Re: World Soccer XVIII: A New Season
The English Football Community has lost a true Legend today.
RIP Malcolm!
Former Manchester City manager Malcolm Allison has died aged 83.
Allison joined the Blues in 1965 as assistant manager to Joe Mercer, with the duo helping City to land the League Championship, FA Cup, European Cup Winners' Cup and League Cup in a stunning three-year spell in the late 60s - the most successful time in the club's history.
'Big Mal', as Allison was known, was famed for his innovative coaching techniques and was a larger-than-life character, known for wearing a fedora and his love of cigars.
Allison took sole charge of the club in 1972, and also had a spell back at the club from 1979 to 1980.
Former City winger Mike Summerbee told
www.mcfc.co.uk: “Malcolm changed football by making us train like athletes, in that respect he was ahead of his time and he was a great tactician as well. He was also one of the lads - in effect he was the twelfth player from the sidelines but he knew how to crack the whip and we respected him.
“He was a great psychologist; he knew how to handle me and how to get more out of me. He did the same for Colin Bell, Francis Lee, Neil Young and all of that great side.”
City Life president and former general secretary Bernard Halford, who knew Malcolm for more than 40 years, said: "We will never see the likes of him ever again, and he did so much for the club. The signing of Tony Book was a masterstroke, but he enhanced the careers of so many other players and they worshipped him.
"You knew he was in a room with you, not many people have that kind of presence but Malcolm did, and he transferred the confidence he had in himself to the team.
Jimmy Wagg: Malcolm Allison was cocky, opinionated... and irresistible
"He felt we could beat anybody and he wanted the players to think that way too."
City, whose flags are at half mast, will pay tribute to Allison at their next Premier League home game against Arsenal next Sunday.
There will also be an appropriate commemoration to his life and work in the memorial garden at the City of Manchester Stadium, said the club.
Allison also managed Crystal Palace, Bath, Plymouth, Galatasaray, Sporting Lisbon, Toronto City, Middlesbrough and Bristol Rovers.
He spent most of his playing career as a centre half at West Ham, making 238 appearances (10 goals) in the 1950s.
However his playing career was cut short after suffering tuberculosis.
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereve...mer_manchester_city_boss_malcolm_allison_dies
