Co**ee 2nd worst manager of the last decade.

Last Updated : 15-Jul-2005 by
Tony Co**ee that took Barnet down in to the Nationwide Conference in 2001. Has been called the second worst manager of the 90s by Dale Johnson of ESPN Soccernet. Tony did well to beat Kevin Keegan when he was England manager and Steve Wigley. Dale said on the list "It's a list which brings together the bad and the downright terrible. The likes of the infamous Christian Gross and the somewhat lesser known achievements of one Gordon Hill of Chester City manage to escape our list of shame.

Some you will remember well, others will be a flickering memory of football past. So as not to add further pain to those listed they come in alphabetical order - you can draw your own conclusions."
He wrote:

Tony Cottee (Barnet)

"Barnet felt they had pulled off something of a coup when persuading Tony Cottee to leave a decent playing contract at Norwich City to turn his hand to management in what was then the Third Division.

The Bees were looking up, intent on reaching at least the play-offs and booking a return to the Second Division. As with Barnes, it started so brilliantly.

In his first home match after taking over in November 2000 it was Blackpool who made the trip to Underhill. Cottee and Co dished out a 7-0 thrashing, with the boss himself scoring the opening goal. All seemed rosy... for one match.

Barnet won only two of their next ten games, including a 6-1 beating at Harlepool United. By the time Cottee left the club in mid-March they were all but relegated. He won only four League matches in what was a disastrous four-month spell in charge.

His record in all competitions was: Pld-25 Won-7 Drawn-3 Lost-15. And three of those victories came in the FA Cup First Round against Hampton & Richmond and in the LDV Vans Trophy.

They went down on the final day when they lost at home to Torquay United in a relegation shoot-out. It's taken four years for them to recover from Cottee's days in charge, finally winning promotion back to the Football League for the 2005/06 campaign."
In the Bees game against Woking at Underhill on New years day in 2004 you could still see the hatred between Barnet fans and sh*thead. The games was shown live on Sky with Tony on the commentary team and during half time all around the ground started chants of "Cottee is a wanker" which I am told could be heard on Sky Sports. Tony was only beaten by John Barnes when he was manager of Celtic.