Coppell's sensitive history

Norman Fox studies the pressures of the strain game that led to resignation

Steve Coppell's decision to quit Manchester City after only 33 days and six matches was a shock but only in that it came so quickly. Since injury ended his successful career as a player with Manchester United and England, he, more than most, heard about, experienced and understood the pressures of management.

He tolerated them but often hinted that sooner or later they would conquer him. When chief executive of the League Managers' Association, he once said: "I know how exhausting the job can be. You can never get away from it."

When he left his job as manager of Crystal Palace for the first time, he took two months off, describing it as "my first real holiday for nine years". Ironically, he was short-listed for the job as manager of Blackburn Rovers but Jack Walker wanted, and got, Kenny Dalglish who himself was to buckle under the pressures and allow himself to be moved "upstairs". Coppell took an elevated role himself at Crystal Palace after guiding them into the First Division and to an FA Cup final then seeing them decline and continually sell to survive.

He was always a bit of a worrier. His United colleague Martin Buchan used to say that if the last clue in the crossword seemed impossible, Coppell always had the answer, but even in what should have been his carefree early twenties he would say life had enough real problems without trying to solve artificial ones in puzzles.

Coppell was not at all sure that he wanted to be a professional player, even for his home club of Liverpool. He seriously wondered whether he could cope with being criticised or ignored by a manager just because he played one poor game. He would never have survived Bill Shankly's hard regime and admitted it. It was only because Manchester United said he could continue to study for his degree that he agreed to join Tommy Docherty.

As a manager himself, he occasionally confessed that although disappointed not to be offered the Blackburn or Arsenal jobs, he was not driven by burning football ambitions. Indeed he almost seemed to have a low impression of his profession. He said: "As a manager, you're like a prostitute. You depend on other people for your living. Come three o'clock there is always that element of chance beyond your control ... but football is better than real work".

Nevertheless, he admitted being devastated when Palace were relegated after he had been at the club for nine years, and resigned. In his "sabbatical" periods he toyed with journalism, for which he has natural ability, but never seemed able to break away from being involved in football at first hand. Deep down you wonder whether football has ever truly satisfied this multi-talented and sensitive man who was City's ninth manager in ten years.

The club's chairman, Francis Lee, said that the club would make no immediate attempt to find an outside replacement for Coppell, preferring to allow Phil Neal, who had been his deputy, to take over responsibilities for the foreseeable future.

Lee said on Friday: "When Steve came to me and said he wanted to go, I told him to take a week off because the players were away but he said `no'. He has improved even in the last few days but he was adamant that he wanted to leave.

"I had similar problems years ago - he'll be relieved to get it all off his mind. He'll come back and be all right. We all have pressure - some cope with it, some don't."