There are people in football who everybody loves to hate. Whether it is the likes of girly-haired, snidey, diving Robbie Savage, or girly-faced, snidey, diving Cristiano Ronaldo, or even complete bellends like Steve Evans or Graham Westley, these people seemingly exist just to irritate. Recently a new contender has emerged at the lower end of the Football League; step forward Mark Stimson.
The shiny-headed one probably first came under the Daggers’ radar upon taking charge of local tin-pot jokers Grays Athletic. After doing an admittedly good job in taking them to the Conference play-offs and FA Trophy glory, he resigned with the pretence of “managing in the Football League”. So where did he end up? Stevenage. A team that had finished lower than Grays.
After guiding Stevenage to an average 8th place finish, he again developed itchy feet. Not letting loyalty stand in his way, another resignation led to a move to League 1 club Gillingham, a move surrounded in legal issues between the two clubs with Stevenage understandably not impressed. Months later and the Gills were relegated.
Toys were thrown firmly out of the pram during this spell with rather public criticism of his players; of Kelvin Jack he said:
“It’s certainly time for Kelvin to move on because he is not going to get a chance here.”
And after a further bust-up with 4 players rumoured to include Delroy Facey and Gary Mulligan he had this to say:
“It’s going to be difficult because a lot of the players I want out are on contract, which makes it a lot harder. We will have to sit down with some of those players in the summer and explain how I feel about them, have a man-to-man talk and hopefully sort something out. I don’t see those players being any part of what I want to achieve.”
This rather ugly war of words continued with several departing players having plenty to say about Stimson’s management style. Craig Armstrong was one player with a grudge:
“I hope Cheltenham stuff Gills on Saturday. They messed me around there. I played in six or seven games up to Boxing Day when I had to come off because I was feeling ill. And since then Stimson has not spoken to me and has blanked me. He then made me an offer to leave the club which was fine by me.”
Aaron Brown also was less than complimentary upon his departure:
“I remember one day he pulled me and another player aside and told us we would not be training with the first team or youths. “So I said, ‘what are we supposed to do then?’ He said, ‘you can do what you want’. So in the end myself and this player just stood in a field. I was like, ‘well, this just isn’t football, it’s ridiculous.’ His man management, in terms of the way he treated myself and the other lads who are still contracted there, was just shocking.”
Of course this could all be forgiven as a boiling-over of his will to win, if only it wasn’t for the sheer arrogance he manages to display on a regular basis. In January 2008 he made public his desire to sign Forest Green striker Stuart Fleetwood at a time when his club, Forest Green, had play-off ambitions. In March 2009 he made public his desire to sign Brentford winger Glenn Poole:
“We’ll ask the question every day and hopefully they will get bored of me and they will say you can have him. He wants to come and he’s interested, through his agent, and we’ll see what happens.”
Quite why Stimson was talking to the player’s agent before he had permission from the club is up for debate. If he had managed to make the capture then it would undoubtedly have been met with unadulterated self-praise. His ability to pat himself on the back after each transfer deal seemingly knows no bounds with boastful expressions such as “We would usually expect to sign someone like him for £100,000 but we’ve got him for free”, and “He will be a fantastic signing for us” after recent captures of Barcham and Maher.
Stimson first managed to directly bait the Daggers in April 2009 after a match between the two clubs. In his typically supercilious style he had this to say:
“We knew before the game it was going to be tight, because Dagenham are a team who would have looked forward to coming to the stadium, because it is such a good stadium. With a big crowd as well it would have been like a cup final for them.”
Sorry to piss on your bonfire Stimmo, but we’ve played in much bigger games and in front of much bigger crowds in much bigger stadiums against much bigger clubs. Try Charlton, or Norwich, or Plymouth, or the FA Trophy final or the Conference play-off final to name but a few. Gillingham away doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? Of course, upon winning promotion back to League 1 at the end of the campaign, he could barely contain himself as he lauded his achievements to anybody who would listen.
“I feel a massive satisfaction about it. People say to me that I won three FA Trophy finals on the trot which has never been done before. I am proud of that, but this is by far more satisfying because it was about bouncing back and getting the players to believe in what we were telling them. I’m someone who loves to prove people wrong. We’ve proved we should be in League One.”
However it was after this triumph that he really managed to infuriate the Daggers. Once again attempting to use the media in his pursuit of a player, his target this time was Paul Benson.
“We have put a bid in for Benson which we were told by his representative the club would accept. The club refused it and then it went national mentioning some crazy figure of £150,000. We haven’t got that kind of money. We’re still interested in the kid, it’s just a matter of his advisers now talking to the club and hopefully, Dagenham from what I’m led to believe, honour what they told the kid at the end of last season. If that’s the case he would be coming to join us. They probably realise the boy wants to go and they are trying to up the ante – maybe trying to get other clubs involved.”
This really has put a tin lid on Stimson’s status as an utter twat. Once again he seems to be talking to a player’s advisor without having any permission from the owning club – unless of course he is just writing his own script for the press. The fee he offered for Benno was £25k. Does he seriously think that one of the top scorers in the league could be obtained for this amount? Even if an agent has told him this, he’d have to be pretty stupid to believe it. The ‘crazy’ figure of £150k is exactly the amount he paid Rushden for Simeon Jackson in 2008, a player with no prior Football League experience. It is also worth noting that he is hawking Jackson as a £1million player – after a season in which he scored the same number of goals as Benson. Admittedly much younger, but not to the extent of a valuation difference of £975k!
