Can you manage?

As a fan of football management computer games (or as Mrs Wife would have it, a geek), I was heartened by a story which I recently discovered on the interweb.

It seems that a young chap called John Boileau decided that, with his 30th birthday looming, there were too many aspects of this game we call existence that he had yet to experience. As well as coming to grips with the rules of American Football and losing weight, John was also determined to apply for a Premiership or Championship management job.

Now, there have been countless sad nerds who, inspired by their 'success' at taking Acrington Stanley to consecutive Champions League victories in Championship Manager, have applied for real football management jobs.

But John's story is slightly different in that he sent supporting information with his application - and that he got a reply.

Having applied for the manager's post at Middlesbrough, recently vacated by current England boss Steve McLaren, John received a reply from chairman Steve Gibson thanking for his application.

The correspondence between the two can be seen at:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~kritip/managers%20job.htm

The best bit is undoubtedly where Gibson states that 'we were of the opinion that your tenure with us would have been shortlived, as your undoubted talent would result in one of the big European clubs seeking your services.'

At least John's site proves that football hasn't lost touch with its REAL investors - the common fan. It also shows that even some of those at the top, in control of clubs which are now businesses more than sports teams, still have a sense of humour.

Can anyone seriously imagine Vladimir Romanov, David Murray, Roman Abramovich or the Glazer family responding to a letter like John's with the same wit and ability to laugh at themselves?

I always said that if I won the massive Euro Millions lottery jackpot earlier this year, which was around £100 million, I would have bought Brechin City and transformed them into a footballing superpower. I like to think that, as well as having Ronaldinho running down the hedge side of Glebe Park, I'd have been able to run the club with the same respect for the fans, in a similar style to Brooks Mileson at Gretna, who bought ALL the Gretna allocation of tickets for the Scottish Cup semi-final and gave them to the fans for nothing.

And then I'd have bought Celtic and turned them into a feeder club....