So it’s official then, Owen Coyle will be the new manager of Bolton Wanderers and Burnley now have to find the right man to replace him as they look to continue the good work this season has produced. It is crucial that the chairman, Barry Kilby, makes the right decision in who to appoint as Coyle’s successor at Turf Moor.

Without wanting to state the obvious, it is paramount to Burnley’s continued success this season that the right man is given the job. That means the chairman has to avoid being star struck when the same old names come calling for the vacancy. Get it right and Burnley’s home form should see them stay up. Make the wrong decision and the club could spiral to the foot of the table in weeks.

Whilst Kilby should be rightly lauded for appointing Coyle in the first place, I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how much of an effect he would have on the sleeping giant. Stabilising the club by keeping them in the Championship and slowly building, improving the side year on year would have been a wonderful achievement. He surpassed all that when they won the play off final with their highest finish to a season since 1976.

Yet, you only have to look back to the mid nineties to see the age old disease that afflicts certain chairman. They get star struck and with the tenures of Adrian Heath and Chris Waddle still in the minds of Burnley fans, the last thing the club needs is a ex-footballer who thinks he can manage in the Premiership. They need someone who knows the demands of Premiership football and what the club means to the fans. It is not an easy decision for the club to make but they have to keep their eye on the prize.

It also means avoiding such arch self publicists as Graham Souness, Ruud Guillit, Bryan Robson and Gianluca Vialli. Men who’s reputations are fanned by the hero worship dished out to them as pundits on Sky Sports. Ignore their failings as managers, they’ve won countless trophies as players, men such as Tony Cottee who took over a Barnet side flying high only to completely destroy them in less than 5 months. Star struck chairman should be banned.

So I had a look on the League Managers Association Website earlier, to see who was available on their list. Oddly, Souness, Vialli and Guillit are still touting their wares, but a couple of oddities appeared. Burnley’s two previous managers before Coyle, the overrated Steve Cotterill and the universally detested Stan Ternent are still on there.  In fact most of the list reads as a who not to give the job too, with John Barnes and Tony Adams still refusing to realise their limitations and the ever popular Gary Megson available if you want to alienate your entire fan base.

Yet there are some stand out candidates, firstly Alan Curbishley is there, as is Mark Hughes and Steve Coppell. Former Scotland manager George Burley and  Paul Jewell are still available. For me, those are the 5 top options of unemployed managers that the LMA are offering. Curbishley wouldn’t probably want to move so far North and probably Coppell is wrestling with the idea of returning to Reading no doubt.

It may be too soon for Mark Hughes to return to the game so quickly after his ignomious exit from Manchester City which leaves Burley and Jewell. Burley proved at Ipswich that he could work on a tight budget, play effective and attractive football and earn promotion whilst at Ipswich. What he has against him is his failure to deal with bigger name players and keep sides in the Premiership. Jewell also has proved an ability to make a purse out of a sows ear, as his spells at Bradford City and Wigan Athletic showed.

Jewell though is still tainted by his awful spell at Derby County and Burley proved in his third Premiership season with Ipswich and during his time as Scotland manager, he just can’t handle big name players. He was also tainted with a torrid spell at Pride Park, which begs the question, what happens to managers at Derby County?? So would going after a manager currently employed be the answer?

Looking outside the Premiership though only seems to point to one candidate who could cope with the job and the pressure of Premier League football. He’s managed an international side and took a team from non league to the cusp of promotion to the Championship. He then took over another sleeping giant and took them up before almost taking them to the Premiership in 2008. That man is Gary Johnson at Bristol City and I believe he’s the only man out there for the job at Burnley.

Now, don’t laugh but I honestly feel he’d be perfect for the job and would keep Burnley up. The only downside is that potentially, Bristol City are a bigger club, with a larger fan base. This season, they’re averaging 14,553 fans a game, whilst Burnley are almost at capacity with 20,344. Promotion for Bristol City would be a massive boost for the area, and with plans to move the club to a 30,000 seater stadium by 2011, with option to increase it to 42,000, would Johnson give all that up for a crack at the Premiership? It’d be a tough ask, but if they could get him, then they should bite his hand off. Just don’t give it to one of the usual suspects, it’d be curtains for Burnley.

