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Honesty & Lyallty

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 for honesty and loyalty
with diginity and pride
what more can club or fan demand
from one who’s steered your side?

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 John Lyall was the business
and I can see those tears
shedding down at Upton Park
his home for all those years

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 from ‘old school’ to golden rule
for three decades and more
the fifties to the eighties
he left his mark for sure

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 I always loved his hairstyle too
that throwback swept aplomb
his calmness on the touchline
he learnt from old King Ron*

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 another master leaves us
another talent goes
another age another page
that’s football I suppose

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 but honesty and loyalty
such diginity and pride
what more can club or fan demand
from one who’s steered your side?

Notes

Shine On.John Lyalll ( 24 February 1940 – 18th April 2006))
…. classic English footballer and manager..

*Ron Greenwood, -under whom John Lyall learned his playing and managerial trade at West Ham.This after signing professional in 1957 and remaining there until 1989! 34 years at one club (he initially worked as a member of the office staff)…

He played for West Ham, as a useful defender, until an injury-enforced retirement, aged 23. He rose through the coaching ranks at Upton Park, until he succeeded Ron Greenwood as team manager in 1974. He managed West Ham United Football Club for 15 years (1974-1989). In 1975, at the end of his first season as manager, West Ham won the FA Cup. They slipped down to the Second Division in 1978 and did not return to the First Division until 1981, but during that exile (in 1980) West Ham beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final and no other team outside the top division has won the FA Cup since. Lyall also took West Ham to their highest ever league finish in the 1985-1986 First Division campaign when they finished third behind champions Liverpool and runners-up Everton, but they were unable to compete in the UEFA Cup because of the ban on English teams from European competition arising from the previous year’s Heysel Disaster in which 39 Juventus fans were killed in chaos relating to hooliganism by Liverpool supporters.

John Lyall was sacked in June 1989 after West Ham United were relegated to the Second Division, but he made his return to football management the following summer with Ipswich Town.

At the end of 1991-1992, John Lyall guided Ipswich Town to the Second Division championship and promotion to the first-ever Premier League. In January 1993, Ipswich were fourth in the Premiership and fans were hoping for at least a UEFA Cup place, maybe even the Premiership title. But a dip in form during the final weeks of the season saw Ipswich finish 16th. 1993-94 brought a similar pattern, a good start following by a slump – Ipswich finished 19th in the final table and were only saved from relegation by Sheffield United’s last gasp 3-2 defeat at Chelsea.

John Lyall lost the job as Ipswich Town manager in December 1994.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/honesty-lyallty/?shared=email&msg=fail