Most Last Place Managers

I did think twice about posting this, as I don’t want to upset anyone. It’s just a game at the end of the day, and these are just stats which don’t always tell the whole story.

For one thing, there are plenty of managers here who have won titles and trophies as well, and who are active and valued members of the Top 100 community. Sometimes it just needs a change of luck, club, or maybe perseverance to stay with one club to achieve success.

Obviously, Most Bottoms is a record no one wants, but the stats (and the bottoms) are there staring me in the face so it’s impossible to ignore.

Now, it should be noted at this point that while those managers winning title after title and never finishing lower than 2nd place are great managers, those managers finishing bottom more often than most are simply unlucky. The SM algorithm was out to get them. The match engine is rubbish. They had bad teams given to them. Real life got in the way.

All these are perfectly valid excuses, of course, and if it wasn’t for the guys occupying positions 4-20 in the table every season there would be no winners or runners-up.

And without their perseverance in the face of season after season of hopelessness there would be no Top 100.

So, without further ado, let’s get right down to it, and see the faces behind these bottoms, as it were, er.

In reverse order….

There are quite a few managers who have TWO bottom place finishes on their record. Jamie Alldridge, Alex Borel, Padraig Corcoran, Gareth Crisp, Joao Alves, Nicky Thomson, Walter Gogh (two and a half, really). Some of those were double relegations, some were double relegations with different clubs.

On THREE 20th place finishes, we have Lee Adams, Gianluca Ghio, Feargal Hickey, Ashley Holtom, Alessandro Ioli, Rahul, Gerrit Vogeleer.

Lee Adams starts us off. If you look at Lee’s overall record, you can see he also suffered five more relegation seasons.

So in EIGHT out of his sixteen seasons in Top 100 he got relegated. I don’t know how he stuck it out so long. Ironically he quit last season after his best ever finish in 8th with Spartak!

Independiente are currently 6th in D5 under manager Ginaluca Ghio with one to play. Gianluca had the misfortune to start Top 100 with three successive last place finishes! They’re doing a lot better now, and even won the Top 100 Shield last season!

Only Jimmy Gouldie at Southampton last season amassed fewer points in a season than Ginaluca in his first season.

Feargal Hickey has not had the luck of the Irish with him for his hattrick of bottoms, and now a fifth relegation with Stuttgart this season.

Hattrick for Ashley Holtom! Five clubs in six seasons. Two successive 20th places was enough.

Alessandro Ioli had a tough start in Top 100 with three last place finishes in his first five seasons at Bordeaux.

Within two seasons of leaving, he won D3 with Dynamo Kyiv and is undoubtedly their most successful manager.

Now, I think that Rahul is held in very high regard by most, if not all, of us as a manager and for his work on ratings predictions (particularly on the old forums). But Rahul also has three bottom places to his name.

Last of the triple fallen crown winners is Gerrit Vogeleer. I remember Gerrit in the early seasons seemingly always finishing bottom, and wondering what he had done to merit such bad luck season after season no matter which team he had.

Are there any managers who have FOUR bottoms? YES! There is one. But he also has FIVE bottoms!

Here he is, our winner! Golden Bear!

Now, to be fair to GB, I know last season was a difficult one for him personally. He’s another like Gerrit who I remember having an incredibly unlucky run back in the early days with five relegations in seven seasons, including three back-to-back each with different clubs.

Let’s finish on a positive note – Bear is a mainstay in Top 100 from the beginning, and took Atalanta to the D5 title in S12 (although he quit to take Anderlecht before the final games and so doesn’t have that officially on his record), took Anderlecht back to D1 in his first season there, and won D5 again with his current team AZ. He’s got an outside chance of the top three again this season, and must have a good chance in the playoffs otherwise.