In the annals of English Football, goalkeepers have always held a certain mystique throughout its history. When you think of great English goalkeepers, the names of Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence come to mind. Generally, the modern opinion is that you need to be a little mad to be keeper. That opinion was born by the performances of one man, William “Fatty” Foulkes.

For a goalkeeper who played over a century ago to be still remembered is some achievement. I find it quite remarkable that a player who has hardly any living person alive to remember his performances can still invoke images of his giant frame and eccentric behavior.

Foulkes’ career started in local non-league football, playing for Blackwell Town in 1893 and was snapped up shortly afterwards by Sheffield United. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship as Sheffield United became one of the stronger sides in the fledgling Football League. United hit a purple period during the period Foulkes spent at Bramall Lane and Foulkes became something of a celebrity.

Standing 6’4″, Foulkes was staggeringly tall for the time, when the average male height was 5’7″, his towering frame became something of an impassable obstacle. With his presence in the sticks, Sheffield United finished runners-up twice, won the league and reached 3 F.A. Cup Finals, winning two of them.Yet Foulkes’ behavior began to become more erratic as his celebrity star rose. He became known for walking off the pitch if he felt the defenders weren’t playing well enough and dealt with troublesome strikers by picking them up and throwing them in the net.

The F.A.Cup Final of 1902 saw the game finish 2-2, but Foulkes was so incensed by Southampton’s equaliser, as he felt it was offside. Despite being in the nude, Foulkes chased the referee who had to hide in a broom cupboard to save himself.

In the replay, Foulkes put in a man of the match performance to keep Southampton at bay in a 2-1 win for the Blades. Yet behind the glory, Foulkes had become increasingly reliant on alcohol to simply get him through the day and his performances for United started to slide.

As his drinking increased, so did his legendary bouts of bad temper and during the 1904-05 season, his personality clashes with team mates, club officials and even fans saw the club run out of patience with him. Making only 10 appearances after 289 in the previous 10 seasons, United realised they could cope without him.

Chelsea came calling in the summer of 1905 and a transfer fee of £50 saw him travel south to become club captain of the Blues. Chelsea were making their football league debut and the signing of Foulkes was designed as both a footballing and business decision. By signing Foulkes, Chelsea knew they would get more bodies in the ground and Foulkes’ reputation certainly preceded him.

Chelsea also introduced ball boys to stand behind Foulkes to try and emphasis the goalkeepers size and a debut season saw Chelsea 3rd, just missing out on promotion behind the Champions, Bristol City and in their fourth season under the name, Manchester United.

Yet Foulkes, regardless of his status and celebrity at Stamford Bridge, he pined for a return to north of England. For one last hurrah, Bradford City offered him a return leaving Chelsea before the end of the 1905-06 season for one match.

The following year saw his final season at Valley Parade as the League added 4 new clubs in its expansion to two league of 20 teams.As with Chelsea, Bradford had banked on Foulkes to draw the crowds and the side often played in front of crowds in excess of 25,000. As final season’s go, Bradford made a good fist of it, but Foulkes must have been galled to see Chelsea gain promotion without him.

As time went by, Foulkes earned a living as a carnival show in Blackpool and on tour around the UK but his drinking eventually caught up with him and he passed away through cirrhosis of the liver in 1914, aged only 42. His grave can be found in Burngreave cemetery, Sheffield. 95 years on, his name still conjures images of a giant of man keeping goal for Sheffield United, terrorising strikers everywhere.

• 411 League and Cup Appearances for Sheffield United, Chelsea and Bradford City
• First ever captain of Chelsea in their debut season in the Football League
• 1 cap for England in 1897 v Wales
• 1 League Championship medal (1897-98)
  
• 2 F.A. Cup winners medals (1898-1899 & 1901-02)
  
• 1 F.A. Cup losers medal (1900-01)