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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Max Rushden

Mark Bonner’s Cambridge exit reminds us of the strange existence for managers

Mark Bonner celebrates after Cambridge United hold on for a draw against Portsmouth
Mark Bonner kept Cambridge United in League One on a limited budget and beat Newcastle in the FA Cup. Photograph: Zac Goodwin/PA

You may not know who Mark Bonner is. If you do, it’ll probably be in passing, perhaps after Cambridge United beat Newcastle in the FA Cup in January last year, or this week from a one-minute clip on Sky Sports News announcing his sacking as our manager after almost four years in charge. It may not have even registered. It’s just a man’s name and a League One club you haven’t thought about for a while.

So you may have to change the names, players and era in this thank you letter for it to resonate, but all fans spend intense periods of their lives loving, hating, cheering, yelling at a middle-aged man sitting in a tiny shed by the halfway line occasionally writing notes on a scrap of paper – before suddenly having to move on to the next one without time to process their impact.

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