Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The Butler Did It. Again.
It started with Persiba Balikpapan. Former West Ham midfielder Peter Butler was their coach and I thought yeah, would be good to meet him and have a chat. But he went and quit the club or was sacked just ahead of their game against Persija in Jakarta. No one had the decency to consider me and my plans.
So he moved to Kelantan. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for that state and its capital, Kota Bahru from my days in Thailand when I would have to do frequent visa runs to keep myself quasi legal. OK, me thinks, take in a Kelantan game and meet the guy.
What does he do but only leaves there!
Then he was off to Yangon United. OK, I never really considered travelling there for a game, not yet anyway, but it wasn't off the agenda. It was all academic 'cos he was soon gone from there, this time to Thailand and BEC Tero.
If anyone does read this blog regularly they'll know I try to get to Thailand as often as I can. But Butler's reign at BEC Tero was short and he was soon back in the UK. I'm not a stalker and there was no way I was gonna travel all that way to meet a guy who played for Maidstone United as well as West Ham. I do have a life...
Anyway he came back to Malaysia and Kelantan and I thought cool...maybe it will happen now.
Will it? Will it bollocks! Earlier today it was reported that Butler was considering leaving the club a second time, concerned that club management was interfering in team selections; a common enough occurance in this part of the world where a son owning Football Manager is enough for someone to think they know about the game.
The club President is also the vice president of the Football Association of Malaysia so no doubt these twin positions give him a feeling of power in the circles he moves.
# posted by Me @ 7:53 PM 
