Steve Evans

Quoted from It Bites

Stevenage lg 1 and now the Rotherham job on a 3 year . I’d let our manager wear full make up and wouldn’t give a toss how he made mistakes in the past if he got us in lg1

Do you know Steve by the way ? Have you met him . It’s the Dave challinor syndrome all over again

According to your logic maybe we could get him in as manager and Alex May as the new owner - GTFC and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act ! Come to think of it perhaps we could recruit an all criminal first eleven as well as long as they were winners and only stole from the rich or financial institutions?

It's possible to seriously dislike someone but also acknowledge that they're really good at what they do.

I can't stand Evans.  I think he's odious as hell and hand on heart wouldn't want him managing Town.  He might be a winner but he's just an awful, awful man.  

But he's bloody successful. That Boston spell will taint his legacy forever and I think it's the real reason that with the exception of getting there himself with Rotherham, it's the reason there's only crackpot Leeds who have taken a chance on him from the top two tiers.

Great appointment for Rotherham.

Steve Evans is an effective manager, no arguments there. His CV bears that out - 8 promotions albeit just the one in the last 10 years, and he did face 4 straight sackings before rocking up at Stevenage.

He has incredible knack of getting a tune out of players in spite of being throughly dislikable, which is certainly a skill in itself. Here’s how his Crawly players reacted after he left (despite having won 2 promotions there):

Yes, that Crawley response is just a bit short of a ringing endorsement isn’t it.

I wonder how they felt about all the win bonuses they earned under him though……

Covered a few times on various posts on this forum, there's a lot of the UndrTheCosh interviews where he's brought up with an underlying current theme about him:

Players hate him, yet they can all accept that he's got this knack of getting the best out of players and making things click.  I wonder if he creates unity in the dressing room with the hatred of him as the uniting factor.  Whatever it is, it works.  

Can't remember who it was but there's a great story where he's on a team bus and he goes to the toilet on the coach, but basically ends up shitting down the back of his shirt because he's too big to move it out the way.  Grim but hilarious.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Covered a few times on various posts on this forum, there's a lot of the UndrTheCosh interviews where he's brought up with an underlying current theme about him:

Players hate him, yet they can all accept that he's got this knack of getting the best out of players and making things click.  I wonder if he creates unity in the dressing room with the hatred of him as the uniting factor.  Whatever it is, it works.  

Can't remember who it was but there's a great story where he's on a team bus and he goes to the toilet on the coach, but basically ends up shitting down the back of his shirt because he's too big to move it out the way.  Grim but hilarious.

Then that's settled. Sack DA, who's a nice guy, but not a good manager, appoint Evans, who is an animal but gets results, and just make sure his Office Seat and Dugout Bench has a Commode fitted.
Next season we shoot for League 1 and ever higher, always assuming Evans isn't arrested for something mid-game, and has to send messages to the bench from his cell.

Artell's success rate at League Two isn't that unfavourable next to Evans'.

1 promotion from 3 full seasons as opposed to 2 promotions from 8 full seasons.  Artell's got 1.39 PPG, Evans has 1.52.  Over the course a season that's 6 points.

To his absolute advantage is the fact that Artell isn't a cretin.  I think I'd rather just not bother watching Town than seeing Evans constantly hoicking his ill fitting trousers up on the touchline every week.

Well that shuts up the leery “movkneys” in our local who take great delight in telling me that Stevenage will get to the championship under Evans

However successful Evans is, his personal qualities would conflict massively with our current owners.  I am fine with that.

Ironically, he could have come here under the previous owners, as a convicted fraudster nearly did.

Quoted from WesternMariner

You really are a wind up merchant. There’s more than “a few” would stop going if that fat, bent, obnoxious, eye liner using illegitimate was our manager.

But they'd soon come running back when we started winning a few games. Think what you want about Steve Evans but he's a very good manager.