Sep
Peg fans want Kelly fired
Courtesy Globe and Mail:
Over the last 24 hours he’s been described by Winnipeggers as a moron, an embarrassment, a clown, a joke.
On chatboard and phone-in shows, there is talk of using rallies, boycotts and pitchforks to run him out of town. Following the Blue Bombers’ pitiful 55-10 loss Sunday, fans singled out the man who’s become public enemy No.1 in the city, chanting “Fire Mike Kelly, Fire Mike Kelly.”
Even as a leadership battle to decide the province’s next premier heats up, Winnipeggers are preoccupied with Kelly, the Bombers’ bombastic head coach and general manager, who has rubbed this normally courteous city the wrong way.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Colin Unger, owner of OurBombers.com, a website carrying much of the vitriol. “I pay for hosting based on the site’s usage. And this whole Mike Kelly situation is costing me a lot of money.”
The volume of criticism peaked yesterday as the team was jeered off the field at Canad Inns Stadium following an embarrassing loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a performance that dragged the team to last place in the East Division with a 3-7 record.
The defeat only compounded the acrimony that has built up between a loud-mouthed coach and Canada’s most frustrated football city.
“We flat out just did not execute,” Kelly said during an unusually subdued press conference yesterday.
When Kelly was hired in November, he promised to reinvent the team’s offence and turn the team into a Grey Cup contender. But he quickly raised fans’ ire when he jettisoned beloved veterans such as Joe Smith and Dan Goodspeed. His relationship with the city on the shoals, Kelly dashed it to slivers with repeated insults directed at every facet of the team’s base. He’s called the city’s sports reporters “lazy asses” and says fans critical of the team “don’t understand football, or sport, or, for that matter, life.”
He has accused Bomber diehards of being inferior and unfaithful compared to fans in Philadelphia, where he once coached.
He even accused his own players of running “the worst offence I have ever been involved with.”
It’s no wonder the city seems to be mobilizing against him, even if he doesn’t recognize it.
“There’s all this sensationalism going on,” he said yesterday. “All of this ridiculousness that happens outside this building, we just brush it off and go to work.”
His attitude hasn’t surprised friends. “Mike is a fighter,” said former CFL great and current TSN commentator Matt Dunigan. “Has his personality contributed to the animosity? Sure. And I’ve talked to Mike about that and told him ‘You’ve got to ease up.’”
Kelly may ease up, but Bomber fans are not. On the OurBombers site, one commenter suggested organizing “a small rally outside the stadium.” Another proposed: “We all stay away from the next home games in droves.” Seven Facebook sites urging the Bombers to fire Kelly have popped up. One of them, titled “Fire Mike Kelly,” swelled from 300 to 800 members over eight hours yesterday.
The team’s ownership hasn’t shown any indication they’re listening. Kelly is in the first year of a three-year contract, and the team is still paying the salary of former coach Doug Berry, whom they fired mid-contract last year.
Part of the frustration stems from the team’s chronic futility. The blue-and-gold last hoisted the cup 18 years ago, a dubious distinction in an eight-team league.
“A team in the CFL has pressure to be winning on a regular basis,” Unger said. “In the past, Bombers fans could ignore the Bombers and go to Jets games. Now we have nowhere to turn but frustration.”
But at least one Winnipeg fan was calling on the city to give the coach a chance.
“I believe wholeheartedly he’ll get that franchise back together,” said the 48-year-old Dunigan. “They’re one quarterback away from being a quality football team. Mike loves that team and that city with all his heart. I would jump back in the huddle in a heartbeat for that man.”
At this point, it might be worth a shot.
