John Sitton: Hung out to dry by the media

Football can be a very fickle industry. One week you are lauded for a moment of ingenuity, the next you are the villain of the piece and can have your own ‘fans’ screaming abuse at you. The impact that the media has in not only making but also breaking reputations cannot be underplayed. Various England managers have suffered from this whether it is for holding an umbrella, drawing a friendly with Saudi Arabia or picking Carlton Palmer. John Sitton’s fledgling managerial career was brought down before it even began – his crime? He appeared in a documentary – “Orient – Yours for a Fiver”.

Filmed in the 1994-95 season following the fortunes of Leyton Orient under the joint management of Sitton and Chris Turner, the documentary soon gained cult status. (Writer’s note – I actually uploaded it to YouTube and all parts combined currently have over 100,000 views). The unwitting ‘star’ of the show was Sitton, who became notorious for expressions such as “Bring yer f**king dinner” amongst many others. The culmination of the documentary showed the dismissal of Sitton and Turner and the appointment of their replacement, Pat Holland. Sitton has not managed in the professional game since then.

The media swiftly took Sitton to task, portraying him as an individual incapable of controlling a seemingly volcanic temper. Even now, nearly 20 years after the event, he is still mentioned in columns and articles regarding ‘volatile’ characters in football. But was Sitton’s behaviour really any different from others in the game? Sir Alex Ferguson confessed in his own autobiography to having physical dressing room clashes with Peter Schmeichel and Paul Ince. And yet ‘the hairdryer’ is spoken of almost affectionately, but how different is this to the way that Sitton behaved? Brian Laws broke Ivano Bonetti’s jaw when he was managing Grimsby, but has gone on to have a long career in football management. Stan Ternent wrote an autobiography boasting about his clashes with various players and went on to have a long career within the game. The list could go on and on. Not to forget that Sitton was never physically threatening to his players either, despite the verbal tirades.

The difference in these cases and where Sitton has suffered has been the fact that his actions were televised. Whereas the behaviour of Laws was far worse, the fact that we, the footballing public, did not actually see it, has watered down its impact upon us. Sitton’s outbursts are there for all to see and act as a constant reminder of how he behaved and it became an easy stick for the media to beat him with. This is grossly unfortunate for Sitton and clouds the picture of someone who is an astute thinker on the game. Sitton gives several interviews on YouTube to the wordofsporttv channel and is a coherent and thoughtful commentator on the modern game. These obviously are never mentioned by a national media that has stereotyped the man in a particular way and are loathe to allow anything to challenge the stereotype that they perpetuate.

Although not managing since his time at Orient, Sitton remained in the game as a coach and as an analyst. He attained his UEFA ‘B’ level coaching qualification and was respected as being both intelligent and innovative in his methods. Chris Turner meanwhile has managed consistently at Hartlepool, Sheffield Wednesday and Stockport, further emphasising how negatively the stereotype of the documentary affected Sitton and his career. Lets pause for a second. Two men who are joint managers and equally responsible for the success or failure of the venture they were involved in. Whatever the arguments against joint managers and there are many, you would expect both men to have an equal opportunity to continue to forge a career in the game. I have no doubts that were it not for the negative and derogatory media coverage of this documentary; Sitton would have gone on to have had the same if not more opportunities than Turner.

Currently working as a taxi driver in London, Sitton is writing a book out later this year about his whole career (he had a 15 year playing career with Chelsea, Millwall, Gillingham and Orient as well), which promises to be a ‘warts and all’ look on his time in the game. Judging by some of his frankly hilarious destructions of football personnel on Twitter (the ones of Alan Pardew, David Moyes and journalist Neil Ashton spring immediately to mind), it should prove to be a very interesting read.

What I find disappointing, although unsurprising, is how easy it is for the media to label people and for stereotypes to be created. Had a chairman been brave enough to have see through the way that Sitton had been portrayed, he could have hired a manager who could have had a real impact upon a club. Innovative, creative, but with a take no prisoners’ attitude, John Sitton deserved another chance but was all too easily cast aside.

As it is, Sitton remains an outsider looking in, although as his regular comments on Twitter prove (@therealSitts for those interested in seeing) that the passion undoubtedly remains. Too often in this and other countries, we allow the mainstream media to generalise and stereotype and the public at large eat it all up. In this case, football as a whole bought into the stereotype and football as a whole was the loser.