Best/Worst Managers in D&Rs history....

[Auntie Merge]

Put these in order, best to worst.

Ted Hardy
John Still
Garry Hill
Dave Cusack
Graham Carr
Wayne Burnett
Peter Taylor

I’d probably go for

1. Ted Hardy and John Still - joint first
3. Garry Hill - although he was really unlucky with circumstances, we were cheated out of promotion and the only POF decided ona golden goal
4. Wayne Burnett
5. Dave Cusack
6. Peter Taylor
7. Graham Carr

[RayleighDagger1986]

Do we have any stats to go with that Merge

[Auntie Merge]

just opinion. Though Graham Carr got us relegated
back into the Ryman..

[Diggerthedog]

Taylor has a current win percentage of 30.86% with us, shocking for a team going for promotion.

[RampantDuke]

For me it has to be;

John Still
Garry Hill
Ted Hardy
Wayne Burnett
Graham Carr
Dave Cusack
Peter Taylor

Cusack got us into a terrible mess but was under massive budget constraints. Carr tried, and failed miserably, to turn it around. Taylor has zero excuses. Worst manager we have ever seen. End of.

[Dag82]

Merge,

Putting up performance stats is gonna be a bit Awks, for the Anti GH Brigade. :tear:

[RayleighDagger1986]

For me it has to be;

John Still
Garry Hill
Ted Hardy
Wayne Burnett
Graham Carr
Dave Cusack
Peter Taylor

Cusack got us into a terrible mess but was under massive budget constraints. Carr tried, and failed miserably, to turn it around. Taylor has zero excuses. Worst manager we have ever seen. End of.

Taylor and Burnett on par for me

[ARNU]

Burnett I think would do better at this level. He had no money this bloke has.

[A S dagger97]

Burnett was decent and would of bought in the right kind of players for this league but he was right for him to go when he did

[Adrian]

It’s not just about stats, it’s also about the circumstances and other stuff that went on.

For me:
1st - John Still: had to rebuild a lot on arriving for his second spell, found a lot of players from lower leagues that ended up bringing more money into the club. Two promotions that weren’t expected. Third spell was poor, but still found some decent layers during it.
2nd - Garry Hill (but it’s hard to separate 2nd and 3rd).
Four great seasons and one terrible one. I don’t think anyone really expected him to do what we did when he arrived and take us so close to league football 3 times (it’s often forgotten how well we did in the first season back in the Conference).
3rd - Ted Hardy (but would have a problem putting him above Hill). FA Trophy final, built the foundations for Hills team to win the Ryman league and had a few that were still around when Still came back. Kept finding players to tick us over.
4th - Dave Cusack. His time gets mixed in with Carr’s in my memory a lot. Don’t remember much either way about his time.
5th - Graham Carr: my main memory is having to read the programme every week to work out who all the new players were as there’d be so many changes. Signed a lot of northern based players most do which weren’t very good and had us set for relegation before being replaced.
6th - Wayne Burnett: pretty much killed my interest in watching Dagenham & Redbridge. Got some decent results and found some decent players, but signed so much rubbish and the more it was his squad, the worse it got. Some of his comments and digs at players and supporters showed an arrogance he wasn’t good enough to justify.
7th - Peter Taylor: finished what Burnett started in killing my interest in watching games. For two seasons has signed a lot of players that aren’t good enough and not what is needed.
I was unconvinced after a few games last season that he’d built the right sort of squad despite the financial issues. Nothing’s changed.

[dagger4eva]

I'm in full agreement with Adrian's assessment.

Despite not wanting him back now, I'd have to say those successful seasons under Garry Hill were some of the fondest memories of my time as a Dagger.

The cup runs, the Ryman League tussle with Sutton, the Boston season and then the narrow golden goal loss.
The club was a real joy to beat, had an awesome buzz about the place. The atmosphere on the terraces was absolutely pumping, loads of support, noise, original chants, and not forgetting the drum and trumpet which l lived!

Oh to have just a smidgen of all of that back now!!

[RampantDuke]

I like Adrian's assessment a lot but my only gripe would be the damage that Cusack did to the club when he came in. Carr was awful but just clearing up the mess that Cusack had made of continuing the John Still legacy. Having said that he was very limited on budget yet Graham Carr was given hundreds of thousands to put it right and spunked it all up the wall with northern journeymen. They were really dark times at the club. I hope we can move on now and get behind the team.

[Adrian]

I like Adrian's assessment a lot but my only gripe would be the damage that Cusack did to the club when he came in. Carr was awful but just clearing up the mess that Cusack had made of continuing the John Still legacy. Having said that he was very limited on budget yet Graham Carr was given hundreds of thousands to put it right and spunked it all up the wall with northern journeymen. They were really dark times at the club. I hope we can move on now and get behind the team.

There’s probably not much between Carr and Cusask, other than Carrs time probably sticking in my memory a lot more. Some of the twos time probably gets mixed as it was so long ago.
The season we were relegated was probably the worse the club had been through but there are so many now that weren’t around that don’t have a clue what it was like.
I can still remember checking a score on Ceefax to see we’d had two players sent off but not having a clue who either was as they’d been signed during the week and there was no internet then.

[DI Mike Dashwood]

Garry Hill
John Still/Ted Hardy
Wayne Burnett
Peter Taylor
Graham Carr
Dave Cusack