Hans Christian Andersen published ‘Fairy Tales for Children’ in 1837. The third of three stories in the volume was ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. In my opinion, it’s the greatest story ever told [Wikipedia [careful, it’s not properly moderated] says it’s almost certainly a pleasing update on an older Indian story that had reached Andersen via Spain].
As with all the best stories, it deals with many things.
The main theme is satirising peoples’ willingness to delude themselves and others for fear of being seen as stupid or uncultured, and how all it takes is one person not invested in the nonsense to bring it all down by pointing out the truth.
The reason it is such a great story is that it remains an accurate mickey-take to this day and will probably remain so for as long as the human race exists [i.e. ten years or so]. It can be applied to many social situations and areas of human endeavour.
In summary, if one sees someone pretending to like or understand something because they are worried that someone will think they are daft or uncultured if they don’t, then it’s an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ situation [post-‘The Bends’ Radiohead, most of David Lynch’s work, and so forth. Add your own examples in the comments].
In 2005, US philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt wrote an essay called ‘On Nonsense’ [it’s not called that, but the actual title is a bit rude. You’ll have to look it up. Read it. It’s great]. He tells us of the increasing proliferation of nonsense, especially in politics.
What does this have to do with football? I’ll get there.
I find the situation at Notts. Forest [teehee] to be fascinating. They are owned by successful businessman Evangelos Marinakis, a bloke who has taken his lucky start in life and done very well for himself. One can assume he knows how to understand, evaluate and make use of others and bend them to his will.
Notts. Forest [teehee] had a fantastic, almost perfect season 2024-25. They faded at the end, and slipped out of the Champion League places, but the football world agreed that manager Nuno Espirito Santo had worked wonders. One can assume that Marinakis agreed, as he gave his manager an improved three year contract this past summer.
He sacked him three months later [the reason for this is not relevant] and very quickly [and hilariously] replaced him with Ange Postecoglou [this decision is definitely relevant]. He sacked Postecoglou 39 days and eight matches later. Going from Nuno to Dyche would be bad enough, but doing so via eight dreadful games of Postecoglou in the middle, is a nightmare.
We know all this.
What we don’t know is how Postecoglou managed to convince Marinakis [a man who, as stated earlier, must have a good ability to understand, evaluate and make use of others] to give him the job in the first place.
Marinakis is not the first owner to mess up so spectacularly. For the purposes of this essay, let’s assume that anyone who has succeeded in life to the extent that they are in a position to choose the manager of a Premier League football club is similarly skilled. How, then, does it happen so often, that they misfire so spectacularly?
Souness, Allardyce, McClaren at Newcastle United.
Potter at Chelsea [Actually, half of the managers at Chelsea since Mourinho]. Moyes, Ten Hag at Man Utd. There’s dozens. Maybe hundreds.
Our own Eddie Howe proves that with the right recruitment process, owners CAN get it right.
I’ve been mulling this over for years. Sam Allardyce’s ludicrous, obviously wrong appointment at Newcastle was the first one that made me link Andersen’s story to the hiring and firing of football managers. It was NEVER going to work. Also, when he got the boot, Newcastle United had to spend a fortune sacking not only him, but also his 20+ strong team of backroom staff.
I know football is different from the time when Clough and Peter Taylor did almost EVERYTHING at their clubs [“Telling a player to get his hair cut counts as coaching as far as I’m concerned.”] but imagine applying for a job as a football manager, telling your potential employer that you don’t know how to do 95% of the things you think are required, and STILL getting the gig? How good could he possibly be at the 5% of managing a football club that he IS able to do himself? How did he convince them that he was the man for the job? What nonsense was he spouting at Freddy Shepherd?
Shepherd was a self-made man, who had made his money in haulage and related industries. It is reasonable to assume that he, [like Marinakis], would take a no-nonsense approach to such things as recruitment [Whatever Allardyce’s nonsense was, it also worked with the recruiters at the FA, Palace, Everton and Leeds].
Because of nonsense, someone can manage successfully high up in one industry [advertising, for example], and then for the rest of their career, despite reaching a level of mediocrity at best, get other jobs high up in totally different industries [the FA, Royal Mail, ITV, for example], seemingly because those at the top think that ‘being an executive’ is a skill that can transcend a total lack of experience of the other industries. The applicant will be interviewed by people at the top, who got there by espousing the same nonsense, and nobody involved dares to point out the nonsense because they’d ALL look daft. Nonsense CAN be enough to convince other dealers in nonsense that anyone, no matter how bad their track record, can do the job.
I think it’s reasonable to assume this must be happening at the top level of football. How else could hard-nosed businessmen like Marinakis and Shepherd be flim-flammed into handing multi-million pound contracts to employees to run their billion-pound companies, when a huge proportion of the football world know they are doomed to fail?
It’s an Emperor’s New Clothes situation. It proves the lasting truth of Andersen’s story [And if you don’t agree, keep it to yourself. You don’t want people to think you’re stupid].
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