Frank Skinner on Mowbray

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Why Skinner can't see the funny side of Mowbray's total football

 

Published Date: 26 July 2009

By Andrew Smith

 

HE PRONOUNCES on Afghanistan in his newspaper column, charms the chattering classes on Question Time and highbrow panel games ââ?¬â?? and of course Frank Skinner is still best-known as one of Britain's funniest, and rudest, comedians.

 

But it's easy to divert him on to the subject of his beloved West Bromwich Albion and their recent flirtation with the total football philosophy of Tony Mowbray.

 

"A lovely man," said Skinner. "And I wish (Celtic] well under Tony. But am I sorry to see him leave the Albion? No, not really.

 

"His puritanical approach to football is unworkable. So I think we did well staying bottom of the (league] for months and then getting �£2 million for our manager. He would have been sacked but Celtic gave us all that money. That's quite a sleight of hand."

 

West Brom were relegated despite winning many friends for their passing game. Often on Match of the Day, the cameras would cut to the anguished Skinner in the stands as yet again his team achieved a moral victory but no points. The stand-up said it also became a feature of MotD that, in anticipation of pundit Alan Hansen criticising West Brom for playing too much football, Mowbray would refuse to compromise, repeating his mantra with ever more conviction.

 

"That's a noble thing, but in the end it seemed to be more about sticking to the principles at all costs so he couldn't or wouldn't see the advantages of a different approach."

 

Skinner, who will be one of the star attractions on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, wondered if his team's defending under Mowbray had been of such high comedic quality that it could be staged on the Fringe.

 

Mowbray is still revered in Leith for the beautiful football he bestowed on Hibs. But the Easter Road faithful, noting that West Brom went down and the more physical Stoke City stayed up, will recall the problems Mowbray's Hibs encountered when they played more muscular teams such as Hearts and Martin O'Neill's Celtic.

 

Does the Hawthorns house fewer aesthetes and hopeless romantics? "Maybe," says Skinner. "I'm not saying the Albion weren't entertaining under him; they were. But what does 'football' mean? It can't just mean pretty passing. There are other aspects, like defending and making sure one of your midfielders is a holding player."

 

http://sport.scotsman.com/football/W...the.5494329.jp