PREMIER LEAGUE:He may be soon facing the sack, but the 'Ballad of Phil Brown' may have a few verses to run yet
JUST WHEN Phil Brown thought his week could not descend any deeper into ignominy, the news filtered through yesterday that no, actually, he would not be sacked at Hull City.
This, in itself, is almost too cruel – the equivalent of postponing a Death Row inmate’s execution at the last moment and making him watch the Farrelly Brothers’ back catalogue on an endless loop instead.
Then again, perhaps this is just the next logical step in Brown’s story, which is already full of the kind of epic suffering and hubristic collapse better suited to ancient mythology than the East Riding – the sorry tale of a man who reached too far, climbed too high and applied too much Fake Bake.
It will be of scant consolation now, but in years to come small children will gather around flickering fireplaces to hear the “Ballad of Phil Brown” and make small mewing noises as an elderly relative warns that unless they eat their green veg, exercise properly and acquire the necessary Uefa Pro-Licence coaching badge, it could happen to them, too.
Brown will be fired, of course, if not after next week’s home game against Stoke then the one after that. It is pre-ordained, like Rafael Benitez using the phrase “we have possibilities” in post-match interviews, or Arsene Wenger making a cryptic comment which sounds very urbane and intellectual until, when subjected to closer inspection, it is proves to be total nonsense.
Even so, it is all very disappointing. The Premier League – an institution which has always taken itself far too seriously – needs people who will expose it to hapless ridicule, even if they do it inadvertently.
Brown just happens to be that man – a manager whose reputation is so utterly shredded that he could appear on the touchline sporting a gingham dress and pig-tails and cut a more credible figure than he does at the moment.
Then again, it is the Premier League which must, in its own way, assume responsibility for Brown’s grisly demise. Before Hull’s promotion, Brown was hip, cool and cutting edge, a master motivator and Man of the People, the best young hope among England’s dwindling band of home-grown coaches.
Now, after a season-and-a-bit spent basking in the top flight’s harmful UV rays, he is simply a bit of a pillock, a “Captain Tantastic” whose acts of outrageous bravado have gone from being charming to simply irritating.
Whether it is belting out a show-tune moments after Hull somehow wriggled out of relegation last season, appearing on Sky with a pastel pink cardigan draped over his shoulders or conducting a media briefing dripping wet and with a towel around his neck – the very embodiment of tousled, soapy sexiness – Brown apparently revelled in ridicule.
None of these incidents even came close to the cringe factor attained by Brown last month, when he responded to criticism of his clunky PR skills by claiming he had talked a woman out of suicide during a stroll on the Humber Bridge, surely the most inappropriate use of a football press conference since Raymond Domenech reacted to France’s Euro 2008 exit by proposing to his girlfriend.
Brown’s revelation certainly provided a distraction from Hull’s woes but now, sadly, he has run out of diversions.
His previously steadfast chairman Paul Duffen, who had claimed his man was doing a more impressive job than Benitez (admittedly not such a far-fetched notion), was himself eased out of office last week. Now Adam Pearson is in charge, using one corner of his mouth to insist Brown has another game to save his job and the other to ponder possible replacements.
Given Hull’s decline was long since declared terminal, the manager is surely destined to share the same grisly fate as Iain Dowie, Paul Jewell and other “impact” managers who were found wanting once the novelty value of paint-balling excursions and early-morning boxing bouts wore off.
This seems an utterly absurd waste of Brown’s talents. Men of this calibre should not just be allowed to slip through the net and inhabit the twilight zone of Gillette Soccer Centre, pretending to become excited while watching Blackpool versus Scunthorpe and trying to ignore that spotty teenager gurning like an idiot and dribbling on their shoulder.
No, epic heroes deserve better. Achilles didn’t sit in his tent like a girl when the going got tough in Troy (well, not for long, anyway) and Odysseus didn’t whinge about the cramped living conditions on the Penelope when he was traversing the perilous seas back to Ithaca. They rolled their sleeves up, dusted themselves down and killed a few people.
That might not be an option for Brown at the moment, but do write him off just yet. I would wager his ballad still has a few verses to run.
