Source: team_talk
Huddersfield's Hoyle deserves star billing
Matty Briggs believes Huddersfield chairman Dean Hoyle deserves a huge pat on the back after making some huge decisions in the last 12 months.
The football world was in uproar when Huddersfield sacked Lee Clark last year, the tabloids labelled it an outrage, pundits claimed the football world had gone mad and Clark himself admitted he was 'perplexed'. But fast forward six months and you will be hard pushed to find anyone arguing against the decision.
The Terriers have gone from strength to strength after winning promotion to the Championship and Monday night's win at fancied Blackpool has seen them clamber into second spot, while Clark's Birmingham languish at the wrong end of the table on the back of a 5-0 home mauling by the mighty Barnsley.
The man now in charge at Town is former Leeds boss Simon Grayson and while he will take all the credit, the man who Town fans must really appreciate more is moneyman Hoyle.
The local businessman, who made his money selling birthday cards, has made some massive decisions in West Yorkshire, not least in allowing Clark to go despite the club's unbeaten run, which as a Bradford fan I'm loathed to mention. He also decided to sell on star striker Jordan Rhodes for a whopping £8million, when all and sundry believed he wouldn't cash in on the Scotland international until at least January.
They are decisions that some may take for granted, but the Heckmondwike-born supremo has shown real leadership and he is now starting to see a return on the millions he has pumped into the club.
With the Terriers handily placed in fourth spot Hoyle's decision in February to sack Clark after admitting he had 'lost faith' with him did come as a suprise to the majority. But on closer inspection Clark's tenure was not quite as glossy as the tabloids and pundits made us believe. And as Hoyle said himself: "This season so far we've drawn 13 games from winning positions and we've had continuous squad rotation and I voiced my concern to Lee and his staff well before we parted company."
And when you consider Hoyle had backed Clark to the hilt with cash to spend on wages, which some Championship clubs would have looked enviably upon, his efforts don't look quite so rosy. Clark will no doubt point to 'that' unbeaten run which he masterminded, but as a Terrier in the office pointed out to me, it counted for nothing. And once Hoyle discovered that Clark had reportedly applied for the top job down the road at Leeds the writing was on the wall for the former Newcastle midfielder.
Clark, not surprisingly, got another gig at at a huge club in Birmingham in the summer, but already he's started to find the going tough. The St Andrew's outfit have collected just two wins from their seven league games and without access to a budget to rival the division's big guns it's hard to see Clark making a success of his Blues spell. Huddersfield on the otherhand might just be going places and there would be no more deserving recipient than Hoyle. You can follow Matty on Twitter at @MattPBriggs
