Football: Clothes maketh the manager

That was the weekend that was

BRIAN KIDD gets down to business in earnest today - and the first thing the new Blackburn Rovers manager must decide is what sort of boss he wants to look like during the 90 minutes of screaming that constitutes the average manager's match day.

He certainly seemed confused when he made his Ewood Park bow on Saturday.

Having first appeared with a club scarf draped around the shoulders of a sober suit as Jack Walker introduced him to Rovers fans before kick- off, by the time he had taken his seat in the directors' box he had revealed a very nice camel hair coat.

He was still wearing it when he joined Tony Parkes on the touchline in the second half, cutting quite a natty figure, as it happens. By the end of the match, however, when the cameras caught him in clenched-fisted triumph as if he had been there all his life, he had curiously acquired a tracksuit top ... which disappeared when he gave his first post-match interview, replaced again by the camel coat.

Now, which is it to be? Is he a Martin O'Neill, who feels obliged to wear not just training kit but football boots, too, whenever he steps near the field of play, or a Roy Hodgson, champion of the Italian designer school of management? He really must make up his mind...