The FA faced none of the inquisition endured when Steve McClaren left when it came to the departure of his successor
A measure of how far the Football Association has progressed over the past four and a half years was the stark contrast in tone and professionalism struck on Thursday afternoon during the press conference to explain the latest England managerial vacancy and the previous one to confirm the jettisoning of Steve McClaren in 2007. Back then seven men sat on the dais – Lord Mawhinney, Sir Dave Richards, Brian Barwick, Geoff Thompson, Barry Bright, David Gill and Adrian Bevington – as a calculated symbol of collective responsibility for the decision to hire and then fire Fabio Capello's predecessor.
There was an air of rage in that room in the governing body's swanky Soho Square former headquarters that no amount of bluster from the assembled blazers could deflect. They faced their day of reckoning for the wretched mess McClaren and his players had made of their Euro 2008 qualification campaign with glum faces and reticently expressed contrition. At Wembley we witnessed a more confident approach when the FA's slimmed-down gang of four clarified its position over the resignation of Capello four months before the start of the European Championship.
The concept of safety in numbers still prevails and the FA's chairman, David Bernstein, was flanked by the general secretary, Alex Horne, the managing director of Club England and group communications director, Bevington (the one survivor from the 2007 meeting), and Sir Trevor Brooking, the director of football development. It was a gathering to give the place‑card writer repetitive strain injury but the case for the defence they outlined was altogether more assured, lucid and reasonable. There was far more goodwill in the room, too, with few mourning either the Italian's departure or its motive. Over the McClaren miscalculation the board found themselves in bandit country when forced to account for appointing him. There was significantly more sympathy now, though pertinent points were made.
Bernstein fielded the majority of questions and answered them with the urbanity of the polished executive who had ample experience of personnel difficulties. Variously addressed as "Chairman" or "David", he smiled frequently, stumbled over only the odd syllable as he hesitated to find the mot juste and was generally gracious in his appreciation of Capello's work and character. Speaking in his unmistakably refined Mancunian accent, a dash of Morrissey's enunciation here, a touch of Michael Atherton's there, he said: "I just want to emphasise that, in all his time with us and yesterday, he has behaved with dignity and honour. Yesterday was not an easy day but we concluded matters with a handshake." Keen to downplay the drama and hysteria that habitually accompany the end of an England manager's spell he acknowledged that the disagreement between Capello and the FA board over John Terry's dismissal as captain had been "mega news" but "any reports of storming out are a complete misrepresentation of the facts".
At times the four resembled a band forced to whistle up trade for a reunion tour, with Brooking in the role of the drummer who is never asked a question and Horne the taciturn bass player called in to add gravitas or emphasis to a particular point. There were occasional lapses into business jargon, Bernstein talking of "getting our ducks in the right row" over the succession and "we are where we are" when refusing to express regret while Bevington referred to building "pathways" to England's future. But on the whole they were successful in portraying themselves as an organisation that was certainly not caught on the hop by Wednesday night's events and, though the timing was far from ideal, Bernstein was sanguine that "these things could be mended very quickly". The game on occasions such as these is to try to expose a chink in the agreed line and the questions became necessarily repetitive, particularly over any compensation package Capello may have agreed and whether or not the price of the Italian staying was an apology over his comments on Terry's demotion that he would not give. Bernstein was affably obdurate on these issues, sticking to his assertion that the former was confidential and refusing to be drawn on the "hypothetical" matter of whether the FA would have sacked the manager had he tried to cling to his job without backtracking over the captaincy.
Attempts to bring possible divisions that Bevington may have had with the board over Terry, which have been rumoured all week, were also put to bed by his profession of support for it. But it hardly came across as a ringing endorsement when he said he subscribed to it "as a collective decision of the board of which I am a member".
Throughout Bernstein maintained a genial, straight and business-like approach, emphasising the principle involved over Terry and the public benefit of adhering to it. "It is always regrettable when a manager leaves like this," he said. But given his mood and assertion that the best interests of the England football team had been served those regrets were similar to the ones shared by someone who wins the lottery moments after their partner has left them.