CLARK: IT’S TOUGH TO LOSE MY PALS
BIRMINGHAM City manager Lee Clark has admitted that parting ways with his two trusted lieutenants, Terry McDermott and Derek Fazackerly, both 62, was tough.
But Clark insists that the duo were not sacked and that their departure was not a cost-cutting measure at St Andrew’s.
He wanted to make a change and said: “It was very difficult. Forget our working relationship, I have known them for 25 years.
“Derek and I very good friends, and between me and Terry there is the family friendship. It has been unbelievably tough.
“I have to reiterate that no-one has been sacked.
“And obviously, as you know with employment issues, it has to go through legal process and that’s where we’re at at the moment.
“There’s no smoke or mirrors, no ducking and diving. That’s ultimately where we are. We just move forward.
“They have been very, very loyal people to me. But as one manager rightly said to me – the statement is so apt for the football world – ‘the only constant in the game is change’.
“That’s the only thing you can guarantee – and that’s what’s happened.
“It is sad but we have to move on.”
Birmingham sat 18th in the Championship before yesterday’s trip to Blackpool but Clark insisted: “There was no interference at all, one million per cent, from the owners in Hong Kong, the English board, whatever.
“In fact we had to relay the situation to those people.
“This was a decision made by us footballing people.
“It was made sitting round a table like I do with all my staff. It was made between all of us.
“The key factor for me is the football club.We have to kick on.”