I’ll get crucified by a certain section of the online fan group for saying this (if they were to come across this post), but I’m not entirely blown away by the new appointment. As I said the other day, I have no great knowledge of managers, all my “knowledge” basically comes from Wiki and maybe Transfermarkt for stats. Being an old cynic, I think this is probably on par with everyone else, but not having a product to promote, I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.
So what do we know about Bonner from the internet? Well he’s a bit different in that he doesn’t appear to have ever played professional football at any point. Or semi-professional or even amateur football for that matter. Seems he went straight from puberty to coaching and has spent most of his working life at Cambridge United. Unusual, but not unprecedented. Didn’t Mourinho start off as a mere translator? And then there’s that bloke in the French league (well was, he was sacked the other day) who had to pay a fine as he didn’t have his coaching badges when he started out. Learnt his craft on Championship Manager apparently. So a gamble, but not a huge one.
Then there’s his experience as manager. It’s not a long list, but it’s more than Clem. But it’s also not as expansive as some are making out. Three years as manager at Cambridge. First season, got automatic promotion, next two seasons he achieved a mid table and a bottom half in L1. With thanks to someone on Twitter, it’s worth noting that for the promotion season he had the benefit of Paul Mullin up front, scoring a massive 32 league goals. Mullin left at the end of that season. What’s interesting though is that prior to that season, Mullin’s scoring rate wasn’t very impressive at all. So what was it that turned him from a single-figures a season striker to a 20/30+ a season striker? Was it that he was maturing, was it the coaches at Cambridge, was it Bonner’s management, or something else? Unfortunately that’s not something that can be picked up from wiki.
What about reputation? Judging from the finger-in-the-wind assessment of comments on Twitter, he was and still is, a very popular at Cambridge, which has got to account for something.
So in conclusion, I think this is another gamble, but a slightly safer one than Clem. Again, as others have said, there were bigger names linked with the role and it would be interesting to know why we plumped for another long-shot. Naturally I hope he does well – another promotion from L2 to add to his cv would be cracking. Whatever happens, unless disaster strikes and we find ourselves battling relegation, then he should be given the whole season. But like Clem, if we don’t finish top seven, then another change of direction would be on the cards. What I will say, perhaps very controversially, is this; failure to make the top seven next season could see us changing more than our manager. I have a sneaky feeling that another unsuccessful season will leave the Gallinson’s deciding they’ve bitten off more than they can chew and looking for an exit plan. I hope not. Even without success, we’re a better club under the Gallinsons than we are under Scally and I much prefer the club being owned by a husband-and-wife team from Florida than any dodgy-businessman options.