Ron Atkinson (as Himself) 1997, 2003

Duration: EP: 1 - 2, 274  |  SE: 1.1 – 1.2, 6.14

Position: Harchester United Manager (1992-1997)

For Ron Atkinson’s real life career, see his Wikipedia page here.

Ron Atkinson in Dream Team

The course for Ron Atkinson’s appointment as Harchester manager begins in the half-dozen years before his arrival. The 1986-87 season following the Dragons’ Title winning victory, sees the start of a spell of bad luck for the club. The departure of youth team product, the now England International Kevin Nelson to Barcelona, plus club stalwart Jonny Fletcher breaking his leg and out for a lengthy period. The effect of this sees the team go from the top of Division 1 all the way down to Division 2 at the end of the season, where they yo-yo between 1987-88–1991-92. The (never seen on-screen) Steve Tomkin takes over as manager following Kenny Bruce’s outing in January 1990, and in 1991 Michael Jacobs becomes a club shareholder, officially taking over the Chairmanship from Clive Hawes in November 1992.

Jacobs saw Tomkin as too safe a bet, and sacked him a month before his third anniversary as manager. With a proven track record for results, Ron Atkinson was brought in from Aston Villa as manager, and begins what would be a highly successful next few years for the club. Big Ron values Karl Fletcher, who had received promotion to the first team just before he arrived, and he was a regular fixture in the manager’s line-up, contributing to the Dragons’ first promotion to the two-year-old Premier League in May 1994. Fletch stayed loyal to Big Ron and Harchester, despite being approached to join rival Premier League teams, and when the Dragons faced relegation back to Division 1 at the end of 1995-96, Karl contributed an amazing 35 goals which sent the club to promotion again a year later.

However, tensions between the management and the board were taking hold as Atkinson undertook his third Premier League season with the Dragons. While he had tolerated Jacobs The Chairman during the club’s prosperous years in the top flight, Big Ron had never seen eye-to-eye with Jacobs The Businessman. Youth team graduate Dean Hocknell is a talent, but the team crash out of the Coca-Cola Cup on his debut, and Atkinson gives the ultimatum that Jacobs needs to get his hand in his pocket for new players or they're going down. Relations didn’t improve, and Ron decided to move on to sunnier pastures, with a return to the top job at Atlético Madrid.

Ron kept in touch with his former star player whose talent he had proudly nurtured, as Fletch became a club legend just like his father. In January 2003 Big Ron pops in to Harchester to meet up with Karl, who is in need of some surrogate-fatherly advice. The club wants to cut Fletch’s salary from £25K a week to £8K, believing he is now past his peak. Ron advices Fletch that, about to turn 31, he must accept that this is going to happen and embrace the next chapter.