Who was worse, Mike Walker or Walter Smith?

[Kever10]

Not even a question.

Can't believe some of the over the top Smith hate here. We had some bad moments under him but some good as well, and he had teams ripped from him year on year. He basically had to rebuild every season as he had his best players sold from him, and if I'm not mistaken, he actually worked out operating in the Black over the 4 years he was here, keeping us up, and bringing some quality players here, until he basically lost it. Whether that was due to stress or not, I couldn't say, but to me it just seemed like he lost the will to go on, and when he stepped down, he had the grace to go without a fuss, and even picked Moyes as his replacememt.

Ferguson, Hutchison, Dacourt, Materazzi, Jeffers, Ball, Dunne, Collins, Barmby... Had all of those players sold to balance books, and little or no money to spend. Royle spent £5.6m on Barmby in 96, Moyes broke that record in 2005 with Beattie for £6... The most Smith spent on any 1 player was £4m.

We won 6-0, 5-0, 4-0 multiple times under under Smith, and at times played some good football. We had some really memorable matches under him, beating Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, at Anfield no less, and then there's the classic 4-4 with Leeds.

I know there were some extremely low points as well, but they have to be taken and looked at in perspective of what was happening at the time.

It's much too easy to dismiss him now without a second thought, but it doesn't always tell the whole story.

 

[SingBlue]

Smith.

He was the anti-Christ.

I don't think there's been many darker periods in the club's history.

The terrible negative football, the dire boot camp feel about the relationship between players and manager, the use of all his arl arses he brought in to shore him and Knox up, the murky Smith/Roach combination that had the definite whiff of payola about it.

A disgusting regime. Walker was short lived and almost funny. Smith was sinister and dark. No competition. The ugly Smith era was easily worse than the Walker 'period'.

It probably won't be a popular opinion, but I think Smith, for the reasons you state. He was laying the groundwork for Moyes. No surprise he recommended him. No surprise Kenwright took the advice of a man he'd just sacked for having poor judgement.

Walker was a joke of an appointment. I was witness to his best ever game at Goodison. Unfortunately he was in the opposition dugout when effin Ekoku scored 4, the bad kopite bell.

Smith at various stages had a far more talented squad, before the purse strings were tightened, then cut off and disposed of. And still we managed a sequence of 0-0 and 0-1 games that gives me the cold sweats to this day.

 

[ToffeeDan]

Walker was a complete disaster and so full of himself (remember the car park incident over the parking space). Almost nothing worth remembering about his era - beating a poor Swindon and fluking the Wimbledon result. Lousy football. Angell and Barlow tells you all you need to know.

 

[Gufty]

Walker was so bad it was scary. He would have destroyed us if he was given more time.

 

[ilikecheese]

6 pages @ijjysmith

Get in.

 

[blue61]

Just be thankful that Walter Walker never managed Everton.

 

[matty1878]

Walker but his spell was short. Walter had bad teams and played defenders upfront etc but that was to try and get points. Played ok at times and kak at others.

 

[daz4matty]

As bad as each other.

 

[Brendan Janus]

We were dreadful under what a Wally Smith !!

 

[JammyP]

Walker was a great manager, at Norwich. But he was not very loyal and went to a big money club.

 

[Cels]

Smith was poor, Walker absolutely stunk the place out. Remember arguing with Barry Horne coming out of the Upper
Bullend Road stand, Barry saying give him time he'll get it right, talking about Walker, couldn't believe it. Walker was a complete misfit, did he ever manage a club after Everton?

He went back to Norwich City, if I recall correctly. Don't know what happened to him after that.

Terrible manager for us, but it might have been different had he concentrated on doing his job and actually getting us somewhere, rather than swanning around like billy boots thinking he was the big 'I am'. The guy hadn't actually done anything but yet thought he had landed, and was one of the big boys in the game.

 

[ijjysmith]

Some interesting points made.

 

[Brendan Janus]

Am sure Mike Walker drove a skip wagon at some point !!

 

[kithnou]

Some interesting points made.

Damn mate I don't know if I should laugh or feel bad....

 

[HuddersfieldToffee]

This question reminds me of a conversation I heard between two town fans in Huddersfield a few weeks back. They were talking about Peter Jackson, the Town Manager who'd led them to a League Two promotion and a great escape from the, then, Division One in the late 90s.

Basically, the agreement they had was Peter Jackson was a terrific manager, and his predecessor, Steve Bruce, was satan himself and he was the worst manager in the whole era of Town (which completely ignores the terrible ones) and Jackson was the best (which ignores Herbert Chapman, but most Town fans can't read any books alluding to the 1920's, or any books for that matter).

Their reasoning was the Jackson was more successful and played better football. Both of these statements are wrong. Steve Bruce led the club in 1999-2000 to the top of Division One, and was within a typically town collapse away from getting at least a play-off berth, but the then chairman, Rubery, had a stereotypical rich-man divorce and had to pull his money from the club. The aftermath was near-liquidation for Town and that puts a bad spin on the whole season. Still, Bruce played some wonderful football in his time at Town and led them to their best ever position in recent times.

Bruce is hated by the fans and is public enemy number 1 in Huddersfield (except amongst the Rugby fans, who think he is a football genius a la David Moyes). His time is regarded as abhorrent and therefore the exaggeration begins, that we were Barcelona in blue who were forced to play catenaccio by evil Bruce who overspent on garbage. Sometimes, the aftermath of what happens colours the time it actually happened.

Meanwhile, Jacksons football is shown as tremendous, tiki-taka, eye-of the needle stuff when it was really just exactly the same as Bruce's, but with shitter players. We weren't good to watch, but Jackson had passion and the fans remember it differently.

Anyway, Mike Walker was worse by a [Poor language removed] mile.