Big Sam and the Hot Seat

Big Sam and the Hot Seat

Sam Allardyce wasn’t even remotely the right man for the Newcastle job. I spent twelve years in Newcastle including that golden period under Keegan during the mid-1990s when the sense of excitement at the football being played was palpable as one walked down Northumberland Street or shopped in Eldon Square. Hard to believe that Keegan walked out eleven years ago .... and eleven years later the club is no further forward. It is all about customer preferences. Newcastle supporters want to watch entertaining football; they know already that they will never win the Premiership, but most of the ‘toon’ supporters are black and white through and through, and their visits to the temple at St James’ Park is all about the team catching the mood of the crowd and turning it on. Good riddance Big Sam.

A few days into January and eight Premiership clubs have already parted company with their manager. But does a change of management actually improve the sporting and financial performance of the club. Today I am reminded of the blog from Tim Harford a couple of months ago which pointed to some new research from Cambridge economist Chris Hope from the Judge Business School on this vexed topic. Here is Tim’s blog entry: http://blogs.ft.com/undercover/2007/11/dear-economis-1.html You can access some of Chris Hope’s research here: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/research/faculty/hopecpub.html and this BBC news article from a few years back still has a resonance! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1977102.stm

All of this reminds me that the departure of Big Sam to pastures new came on the same day that our new business simulation game The Hot Seat was launched at the BETT show in London. Developed in partnership with Learning Curve Software and EdNet in Scotland, the Hot Seat is a great game designed for Key Stage 4 Business students to handle the challenges of taking over Duncastle United, an ailing Premiership football club whose fans too demand entertaining football.

Much fuller details on the game and the software itself can be found here: http://www.tutor2u.net/acatalog/The-Hot-Seat.html