Football: Goodbye Mr Houdini, hello again Mr Quips

Norman Fox explains why clubs keep returning to football's fireman

NOT FOR the first time, Ron Atkinson was halfway round the world when the football season reached its jittery halfway point. He should know better by now. Picture it. Sitting loading up on his sun tan by a pool in Barbados when he hears the familiar "call for you, Mr Atkinson... from England". Another club in trouble.

So, unless last-minute negotiations collapse, this lifeguard for sinking teams is coming back, this time to Nottingham Forest, with a nice large financial package, no great expectancy of having his contract renewed next summer (and probably not wanting it) and only one demand: to cajole or bully ailing, chaotic Forest into getting sufficient points to stay up. In spite of the club's present position, it's not a bad commitment, though a sad reflection on the lack of younger, talented managers when a 59-year-old with a lot of charisma but a patchy track record immediately has his name linked with any Premiership club wanting to ditch their manager.

In any case, what can Atkinson do that Dave Bassett - himself a saviour of lost causes - could not achieve, given time? Perhaps make a few players play a lot better than they have for fear of being thrown out, which would not be a lasting solution, although one Atkinson knows often works and could give Forest just enough points to reach safety.

Ironically, the player most under threat from Atkinson's expected arrival will also be the club's biggest talent and most problematic personality. Pierre van Hooijdonk, the Dutchman who went on strike for three months and finds it difficult to control a poisonous tongue, knows that Atkinson in his position as a television football pundit said last year that he should have been banned for life. Anyone who has worked with Atkinson will predict that he will take van Hooijdonk to one side and tell him that he meant what he said... at the time.

A lot of the patching-up work will have to be done on the training pitch, probably by the former Forest player Stuart Pearce whom the club would be wise to employ since it would satisfy supporters who loved him but are unconvinced by moves for Atkinson.

Many of today's fans, and some of the players, see Atkinson as some throwback from the days of larger-than-life, champagne-drinking managers who were all sheepskin and jewels (Atkinson actually denies he has an abnormal amount of jewellery). His seemingly endless store of one-line quips is interpreted by his critics as a diversion from shallowness. What any club employing him is promised is a period of publicity and vitality.

He has so little to lose that if he does sign up with Forest he is likely to stand up to a group of directors who most of the fans believe are more culpable than Bassett. Often his managerial employment has ended in acrimonious exchanges with directors, including, inevitably, Aston Villa's Doug Ellis, who finally accused him of paying more attention to the faults of other teams while on television programmes than looking after Villa.

Although he did well to rescue Sheffield Wednesday from the relegation threat last season, his only big success came at Manchester United where he twice won the FA Cup, though he left the club in a far lower league position than he found it. For a lot of the time at his other seven clubs over 25 years since his first manager's job at Cambridge United he has laughed his way through life, famously remarking: "It's bloody tough being a legend."

It will not please him to be told by Forest's landlord, Nigel Wray, that the club believe that their problems can be sorted out by bringing in a fresh face without offering him a large amount of transfer cash. After all, over the years Atkinson has spent more than pounds 45m on players. Admittedly, he has a good eye (among others he brought Bryan Robson and Frank Stapleton to Manchester United and Andy Townsend to Villa).

Sensibly, Micky Adams, the Forest assistant manager who was in temporary charge at Coventry yesterday, quickly ruled himself out. Forest's popular player Steve Stone still insists that Bassett was only minimally to blame. "It all goes down to us the players, but it's not the players who get the sack." On the other hand players who do fail rarely get a second chance, whereas Atkinson's likely return confirms that the game of musical chairs among managers is still as popular and absurd as ever.

The odds are that next winter he will be sitting by another pool halfway round the world while at home the winter clouds will have gathered over some other desperate club. "Call for you Mr Atkinson."