Twickenham: Twickenham Should Heed Lessons of Football

Barely nine months ago Sir Clive Woodward was the second most popular man in England, shaded only by his glamour-boy No10. How much better the country would be, it seemed, if the Woodward management formula, whatever it was, could be applied to every dysfunctional institution, from the football and cricket teams to the health service and the education system. Now Woodward has gone, or at least is halfway out of the door with his coat on, and the Rugby Football Union has the problem of deciding how best to cope with the situation after his departure.

In any sport, handling the succession to a giant of a manager is never easy. It must surely be with this in mind that Rob Andrew, one of the obvious candidates, has already made it plain that he is not at present interested in the job. He is old enough and experienced enough to bear in mind the fate of those who try to step straight into the shoes of men and women who made history. And he is young enough to bide his time.

The conventional wisdom suggests that it is best to wait a turn. Outside sport John Major won a general election soon after the departure of Margaret Thatcher but never escaped her shadow or captured the nation's confidence. And, if Cuba has a plausible leader to follow Fidel Castro, he or she has yet to make an appearance on the public stage.

Woodward's immediate predecessors, Geoff Cooke and Jack Rowell, were strong-minded men steeped in rugby. Rowell, too, had been a successful businessman. Neither, however, was as imaginative as Woodward in his vision of what England could achieve, or as persistent in badgering the RFU until it provided him with the means to turn that vision into reality.

However hard they look, and however wide their search, it is hard to imagine Francis Baron and his colleagues com ing up with another coach capable of matching Woodward in those particulars. His mercurial nature and instinct for unorthodoxy gave Woodward his independence and, therefore, his authority. He never gave the impression of being an employee; he had the confidence to run the show.

Since Woodward's thoughts are evidently turning towards football, perhaps that might be the place to turn while contemplating the RFU's task of selecting someone to build on the foundations laid down by the man who inspired England to their greatest triumph on a rugby field. In the eight years since the onset of professionalism, after all, rugby has grown closer and closer to football in its modus operandi, driven by its increased commercial expectations. The Woodward succession, therefore, is more likely to resemble the football model than any precedent in rugby.

The most obvious example of a difficult succession is that of Sir Alf Ramsey, the only man besides Woodward to win a World Cup for England. When Ramsey was sacked after England had failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup finals, Don Revie seemed the obvious candidate. Revie's Leeds United were England's pre-eminent club at the time and during 14 years at the club he was as personally responsible for their success as Ramsey had been for that of Ipswich Town before he took the England job.

They were two very different men but the substitution of one culture for another was a less complicated business in the days before an international squad required a platoon of specialist coaches, medical people and ancillary staff, all with their ties to the manager. Nevertheless Revie was a failure. His paranoid nature was unsuited to the life of an international coach, who seldom sees his players and must be reasonably open with the media.

When he left Leeds, another vacuum was created. Into it stepped Brian Clough, who responded to the challenge by telling a close-knit dressing room that thenceforward everything would be done his way. By trying to erase the hierarchies and habits that had brought success, he exacerbated his outsider status and lasted a mere 44 days.

But Clough himself proved the next impossible act to follow when, after 18 years at Nottingham Forest, he made way for one of his former players, Frank Clark. Briefly successful enough to be mentioned in connection with the England manager's job, Clark nevertheless faded away as the club underwent an inexorable post-imperial decline. And at Manchester United, the fear is that the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson - almost 18 years in the job and counting - will trigger a similar implosion, as that of Sir Matt Busby did at Old Trafford more than 30 years ago.

Woodward, in his seven years with England, has made a mark as indelible as those of Busby, Ramsey, Revie, Clough or Ferguson. The team's way of working is his creation, from the selection of assistant and specialist coaches to the choice of Pennyhill Park in Bagshot as their headquarters. His successor will have the problem of deciding whether to maintain the structures Woodward put in place or sweep away the whole thing and start from scratch.

No doubt the RFU will take the safe option, emphasising continuity within the empire by promoting Andy Robinson, Woodward's second-in-command, to the top job, with everyone else - including Phil Larder, the defence coach, and Joe Lydon, the attack specialist - moving up a notch. History, however, teaches us that while the idea of continuity may give comfort, it guarantees nothing.