BACK OR SACK

I wrote the following article in December but never published it at the time deciding it would be better to await the outcome of the season. Hopefully it gives a balanced view of the situation at Hitchin and includes positives and negatives of the Burke era.

Decisions as to whether to to back or sack a manager are rarely straightforward and I have tried to show this in my article.

BACK OR SACK
With Hitchin struggling in the relegation zone of the Southern League Central Division it was to be expected that the future of manager Mark Burke would be under scrutiny. Social media and fan forums have seen conflicting opinions with some wanting Mark sacked and others fully supporting him. I thought I would set out my position to show it is never quite as black and white as it appears.

Whenever a team are struggling it is the manager who bears the brunt of the criticism. Lose a number of successive games and supporters get twitchy and call for his head regardless of the manager’s previous record and despite what could be a very real set of circumstances working against him. Dean Smith was sacked by Aston Villa after five successive defeats but he had never had his full squad available because of injuries and was generally considered to have done a very good job last season. Neil Warnock was sacked with Middlesbrough upper mid-table and after just three defeats Arsenal fans were calling for Mikel Arteta to be sacked. Instead the Arsenal board stood by him and he has now lifted them in to the top six. Patience seems to be in very short supply and clubs seem less inclined to give any manager time to try and turn things round. That is not to say any manager should be given a guarantee he will not one day lose his job but a knee jerk reaction to sack rather than back the manager will not always be the right way to go.

When Mark told me he wanted to take over as manager I tried to talk him out of it. The reason was that I feared one day a run of bad results would lead to a position where it may be necessary to sack him and I would find that very difficult with Mark being a club legend. However Mark was well aware of this and told me he would always jump before he needed to be pushed as he would know when he had reached the point where he was unable to turn things round. He deeply cares about Hitchin Town and would not desperately hang on to his post if he felt someone else would be a better alternative. He has been at the club for 36 years and nobody understands better the DNA of Hitchin Town. He understands where we stand in the non-league football hierarchy and how we have to maintain a budget that is sustainable.

Our infrastructure does not allow us to compete with the big budget teams in our league and Mark fully understands that we will not risk bankrupting the club chasing a dream. This meant that when we reached the play-off semi-final in 2015/16 and then the play-off final in 2016/17 Mark was completely over-performing. If you look at Hitchin’s typical performance over the last 40-50 year we have tended to be a team that finished in the lower half of the table. It is not that we are not ambitious and Mark knows we will give him the maximum budget we can but until our new stadium is in place making us more sustainable we will always be restricted.

Ironically those two play-off finishes could be said to have worked against Mark as it raised unrealistic expectations that this should be the new normal. But in reality because we did so well bigger clubs with bigger budgets picked off our better players and we would never stand in the way of a player moving up the football ladder. Indeed it is a selling point for us that players can prosper at Hitchin and be in the shop window for an upward move. Another benefit of this system is that League clubs are ready to loan players to Hitchin as they are comfortable with the way Mark and his management team develop them.

It can be a difficult process developing a successful team as Mark generally has to work with younger players who take time to develop and will not always be consistent. A lot of work has gone in to developing our academy system and Mark is always ready to introduce the better academy players in to the senior squad. This is economically viable and with the success of the likes of Kane Smith and Will Wright it should encourage more youngsters to join the academy.

Mark has worked hard to build good relations with local league clubs and we have loaned players from Luton, Stevenage, Colchester and MK Dons. He also interacts with clubs lower in the football pyramid enabling our players to get match time at the likes of Stotfold, Baldock and Letchworth. I can honestly say that Mark seems to be liked and respected by any club we visit as well as past and present players and nobody seems to have a bad word to say about him. But do not think he is too nice to prosper in the harsh world of non-league football as he can produce a ’’Fergie style hair blower moment’’ if provoked. However none of this exempts Mark from criticism. Has he made mistakes this season—yes he has and he accepts this. He has had too many young players and there has been a lack of experienced players which Mark has addressed with the signing of vastly experienced Stephen Gleeson.

We have also been lacking up front and this is another problem Mark has been well aware of. Trying to solve the problem is not so easy. Mark lost Callum Stead to South Shields earlier in the season and this deeply affected the team. When Callum came back his confidence was badly dented by his South Shields experience. Mark also identified a couple of ideal striking options to take on loan from league sides but the players would not make the move to step 3 and only wanted National League football. Good strikers also cost big money and we have to compete against teams who can blow us out of the water. One of our local rivals paid a five figure fee for a striker from step 2—we cannot compete with that. Mark has now secured Jake Hutchinson on loan from Colchester.

We have also suffered bad luck with key injuries and certain decisions have gone against us. But that is always true when you are struggling and conversely when we reached the play-offs things seemed to go our way. Mark does care deeply and has suffered sleepless nights. I know how hard he has been working to turn things round and he is desperate to avoid a relegation battle.

In conclusion I think Mark has earned the right to try and turn the season round and if he fails to do so he will know the time to go.

BY ROY IZZARD