It took nine years to build Manchester Town Hall, from 1868 to 1877, and it’s still the most impressive building in Manchester 136 years later. You can look at the intricate stonework or the magnificent facade and have a real appreciation for the planning that must have gone into the building.
Drawings were prepared for every single detail of the construction by the architect, Alfred Waterhouse, and you know that it will stand for centuries.
These days you would be hard pressed to find a local authority willing to commit to such a long-term vision.
Of course, that’s largely to do with the tough economic times we’re living through. But it’s also because people have changed over the centuries.
Standing the test of time: Manchester Town Hall is a proud testament to the Victorian era
We’re much more focused on the here and now rather than the long-term vision. We need constant stimulation, moving on from one thing to the next, whether that is on our smartphones or channel hopping on TV.
You also see it in how we live our lives. My grandparents were married for 50 years but marriages of that length are a rarity these days, when 34 per cent of marriages end in divorce before the 20th wedding anniversary.
People want something more than being married for 20 years with kids and being happy in a routine; people want to try something different. We are generally much more spontaneous, living in the moment, rather than seeing something through or sticking with what seems mundane.
And I suppose football reflects the way we have changed. Certainly it has when I consider the reaction to two very well respected, and I would say high-performing, managers this week — David Moyes at Everton and Tony Pulis at Stoke.
High performers: David Moyes (left) has worked wonders during his 11-year Everton spell, while Tony Pulis has transformed the fortunes of StokeBoth have been coming under pressure because people these days aren’t happy that Everton, who once would often flirt with relegation, will finish between fifth and eighth every year; or that Stoke, a club who were in the third tier 11 years ago, will end up between 12th and 14th in the Premier League. The fact that they know what’s going to happen doesn’t excite them, doesn’t stimulate them.
But if anything demonstrates the importance of stability, of consistency, of not making rash decisions, then Everton's performance did.
After they had been knocked out of the FA Cup by Wigan last weekend, many people might not have been expecting their 2-0 win against Manchester City, a performance that was already superb even before they went down to 10 men with 30 minutes to go.
But you know what you will get from David Moyes and his Everton players, and that performance epitomised their character. In a 30-year marriage you might get the odd bad day, but you don’t throw away what you’ve built up over time because of that.
Likewise, those Everton fans who were most vocal last weekend should realise that, bad though the Wigan performance was, their club are in great hands.
Coming back in style: Everton's victory over Manchester City, sparked by this goal from Leon Osman (right), was the perfect riposte to last weekend's exit from the FA Cup
We’re bored of saying: ‘Oh, David Moyes is doing well, isn’t he?’ But we should never get bored of that. Or commending the fact Stoke have 25 or 30 players with an incredible work ethic, especially when you see other clubs signing £100,000-a-week players but still having problems getting them to work hard.
In some ways I understand the negativity surrounding Everton last weekend. It was a bad day for the fans, players and the manager because they were expected to beat Wigan at home and if they had done so, they would now have Millwall in the semi-final and would feel they had a good chance of reaching the final.
And I suppose the icing on the cake for Pulis or Moyes would be to win a trophy, like Swansea have this year, though both have gone close by reaching FA Cup finals. But only a handful of clubs can win a trophy each year and what those two managers have done at their clubs has been incredible.
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There are not many people who would accept that now. Instant gratification is much more of a feature of society.
So you have the failed examples of Portsmouth and Leeds, who spent big, invited financial disaster but had some thrills on the way.
Or the more successful models, such as Manchester City and Chelsea, who could sustain the spending but wanted to make instant impressions. That is a reflection of society’s need to have something now rather than waiting and taking time to build it.
I’m not saying there’s a right way or a wrong way to conduct yourself. I know people who have been married two or three times and they’ve happily adapted to their life and circumstances: they don’t want long-term consistency, they don’t want reliability. They want fun and stimulation and surprises in their life.
Other people are different and would say: ‘I’d rather win the FA Cup one year and go down the next; or challenge for the Champions League and then go into administration.’
There are more of those types of people in society than there were 30 years ago and football mirrors their desires. But I hate surprises. I hate not knowing what’s going to happen. And I would love the idea of my team always being in the top eight and never battling relegation.
And when I look at the intricacies of Manchester Town Hall and the work that went into building it and ensuring it would stand the test of time, for me that’s like every single training session a manager might go into over eight or nine years at a football club to build a team.
And that’s just the kind of team I would want to support.
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