RON ATKINSON’S 94 DAYS AT ATLETICO MADRID. AND NICK OWEN.

by Steven Scragg

Colin Addison, Ron Atkinson and Atleti president Jesus Gil

 

It was at the 1989 European Figure Skating Championships, at the NEC in Birmingham, that Ron Atkinson’s sacking as head-coach of Atlético Madrid was played out, in what was perhaps the greatest kitchen sink drama that Midweek Sports Special ever had the good fortune to stumble across.

For 48 hours, media circles had been swirling with the rumour that Atkinson had parted company with Los Colchoneros. Yet, with no press release forthcoming from Atlético’s volatile, unpredictable, but fantastically entertaining president Jesús Gil, a wall of silence being projected by Atkinson’s assistant Colin Addison, and Atkinson himself back in England, reportedly tying up the loose-ends of the sale of his flat in Edgbaston, in preparation of moving into his new apartment in the Spanish capital, no media outlets had so far been brave enough to run with the story.

With Atlético sat in 3rd place in La Liga, and Atkinson only having been in charge at the Calderón for 94 days, even in the wonderfully weird world of El Presidente Gil, to the ranks of the British sports press, this seemed to be a story which was too ‘out there’ to be true.

Atkinson had been long courted by Atlético. On the evening of the day he had been sacked by Manchester United, he had received a phone call at home, on behalf of Vicente Calderón himself, with the offer of employment. Calderón then being the club president.

The plan was, that Atkinson would be the coaching name on Calderón’s list of promises in the summer of 1987, when he was due to face re-election.

With the respected Calderón’s re-election expected to be a formality, Atkinson opted to put his feet up for the remainder of the 1986/87 season, appearing occasionally in the ITV commentary box and confidently rebuffing all other suitors.

When Calderón died unexpectedly in the March of 1987, the landscape changed. The establishment successor to Calderón lacked the common touch and Gil swept to victory in the presidential election, bringing with him the World Cup winning coach César Luis Menotti instead.

In the slipstream of his Madrid dream vanishing before his very own eyes, during the early exchanges of the 1987/88 season Atkinson accepted the chance to return to West Bromwich Albion, the club he had turned from ‘mid-table bothers’ into compelling ‘there or there abouters’ in the late-1970s and very early-80s.

The West Brom that Atkinson returned to however was a pale shadow of its former self. Relegated from the First Division at the end of the 1985/86 season, they were devoid of both meaningful funds and players of talent. The Third Division seemed a more likely escape route from the Second Division than the top-flight did.

Forever self-confident and always the showman, Atkinson began to collect an assortment of discarded and waning star names, welding them to the best products of the Hawthorns youth programme.

Relegation was narrowly avoided at the end of the 1987/88 campaign, and an inconsistent start had been made to the 1988/89 season. Despite on-pitch evidence suggesting otherwise, Atkinson felt he had the basis of a team that could strike for promotion during the seasons ahead, and he approached the board with regards to a one-year extension to his contract, a contract which was due to expire at the end of the 1989/90 season.

With the West Brom board erring upon financial caution, when Atlético got back in touch with Atkinson in October 1988, it was with an offer he couldn’t refuse.

By now, Menotti had long gone, as had his two successors. A contract worth £250,000 a year was waved in Atkinson’s direction, dwarfing the £40,000 a year he was earning at West Brom. Both he and his assistant Addison were Madrid bound, their final game in charge of the Throstles being a 2-1 defeat away to Barnsley, which left the club in 18th position.

Here is where the lines blur somewhat.

Atkinson has always spun the story that Atlético were near the bottom of the table when he joined the club.

When Gil made his initial approach Atlético had just risen from the bottom of the table, with Atkinson’s predecessor, José Maguregui actually winning two and drawing one of his last three games in charge of the club. It was a UEFA Cup exit on away goals at the hands of Groningen which cost Maguregui his job.

In the period between the sacking of Maguregui and Atkinson taking control at the Calderón, they were lead to two further victories by the caretaker manager Antonio Briones.

When Atkinson patrolled the touchline for the first time for Atlético, they started the game in 9th position in the La Liga table. A 3-1 win at Elche, followed six days later by a 2-0 victory at home to Valencia was enough to put Atlético into 3rd place. The miracle lifting of Atlético from bottom to top is one of the biggest illusions of Atkinson’s career.

Atkinson would remain in his job for just 10 more games, overseeing a further four wins, along with three draws and three defeats, even finding himself up against his accident prone former Manchester United defender Kevin Moran, who had inexplicably procured himself a move to Sporting Gijon.

In mitigation, two of those defeats came at the hands of Real Madrid and Barcelona. The Madrid derby was particularly unfortunate, as at the Bernabéu, Atlético succumbed to a last-minute winner from Rafael Martín Vázquez, while against Barcelona at the Calderón, having lead 1-0 at half time, they capitulated in the second half to Johan Cruyff’s fast rehabilitating side, with Gary Lineker scoring the second Barcelona goal in a 3-1 reversal.

The Barcelona loss would be Atkinson’s last defeat as Atlético coach. In the following three games he took one win and two draws, enough to see the club maintain 3rd place, yet still be positioned only three points ahead of 14th placed Legroñés. Such were the fine-lines between the also-rans in La Liga that season.

In the build-up to the last of those games, a goal-less draw at home to Celta Vigo, Atkinson had a run-in with Gil. Stating his intention to fly back to the UK for a couple of days to sort out the sale of his home, Gil insisted Atkinson was to stay put.

Atkinson flew home regardless. As he landed in the UK, he received a call from his assistant Addison, informing him that Gil had offered him the job of head-coach.

At the NEC in Birmingham, it was the former TV-AM presenter Nick Owen who unexpectedly bumped into a bewildered and seething Atkinson, not needing to apply too much pressure on him to agree to appear before the TV cameras, it made for hypnotic viewing.

Atkinson, bristling, but still in cabaret comedian mode, told an agog nation that Gil had still not informed him that his services were no longer required and that he was flying back to Madrid the very next day to confront the president.

Owen’s suggestions that reports from Madrid had intimated that Gil hadn’t felt Atkinson was taking the job seriously enough, and that Addison had stabbed him in the back, almost made Atkinson spontaneously combust.

It all made for compelling viewing.

Atkinson returned to Madrid to claim a £150,000 pay-off, and as ever, falling on his feet, by the end of the following month he was the manager of Sheffield Wednesday.

Addison, appointed as Atkinson’s successor would never again work with his former boss, and also fell foul to the fleeting whims of Gil, finding himself sacked too before the 1988/89 season had drawn to an end.

As for Nick Owen at the NEC in Birmingham, he had the unwitting line of the evening on Midweek Sports Special.

“With Ron apparently frozen out in Madrid, let’s return to the ice-rink here at the NEC”.