McGhee wizz!

EIGHT years ago, living in Cardiff, I enjoyed one of those rare moments of unbridled joy as a Rovers fan.
There haven't been many.
But this was, in modern day parlance, a laugh-out-loud moment: Even though I was sitting alone in my car driving back from visiting my parents for Sunday lunch in Bristol.
To be honest on that day I just had to get out of the Welsh capital. There was no way I could stay there when that OTHER team, the one that resides at Ashton Gate, was appearing in a play-off final at the Millennium Stadium. I didn't think I could handle the city being taken over by crowing Bristol City fans.
To be fair, they were cast-iron favourites to win promotion and most of us couldn't see any other result. They were, after all, only playing Brighton. A team who had been in a downward spiral, without a ground and with very few resources to call on. They were homeless, having to eek out some kind of existence at an unfit-for-purpose athletics stadium known as the Withdean.
In short, they were Nomads. For fellow Gasheads, considering our experiences over the last 30 years, this all must sound vaguely familiar.
But it didn't pan out the way the critics expected. There were six minutes of a dour game to go when Brighton won a penalty and Leon Knight, the striker who had been banging in goals for them all season like some mini version of Jermain Defoe, sent our former keeper Steve Phillips the wrong way from the spot.
It might not have been pretty but it was a triumph of tactical nous.
Brighton's manager Mark McGhee explained: "We're not a free-scoring side because we don't have the legs in midfield. We try and break teams down and make life difficult for them."
In the opposite dressing room the Bristol City manager Danny Wilson admitted: "It was not the most attractive game. It was very bitty and there were very few chances. In the end it was decided by Lady Luck favouring Brighton."
On the way home from Bristol that night I happened to look in my mirror as I headed through Shirehampton. There was a huge banner, skull and crossbones on one side and BRFC on the other. In the middle it just said: "BACK TO SLEEP GIANTS".
It was a message from Rovers fans to our friends in the south who would have been able to read it clearly as their gloom-filled coaches headed home.
Oh, how I laughed.
And for that one moment of frivolity I would like to thank Mark McGhee, the man who was today named as the new manager of my beloved Gas.
It is an appointment seen by some as a bit of a gamble. He has been out of the game for two years and his last appointment at Aberdeen wasn't particularly successful.
But during a long career spanning Reading, Leicester, Wolves, Millwall, Brighton, Motherwell and Aberdeen, he has enjoyed plenty of highs and promotions to go with the odd failure.
I was a bit underwhelmed by the appointment at first but the more I think of it the happier I am.
This is a man who, I truly believe, can steady the ship and get us going in the right direction.
He is used to managing in unfavourable circumstances.
He has certainly proved that, tactically, he is no mug.
If he got Brighton to play on the beach that was the Withdean and win football matches, I am confident he can do the same thing for Rovers on the bog that is the Memorial Stadium.
Things have been made of his temperament and the possibility he might fall out with players.
I think it is more a case that he doesn't suffer fools gladly.
It was McGhee, for instance, who fell out with that same Leon Knight on a coach trip to Southampton one day, stopped the bus in the New Forest, and chucked the striker off. Anyone who has followed the prolific Knight's career will realise that he suffers from "The Great I am" syndrome.
People may say that he is just another Paul Buckle in the making. But Buckle is hardly much older than the players whereas McGhee has the medals to back up his approach.
He won the European Cup Winners Cup with Aberdeen under Sir Alex Ferguson, has sealed promotions with not only Brighton but Reading and Millwall too - all from the lower divisions - and helped Motherwell to the unbelievable heights of sealing a place in Europe.
Reading, Millwall, Brighton - all struggling in the depths of the Football League. Where are they now? All competing well in the Championship.
Who better to restore some sanity to a club that has blatantly "lost it" over the last few years?