Thinline wrote:Can you summarise the reasons for the acrimony between Stan and, well, everybody?
It's something I've never really understood...
it's been some years since I read it, but i'll give this a go (from stan's perspective).
He reluctantly took on the role as an assistant coach a year or 2 after his son died... several ppl were shown the door and the offer was made to him to be coach, after he accepted several key board figure told him that he only had the spot unitl Trevor Barker was ready to coach which obviously never eventuated.
The immediate thing that Stan noted was that the board didn't want to know about anything related to how he coached the club or what his directon was.
Stan also noted that the mentality of the players was "we're not good enough" and that in general the club only respected and acknowledged the efforts of its stars (who could get away with murder).
He told the story that for that reason one day in a game against WCE, he ripped into David Grant infront of the entire team for breaking a team rule that cost them a goal and momentum (said ultimately he regretted that as Grant was never the same player again)
One of the early things he did was have a big meeting with everyone at the club in an attempt to familiarise everyone with everyone else. and also acknowledge the lesser lights at the club. He told the story of how he called Shanahan into his office once and asked him to name the best player at the club to which he responded Harvey, then got him to compare Rob's attributes to his to which he drew the conclusion that while Rob was a star, he was stronger, could spoil better etc and while not a star, that he was a different player with different things to offer the team.
He was also very very big on empowerment. He sat down with the team and let them put together a bunch of team rules and conduct, and also let them come up with the punishment for transgressors.
From time to time he also let players run training sessions and nominated individual captain's of areas on the ground... e.g. Jamie Shannahan was in charge of the backman
He also let the players decide their own captain in which they jointly picked Loewe and Burke as co-captains.
Stan said that he felt the board's attitude to these changes was that the players were there to play not to think and that they felt that empowring the players would lead to big heads, control issues and chaos.
They also felt that the co-captain portrayed the saints as a club that was unable to make big decisions.
The other really big thing he noted was that the board was really annoyed that he never drew attention or publicly acknowledged all the hard work the board was doing to save the club.
This came to a head after the Ansett cup win in 96. Stan said that he was in his office and a board member asked him to do some photos for a journo to which he agreed. The took a photo of him at Moorabbin, up against a wall. He didn't notice that on 1 side of the wall it said IN and on the other OUT. The article published a story about whether or not he'd leave.
The board was furious and accused him of try to leverage a better offer despite the fact that he was asked to do the photo and was not quoted in the article at all.
Stan said after that, he simply didn't bother with the board and stayed out of their way.
In 97, post the grandfinal at the drowning of sorrows party, Stan said that 2 members of the board approached him and said that the biggest shame of the year was that he won that game against Melb (Balme was sacked) and made the grandfinal hence they couldn't sack him but they wanted to.
He felt that the board then went out of their way to make things difficult for him e.g. Shannahan left, and they didn't get a replacement.
Obviously he was sacked 12months later.
Hope that covers it
)
