The stories behind the shortest managerial reigns in football

2) Bill Lambton

When and where: Scunthorpe United, 1959

Duration for which he was manager: 3 days

What happened?

Bill Lambton was a professional footballer in the 40′s, although the term “professional football” is a very loose one indeed. He played in only 3 matches in the Football League, as his career coincided with the Second World War.

Lambton is infamous for his 4-month managerial reign at Leeds United, where his unconventional training methods led to him being the butt of all jokes.

Jack Charlton, a Leeds United legend and brother of Manchester United legend Sir Bobby Charlton, had this to say of Lambton:

“An ex Army guy called Bill Lambton took over from Raich Carter. Bill was a nice enough man, but he wasn’t a player, he wasn’t a coach, he wasn’t anything. If you ever saw Bill walking about he always had a piece of paper in his hand – nobody ever found out what was written on that paper, but it made him look as though he was doing something.

“Bill was a fitness fanatic. I remember one windy day, when we complained about the balls being too hard during a training session. Bill told us that anyone worth his salt ought to be able to kick balls in his bare feet and never feel it, so one of the lads said, ‘Well, go on then.’ Now Bill wasn’t a pro, he’d probably never kicked a ball in anger in his life, and yet here he was running up to kick the ball in his bare feet, and of course you could see him wincing afterwards. This is the manager who’s just been appointed, and he’s making a fool of himself in front of his players. He finished up hobbling off the pitch, with all of us laughing at him. Bill never recovered from that day.”

This explains a lot about Lambton’s ill-fated reign at Scunthorpe, which lasted only 3 days.