I almost feel sorry for them

By Nathan Jackson
June 17 2008

Walsall have appointed John Schofield to their coaching staff. The former City manager has joined the Bescot staff and they are both hoping that he avoids being the ultimate bringer of doom that he was last season at Sincil Bank and Scunthorpe United's Glanford Park.

Schofield is apparantly a respected coach amongst the Football League and even single-handedly undoing all the hard work under the previous Imps manager, he still seemingly has that reputation. Schofield spent several years at Sincil Bank as youth team manager, first team coach and manager.

His time in management started well, managing to get to the Imps to the top of League 2 (for one week only) just months into the job. However, there have been strong rumours that John Deehan was incharge of the first team selection and tactics in that time, with Schofield taking over around New Year and that's why it went to pot.

Schofield's Lincoln in 2007 was awful to say the least, rated by many as the worst City side since we return to the League twenty years ago. Schofield was sacked as Imps manager back in October after a 4-0 thrashing at MK Dons and it reduced into subsequent debates about him not being enough time to rectify the situation.

Schofield soon joined the coaching staff at Scunthorpe and their form suddenly started nose-diving and they were eventually relegated.