Back in the summer of 2002, Pat Fenlon rang Owen Coyle to see if he would be interested in signing for Shelbourne. Then aged 36, it was to be assumed that Coyle’s playing career was drawing to a close but, as it happened, his last first-team appearance did not come until November 2006 when he was St Johnstone’s player/manager. As recently as last year, he helped to make up the numbers for Burnley’s reserves.
Although Fenlon’s approach for Coyle came to nothing, the pair have been in contact on and off since and it was ironic that both found themselves in similar situations, but with very different outcomes, last week. Coyle was as important to Burnley as ’Nutsy’ is to Bohemians but, while the once-capped Ireland international had a fixed amount of compensation written into his contract, the Dubliner did not. And so it was that Coyle has ended up as Bolton manager while Fenlon remains at Dalymount Park. He is, however, in the process of getting his contract renegotiated to ensure any future approach is a simple matter of whether a club will meet the stipulated asking price.
Fenlon and Coyle have a lot in common, they are similar in age, have already achieved a good deal despite their relative youth and are popular with their players. They are also intensely ambitious. People might have questioned why Coyle would leave Burnley for a club below them in the table but a bigger stadium and bigger resources means his ambitions can be more easily realised at Bolton. Pragmatism wins out over romance nine times out of ten.
Bohs’ diehards wondered why Fenlon would want to leave for Dundee United, a club with no realistic chance of winning a league, having won the title five times in seven years. But that’s the point. He has done all he can in Ireland. Winning has come easily to him that he wants to test yourself elsewhere.
If you play a computer game and you keep winning at novice level, do you stay at that and pat yourself on the back for how good you are or do you move on? If you’re ambitious, you move on. It’s easy to rubbish the Scottish Premier League and it does have its problems but nobody in the League of Ireland can get snooty about that and, like Coyle at Bolton, Fenlon would have been working at a bigger stadium with bigger resources at Tannadice than he is used to.
Everyone has their own opinion on where the line between Bohs being adequately compensated for losing Fenlon and denying him a good opportunity to progress himself lies. But, of course, the saga could have been avoided if provision had been made for such a scenario in his contract. In a way, the compensation Bohs would have got for Fenlon is almost irrelevant because there was no obvious successor to step into his shoes.
Maybe Bohs’ reluctance to be short-changed stemmed from the sight of Gary Deegan and Brian Murphy having their first involvement with their English clubs at the weekend. Bohs received nothing for Murphy and a little less than €100,000 for Deegan, although it should be pointed out they didn’t pay a fee for either player. Anyway, the end result is that while Coyle waits for the visit of Arsenal on Sunday, Fenlon is waiting for FAI approval of a budget which is less than half of that he had when he was appointed Bohs manager in December 2007. Them’s the breaks.
The galvanising effect of Coyle can, I believe, help Bolton to a share of the spoils against the Gunners. I’m backing the draw with €20 at 5/2. But that seems a long way off now so, in the meantime, I’m putting €30 on a Copa Del Rey double on Wednesday. I’m backing Racing Santander and Getafe to claim home wins against Alcorcon and Malaga respectively. Santander are 3-2 up from the first leg against the Segunda Division B team which shocked Real Madrid in the last round and are 1/2 to win the second leg. Getafe trail 2-1 but Malaga haven’t won away this season and a home win is 4/7. The return on a double is €70.71.
