Off the Record, with Peter White

TOMMY Docherty always reckons he's had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus.

But Jim Furnell must have had more managers than Tommy has had clubs - and the list includes The Doc himself.

The atmosphere is always a little strange and subdued when a manager departs.

And Jim, whose own career in the game began at Turf Moor well over 40 years ago, has seen it all before - many times.

He perhaps understands better than most what people, both staff and players, are going through in these tension-riddled times.

Since those early days with Burnley, the club he joined as a youngster having been signed by Frank Hill, the present-day head of youth development at Ewood has served under 19 different managers!

As the list includes the present Rovers "caretaker", Tony Parkes, three times, however, the number of actual names is slightly reduced to 17.

Still, it's quite a line-up with the only place the former keeper didn't experience a change in management being Anfield.

Is that a lesson in itself, I wonder? Although he made only two first team appearances in several years with Burnley, there were, actually, four incumbents of the hot seat while he was on the playing staff - Hill, Alan Brown, Billy Dougall and Harry Potts.

The legendary Bill Shankly both signed and sold Furnell for Liverpool and he was off to Arsenal to work with Billy Wright and Bertie Mee.

At Plymouth, Ellis Stuttard, Tony Waiters, Mike Kelly and then Bob Saxton, who brought Furnell back North to Ewood in 1981, held the reins.

Saxton, Parkes, Don Mackay, Parkes, Kenny Dalglish, Ray Harford and now Parkes again complete the list of famous and not-so-famous.

Now Jim's wondering which name will be next to be added as the guessing game goes on.

Meanwhile, if any of the players or staff need some re-assurance as they try to soothe their nerves before Sunday's daunting return home against Liverpool, they could do worse than pop into his Brockhall office for five minutes.

"I know exactly what they have been going through and you feel for them when it seems nothing will go right," he explained.

"The tension becomes so great that it certainly affects you. "We went through a similar spell when I was at Arsenal and we were struggling to score. You are so tense because you are terrified of making the one mistake that can be so costly."

Some of those mistakes cost Ray Harford his job last week.

For, with just a couple of wins on the board, he would probably still be in charge.

But changing the manager is something that comes naturally at football clubs.

Jim Furnell is still counting.

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