andy Barcham from Gillingham, Jimmy Ryan from Accrington Stanley (became one of my favourite players) Damien Mozika from Bury, Connor Jennings from Stalybridge (mainly for the future) and Robbie Gibbons from Ermis Aradippou (back-up also) whilst only getting rid of deadwood really. Couple this with the loans we got in, Oliver Norwood from Manchester United (now a first team regular at Huddersfield I believe and a very good player) Shane Duffy from Everton (Very good CB for League One level) and many others including Sam Johnstone, Nicky Ajose, Christian Ribeiro, Josh Walker, David Mirfin, John Parkin, Jamie Reckord and Conor McAleny. Only 2 serious outs were Joe Murphy our keeper to Coventry and David Mirfin to Watford, however we got him back on loan in January.

The start to the season was awful to be honest. It took us until the 10th game to finally register a win, a 2-1 win over the mighty Yeovil Town. Results after that generally stayed the same level of sheer dreadfulness, despite with a good team. By the halfway stage of the season we only had won 3 games and amassed a whopping total of 20 points. Results from here on out to lead us to an 18th place finish, safe from relegation but under no circumstances acceptable with the team available at our disposal. The whole team was shocking. Our defence was disgusting, made far too many errors, marking not good enough, too willing to stand off players and let them run at the defence, too many players dragged out of position etc. Our midfield was constantly over ran, passes astray, no desire and tackling was awful, apart from Jimmy Ryan who put his heart and soul into every game. Our main problems were up front however. Our top scorer was our winger Andy Barcham with an almighty 9 goals. Second was Bobby Grant with 7. He spent half the season out on loan at Accrington Stanley. This gives you an insight into how bad our strikers were. Tactical selections were all wrong, players looked bereft of confidence and just pure shit in general. I and most Iron fans blame Knill.

A Scunthorpe United fan mocking Alan Knills ‘near death’experience with a squirrel at the Iron’s last game at home To Knill’s Torquay side. The Iron won 3-1 to leave Torquay bottom of the table.

Moving onto the next season briefly, we weren’t optimistic. Midtable was what all fans aimed for at best. Knill signed many a player at the start of the season. However they all turned out to be shit. Disgustingly bad. Mike Grella should never be allowed to step foot on a pitch again and the less said about Tom Newey the better. Don’t quote me on this but I believe Knill was sacked some time around the 27th October after a 3-0 home defeat to MK Dons. The MK Dons game was our 15th in the league and by then we had achieved 10 points. All whilst playing negative football, and shockingly bad as we were last season. Times got a little better under Brian Laws but we were relegated on the last day in 21st place with 48 points from 46 games. Not going to rant about Laws because that useless oxygen thief should be saved for another day.

Last of Knill? Oh no. In February 2013 he surfaced as Torquay United’s interim manager and saved the club from relegation to non league. This persuaded the Torquay board to give him the job on a permanent role. What a bad decision. At the current time of writing, which is the 10th of December Torquay lay bottom of League 2 with 15 points from 19 games and the worst defensive record with 33 goals shipped in already. Not hard to see where the problem lays. Having studied Torquay fan forums they seem to think the same as Scunny fans, the blame lies with Knill. Torquay have a combative squad for League 2, not good enough for promotion but certainly a midtable place, however Torquay fans say Knill struggles with all aspects of managing, such as tactics, picking his squad and motivating players. All of which he struggled with at the Iron, leading to our demise. If Torquay don’t get rid of him soon they’re gone. They’re relegated and in their current financial troubles they can’t afford that, the effects of relegation will be catastrophic, leading to a club demise in my opinion. All of which Knill did at the Iron, his squad which Laws inherited were depleted of confidence, lead to relegation and now we have just recorded losses of £1.5m for the financial year. Not good.

Let’s all hope Knill is sacked and finds his real managerial level. Sunday league.