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The Atkinson Era
(1978 - 1981)
 When
unknown young manager Ron Atkinson arrived at the club in 1978, he
inherited a team that already included youth-team graduate and future
England captain Bryan Robson complementing the attacking flair and
power of Regis and Cunningham, both acquired inexpensively from lower
divisions, Atkinson constructed one of the old first division's most
attractive sides.
Aware that he had the makings of a great team, he augmented it by
bringing Brendan Batson from his former club Cambridge United. Never
before had an English team simultaneously fielded three black players
and the Three Degrees, as they became known in reference to the
contemporary vocal trio of the same name, challenged the established
racism of English football and marked a watershed that allowed a
generation of footballers to enter the game who would previously have
been excluded by their ethnic background.
Atkinson's team
played some of the most exciting football in England during his term
at the club but, as early as 1978, the board allowed the playing
talent to start slipping away, Cunningham's move to Real Madrid
marking the start of the trend. The club managed 3rd and 4th places
in the First Division and, more than once, reached the semi-finals of
the FA Cup but trophies narrowly eluded them.
Following the tragic death of director Tom Silk in a plane crash, the
club fell again under the conservative leadership of Bert Millichip
and Atkinson, despairing of the support he needed to build and
maintain a winning team, he took the vacant manager's post at
Manchester United in the summer of 1981after we had finished third.
As a manager Atkinson
remained traditional in his attitudes, favouring "a kick up the
backside" for errant players, occasionally provoking confrontations,
and relying on old-fashioned means of boosting team morale. His
Manchester United side had a fearsome reputation for boozing, and
many of his anecdotes feature the fallout from away trips when things
got a little out of hand.
Recently in the Guardian, he described how, on a pre-season tour to
China, his West Brom squad encountered the Canadian women's gymnastic
team. "It relieved the boredom," he wrote. Later the West Brom
chairman, Bert Millichip, returned to the hotel with a delegation of
his Chinese hosts to find a naked player being chased by one of his
team mates carrying a bucket of water. "He explained it as one of our
new training methods,".
Other Famous quotes 'He dribbles a lot and the opposition
don't like it - you can see it on their faces'
'I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of
a lifetime for that prat'
West Brom Stats
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