Mike Rowbottom: A sad end for George Burley, one of football's good guys

You get a feeling about clubs when you cover their matches, and visiting Ipswich Town has always been a pleasure. It's the kind of place to which you would be happy taking your children.

The attitude towards the press is generally so courteous you almost suspect the club wants you there. The press box is roomy and comfortable, its working areas illuminated by neat halogen lights. When you get to your place, there is a welcoming sign on the desk showing the name of your paper. I half expect it to be covering a complimentary Continental chocolate. Afterwards, naturally, coffee, tea and sandwiches are served. Club officials smile and chat...

I could go on. And I will.

After Ipswich's home Uefa Cup tie against FC Sartid last month, I lingered. At other clubs, my behaviour might have been construed as loitering, clubs where lights go off early and short-tempered stewards hover at your shoulder, clubs where all the obvious exits are shut and you have to walk around the backs of the stands in near darkness before finding your way out to streets which echo with harsh voices...

Sorry about that. I started coming over a bit Paul Weller there. At Ipswich, however, lingering is fine. So I was inspecting the newspaper cuttings which line the corridors.

Now most clubs display photographs of footballing highlights. But at Portman Road they do more than that. As you scan the framed, yellowing reports of times past – Alf Ramsey's men clinching the 1962 league title, Ken Oxley being carried from the pitch with a head injury, Ray Crawford scoring a crucial FA Cup goal at Manchester City, Arnold Muhren, Frans Thijssen and co hanging on to win the 1981 Uefa Cup – you get a sense of an institution which genuinely appreciates its history.

A door opened somewhere to the sound of laughter, and the Ipswich chairman, David Sheepshanks, emerged with two guests. "Still here?" he enquired cheerily as he swept by. "Yes," I said. "I love all this." "Great, isn't it," he replied, before disappearing from view.

When a football chairman announces that a manager has been sacked, as Sheepshanks did yesterday following the departure of George Burley, the statement usually contains stock expressions of regret. But when Sheepshanks used the funereal term "with great sadness" to describe the decision, you were minded to believe it.

He knows more than anyone the huge part that Burley has played in the club's recent achievements having served them for 14 years as a player and seven as manager.

Sadly, Burley's comments after the midweek defeat at Grimsby that leaves the team at the wrong end of the First Division were heavy with dramatic irony: "You have to be prepared to finish things off and if you make mistakes at the same time at the back it's a recipe for disaster."

Having led the Norfolk club back to the Premiership, and then the Uefa Cup, Burley has watched with growing disquiet as the wheels have begun to fall off the tractor. Although he survived the club's relegation last season, recent results have put him under increasing pressure.

Not that you could spot it by his demeanour. The neatness and nimbleness which characterised the playing career of this quietly spoken Scot have been maintained in his managerial persona. Prompt, dapper, blazered, he has always responded to the increasingly urgent questioning of the press with diplomatic restraint.

After last month's hectic derby at home to Norwich, for instance, when the visitors gained a point after the Ipswich keeper Andy Marshall appeared to have been unfairly charged, Burley's response was typically measured. "It was 50-50," he said. "Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't."

Even at his most discomfited, the only evidence he offered was a momentary glint in the eye. Burley is not given to ranting or moaning.

But as Ipswich continued to make pretty patterns in midfield this season before either missing at one end or messing up at the other, it became clear that a club which doesn't like to change its managers around had to make a hard decision.

When the corridor display gets updated in coming years, it will no doubt reflect fully the achievements of a man who returned his club to Europe after a 20-year-absence and left Portman Road having more than doubled the average home gate to 25,000.

Burley's demise came at the end of a week which also saw the departure of another popular manager of seven years' standing, Peter Reid. And as with Sheepshanks, the farewell offered by the Sunderland chairman, Bob Murray, seemed a genuinely fond one.

"It's one of the saddest things I've heard in football," said Manchester United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. "Peter was one of the good guys."

So, too, was George Burley.