The Bad: Peter Daniel
Peter Daniel’s playing CV was far better than this category might suggest. An England Under-21 international, he had won the League Cup with Wolves and played in another final for Sunderland before joining us in November 1985. He made 55 league appearances for City, scoring twice, but it is his short spell as player-manager that ensures his place here.
I’d argue he wasn’t a bad player for us, albeit before my time. Reading contemporary reports, he is often singled out as one who looked half decent, although there was a transfer request before he ascended to manager. He took charge in March 1987, inheriting a side whose season was already heading in completely the wrong direction. That said, we were 18th with 38 points when he took over, and needed 11 to stay up from 13 matches.
By May, we had become the first club automatically relegated from the Football League, losing at Swansea on the final day while Burnley won and Torquay drew. He certainly cannot carry all the blame for a collapse that began before his appointment, but he was the man in charge when we went through the trapdoor. That is a difficult association to escape.
Then came the particularly awkward Burnley connection. Daniel left Sincil Bank and joined the club whose final-day escape had helped condemn us, making 41 league appearances for the Clarets over the next two seasons. He also played in their 1988 Wembley defeat against Wolves in the Sherpa Van Trophy final. We had secured our return from the Conference by then, but his immediate move to Turf Moor remains an awkward footnote to the previous summer.
Comments Welcome!