Aston Villa News 24/7I know many people were more than a little concerned about Gérard Houllier’s age when he was appointed and that may well have caused feelings that his appointment wasn’t a long term solution. Initial reports of a two year contract seemed to compound that feeling, despite his predecessor operating on a 12 month rolling contract that proved to be entirely worthless in the final analysis anyway.
Maybe the fact that his contract, once it was eventually signed, was actually three years in length alleviated some concerns, but I’m not sure that his age doesn’t remain a significant concern. So I decided to run through Villa managers of the past to see how old they generally were and how long we enjoyed their company at Villa Park. Or didn’t enjoy in some cases.
Firstly, I have to say, maybe it’s just that everyone seemed to look 10 years older in the 70′s and beyond, but I was honestly surprised not to find a single one of our past managers were in their 60′s when they came on board. The oldest – that I know for sure, I have a couple of gaps – was Graham Taylor in his 2nd stint, which we all know was a short term fix. GTII was 57.39 when he moved back downstairs.
You might be surprised to learn that Martin O’Neill and Jozef Venglos were the next oldest, both 54.43 years old when they took over. The average age of new managers when they were hired was 45.
So, at 63, Houllier is considerably older than any manager we’ve employed in the past, but his three contract does keep him within the retirement age and, if he saw out those three years, would that be considered short term, or long term?
What is long term in football management anyway?
Here are the top 15 Villa managers by length of service and a wee note about George Ramsay follows as his almost 42 years at the helm is clearly an anomaly worth explanation.
| Manager | Yrs Mngd | Age Start | Age End |
| George Ramsay | 41.83 | 29.42 | 71.25 |
| W J Smith | 7.83 | ? | ? |
| Ron Saunders | 7.68 | 41.58 | 49.26 |
| Joe Mercer | 5.67 | 44.31 | 49.98 |
| Eric Houghton | 5.25 | 43.17 | 48.42 |
| Alex Massie | 5.08 | 39.38 | 44.47 |
| Vic Crowe | 4.35 | 37.92 | 42.27 |
| Martin O’Neill | 4.01 | 54.43 | 58.44 |
| John Gregory | 3.91 | 43.79 | 47.70 |
| Ron Atkinson | 3.34 | 52.30 | 55.64 |
| Brian Little | 3.25 | 41.00 | 44.25 |
| David O’Leary | 3.16 | 45.05 | 48.21 |
| Graham Taylor | 3.16 | 42.68 | 45.83 |
| Dick Taylor | 2.92 | 46.23 | 49.14 |
| Jimmy Hogan | 2.83 | 54.04 | 56.88 |
George Ramsay is often referred to as the founder of Aston Villa and played from inception in 1874 until retiring as captain 8 years later at the age of 29 and became what was the pre-cursor of the modern day football manager; the secretary. It was a job he held for close to 42 years before stepping down at 71.25 years old.
His successor, WJ Smith, was the 2nd and final secretary of Villa, his successor, Jimmy McMullan, the first manager in anything close to the sense we would understand it today, but still probably doesn’t compare very well. McMullan ranks 19th in terms of time in the job with just 1.42 years as manager.
Should Houllier complete just three years in the job then, he would still earn himself a place in the above table and be entirely comparable with Taylor, Little and Atkinson. Were they short term?
Premier League Managers
Harry Redknapp isn’t a man I imagine will conjure much affection among readers here at AVC, although Tuesday night’s incredible victory over Inter might soften views a little, but I wonder if fans would have felt so uneasy about the long term view had he somehow been appointed in Houllier’s place.
It seems inevitable that Roy Hodgson will end up a short term appointment at Liverpool, but I’m not sure he went there with that intention himself. Regardless, both Redknapp and Hodgson are ever so slightly older that Houllier, so I can’t help wondering whether either manager would have elicited such feelings of unease.
| Manager | Team | Age Today |
| Alex Ferguson | Manchester United | 68.84 |
| Harry Redknapp | Tottenham Hotspur | 63.67 |
| Roy Hodgson | Liverpool | 63.23 |
| Gerard Houllier | Aston Villa | 63.17 |
| Arsène Wenger | Arsenal | 61.03 |
| Sam Allardyce | Blackburn Rovers | 56.04 |
| Avram Grant | West Ham | 55.50 |
| Tony Pulis | Stoke City | 52.80 |
| Chris Hughton | Newcastle United | 51.89 |
| Alex McLeish | Birmingham City | 51.78 |
| Mick McCarthy | Wolves | 51.74 |
| Carlo Ancelotti | Chelsea | 51.40 |
| Steve Bruce | Sunderland | 49.84 |
| Ian Holloway | Blackpool | 47.64 |
| David Moyes | Everton | 47.52 |
| Mark Hughes | Fulham | 47.01 |
| Roberto Mancini | Manchester City | 45.93 |
| Owen Coyle | Bolton Wanderers | 44.30 |
| Roberto Di Matteo | West Bromwich Albion | 40.43 |
| Roberto Martínez | Wigan Athletic | 37.31 |
Yes, Roberto Martínez is only 37!
And the good news, if you had your heart set on someone like David Moyes, is that there’s plenty of time for that.
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7 Comments to “Age is just a number and what is long term in Aston Villa management?”
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“maybe it’s just that everyone seemed to look 10 years older in the 70’s”
Good grief, I find it very difficult to believe Ron Saunders was only 41 when he took over the Villa !
He must have had a really hard paper round
Whatever, I have a feeling the length of Houllier’s contract is pretty much academic and he won’t get to see it out.
i know, bizarre, isn’t it?
ironically, obviously he walked out before we got to rotterdam and is responsible for setting us on our way, but tony barton won the european cup and has the best post war win record in the top flight, but was only with us 2.36 years. (ranked 17th)
it’s not teed up for houllier in the same way of course, but if he was with us only a similar amount of time and achieves anything close to that i don’t think you’ll hear too many complaints!!
He failed in Prem. He left club management. Now he has cone back. Name me a manager who has walked away from club management and then returned to be a success.
presumably the two ligue 1 titles don’t count?
Come back, sorry.
He can have them. But he failed in this league. He gave up club management – why? He’s back in this league – why? I hope I’m wrong, but I’m just feeling so pessimistic. There seems to be a pattern of Prem teams appointing mediocre managers to lower expectations, which, let’s face it, makes perfect sense, as there is no hope of anyone except the giants winning anything of value. As MON found, once you hit a certain point there is nowhere left to go. Arsene is in the same place.
hopefully he does three seasons with us and fails like he failed in his third season at liverpool.
a cup treble is the sort of failure i could tolerate.
bobby robson picked up a fair amount of silverware after england. mcclaren managed to win himself a dutch league title last year, struggling a little in germany right now though.
the dutch managers are pretty useful at going between club and national management of course; van gaal, advocaat, hiddink.
a couple from italy; donadoni, trapattoni.
it doesn’t happen that much, granted, but then managers do tend to take on national team jobs at the back ends of their careers as a rule, it’s to be expected that you don’t get many coming back into club management.