Too much Cook spoils the broth at Man City

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, are apparently becoming increasingly concerned with the behaviour of chief executive Gary Cook, and giving serious consideration to issuing him his P45 at the end of the season. As embarrassing uncles go, Cook has been taking the biscuit for City fans recently, eating it, and then leaving dirty bloody crumbs everywhere for them to pick up. Since his arrival from Nike 2 years ago, Cook has been indulging in the biggest collision of foot and mouth since burning livestock littered the landscape of rural England. From claiming Milan “bottled” the transfer of Kaka to Eastlands to welcoming City legend Uwe Rosler to the Manchester United hall of fame (still don’t know how he got away with that one!) Cook has been as perennially embarrassing to City’s fans and owners as a budget David Brent impersonator on speed dancing in the center circle at half time after forgetting the words to blue moon whilst wearing a Coventry City shirt.

Since moving from Nike in 2008 after his hugely successful tenure as head of Brand Jordan, in which his stirling achievement of making Michael Jordan rich and famous after he’d retired was praised and celebrated by all 4 people who actually thought it was a hard job, he’s limped from one controversy to another. He first came to prominence when he praised shady fraudster, and then boss, Thaksin Shinawatra as “A great guy to play golf with” only a few weeks before the former Thai Prime Minister was sentenced to 2 years in jail .

He then most famously came into his own during City’s botched bid to sign then World player of the year Kaka from AC Milan. After baffling Kaka and his dad with complex brand strategy and marketing phraseology (which almost certainly must have included the phrase “blue sky thinking”) he accused them of not understand his clearly brilliant plan, and then accused both them and Milan, thats rich, successful, world famous, history laden, 7 times European Cup winners AC Milan, of “bottling it”.

Unbowed by his own brilliance he continued to gaff it right up and in the summer of this year managed to enrage every City fan and his dog by welcoming Uwe Rosler to the Manchester United hall of fame during an induction ceremony for City’s former striker. He was subsequently booed off stage and forced to write apology letters to 70  fans as way of penance, though If you’d asked the fans themselves, public flogging would of likely been a more appropriate punishment.

Into this season now and Cook continued this breathtaking run of form by publically backing City boss Mark Hughes all the way. All the way up until his sacking in fact. at which point it emerged that he’d been courting Roberto Mancini for 3 weeks prior and on the hunt for a new coach for months. Classy Gary. It was at this point his bosses in the Abu Dhabi Group started to have concerns. Having tried to portray themselves as ethically above the crude stereotype of the sleazy, dishonest, knee-jerk reactionary football club owner, Cook was busy dismantling that portrayal with a Black and Decker heavy duty laser powered sonic hammer gun (such a thing has not been invented yet but it sounds pretty cool if you ask me) with his cak handed approach to transfers and general P.R dealings. Such a joke he became that some prankster even edited his wikipedia page. Not in spiteful scorn, but in playful mock derision, befitting of the general ridiculousness with which his prominence at City is regarded by most football fans. (You can find the edit here, 6 posts down on, unsurprisingly, a Manchester United forum. I’d advise you to, it’s very funny: http://www.redcafe.net/f6/gary-cooks-wikipedia-page-279985/)

And so we move onto wednesday, when Sir Alex Ferguson is supposed to have used the Cooksters comments in his team talk before the epic Manchester derby Carling Cup semi final. These comments where staggeringly good, even for Cook, as he told a gathering of US based City fans that not only was it a case of “when and not if” City would beat United to Wembley, but that the blues are “Without doubt” within sight of displacing United, Real Madrid, Barcelona and those pesky little “bottlers”Milan as “the biggest and best club in the world”, clearly aware that it has taken roughly 60 odd years for these clubs to attain their status, but you know, get in there Gaz, back of the net!

These egregious statements are no big deal for a brand executive, used to wheeling out the wank words in flash power point  presentations designed to make share holders and prawn sandwhich aficionados feel good about their investments, but football fans, and in fact, normal people in general, don’t like such cak handed arrogant aggrandisation. Not only does football not work like that, it actively resists it. Squashed Dr. Evil impersonator Peter Kenyon made a similar claim when he scuttled over to Chelsea in 2004 by claiming  they would be the “biggest club in the world by 2014″ instantly causing mass  eye rolling and embarrassed shoe gazing from Chelsea fans the world over. This of course made the sight of Kenyon leading the Chelsea side up to collect their Champions League runners up medals, whilst the anti-Kenyon, pioneering hair style propagator Sir Bobby Charlton embarrassedly refused to collect his winners one, a beautiful moment of cosmic karma. Kenyon left Stamford Bridge last year.

The thing that anyone who knows anything about football, or indeed anything about life, is that by saying things like this, you’re inevitably only setting yourself up for a fall. People who don’t understand football, it’s culture or it’s fans, would do well to shut up and keep their opinions to themselves. What City don’t need right now is a reason for people to mock them. And there’s no phrase more guaranteed to make a football fan, of any club, cringe like he’s swallowed a vinegar soaked lemon than the appalling Cookism,”Global Franchise Entity”. With the natural jealousy that instantly comes with being elevated in class due to a wealthy benefactor, what they don’t need is any more reason for people to hate them. Especially if those people include Ol’ red nose across the road. They can hate you for winning, but thats a respectful kind of hate. A hate that doesn’t drive people that extra mile to prove you wrong. By saying ridiculously arrogant things with nothing to back you up, you’ll only succeed in making people who already want to ram your words down your throat want to do it even harder. All Cook achieved with his comments was to make Ferguson angry, and he wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

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