Tottenham Hotspur had just 13 points from their first 14 games of the 1997/98 Premier League season when Gerry Francis was sacked, and chairman Alan Sugar wanted to make a left-field appointment to turn the club’s fortunes around.
Seeking the advice of Tottenham’s former manager David Pleat, Sugar wanted to learn more about two-time Swiss Super League winner Christian Gross. Pleat, though, knew little of the Swiss manager who had had success with Grasshopper in 1995 and 1996.
Neither did Sir Alex Ferguson, who Sugar believed knew everyone in football. Wanting to figure out if Gross could replace Francis, Sugar enlisted the help of Pleat and Ferguson – not that he took their minimal advice.
Tottenham chairman Alan Sugar appointed Gross with little knowledge
“Sugar asked me if I knew him,” Pleat says. “I didn’t, and he said, ‘Ring Alex Ferguson – he knows everyone.’ He didn’t know much about him, either; I told Sugar, but he went ahead.
“Christian’s agent was Jurgen Klinsmann’s agent, and Klinsmann came back that season. Christian was a nice man but the players didn’t want his tough regime. I told the chairman to give him time but he said, ‘You know the mood of the players’ and Christian got the sack.”
Indeed, after a tough start to the 1998/99 season in which Tottenham lost to Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon, Sugar sacked Gross just three games into the new campaign. Pleat briefly stepped in as caretaker, prior to the appointment of George Graham as the permanent boss.
Pleat tells FourFourTwo that he found being the Tottenham director of football “fascinating”, however, especially considering Spurs were one of the first clubs in English football to adopt a role for someone to specifically oversee the football operations at the club.
“Alan Sugar was a very clever man: he was the first to want a director of football, because he felt directors didn’t know enough about football and needed someone to help them – a buffer between the manager and the board,” Pleat says.
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