Di Canio arrived in Wiltshire armed with a UEFA Pro Licence in coaching. That qualification was not enough to assuage the concerns of doubters who feared that working in a distinctly alien League Two environment of which he had no prior knowledge, and with players of markedly inferior ability to his own, would result in an unhappy and short lived tenure for the then 42 year-old.
When the Robins began life back in League Two by losing four of their first five games – including most painfully the bitterly contested local derby at home to Oxford United – it seemed the worst fears were being confirmed. That was to reckon without the burning drive, desire and commitment which underpinned Di Canio’s mercurial on-field career.
A season which wasn’t without its eccentric, headline grabbing moments – something which became accepted as part of the Di Canio package – ended with Swindon topping their division, winning more matches than any of their rivals and scoring 75 goals in the process.
That achievement was never likely to satiate Di Canio’s appetite for success and the Robins hit the ground running back in League One. In addition to their strong early showings in the league, Swindon won League Cup ties at home against Championship outfits Brighton & Hove Albion and Burnley and, most notably, 4-3 at Premier League Stoke City.
In an embodiment of their manager’s personality the team responded to any setback with a hasty return to winning ways. The portents for Swindon Town were strong, with a sense of history repeating, as in front of swelling crowds at the County Ground and led by a man who prioritised fluid and eye-catching football, the Robins looked set to announce themselves as being back very much back among England’s elite 44 clubs.
Unfortunately for buoyant Town followers, the mirroring of past events wasn’t to be limited to their side’s football prosperity.
The first rumblings of trouble emerged in October of last year when, at the request of majority shareholder Andrew Black, Jeremy Wray resigned as the club’s chairman. The loss of the man who during his 18 months in office was chiefly responsible for attracting Di Canio to the County Ground, and was described by the manager as ‘the best chairman a manager could have’ induced understandable anxiety among a support scarred by previous unsavoury events.
At the time of Wray’s succession by Sir William Patey, Swindon were under a transfer embargo which had been imposed due to their exceeding a set fee and wage limit. That situation had already stoked Di Canio’s ire, the Italian believing that the requirement to operate under trading restrictions was contrary to his board’s stated aim of achieving a second consecutive promotion.
When, three months later, Patey declared that the club were up for sale with Black no longer willing to invest and a debt standing at approximately £13m, it was the beginning of the end for Di Canio’s rather curious love affair with this quiet south-west town.
The increasingly agitated man at the helm denied he had any knowledge of Swindon’s financial woes. Indeed, Di Canio suggested that upon Patey’s arrival the new chairman had informed his manager that there was no problem and the club would continue to pursue the three-year-plan, agreed when Di Canio was installed, to take Swindon to the Championship.
The sale of the team’s outstanding young winger Matt Ritchie to direct adversaries, AFC Bournemouth, without Di Canio’s approval proved to be the fatal act in a fast deteriorating relationship between club and manager.
A bristling and forthright Di Canio openly expressed his exasperation;
‘I regard this as a clear breach of my contract with the club and moreover, a clear attempt to undermine my position notwithstanding the success we have achieved in the last 18 months. Matt Ritchie was sold behind my back’.
Di Canio declared that the move would lead him to ‘consider my position’, and inevitably, 16 days later he had resigned citing the failure of an incoming consortium to complete their takeover of the club by the time of his own arbitrarily set deadline – a transaction necessary for Swindon to avoid falling into administration.
A deal for Seeback 57 – a company led by local businessman Jed McCrory – to purchase the club was completed three days after the Italian left. In the intervening time Swindon won 3-1 at Tranmere Rovers to reach the pinnacle of League One, only for that accomplishment to be overshadowed by the post-match revelation of caretaker boss – and Di Canio’s former assistant – Fabrizio Piccareta that he and the remainder of the team’s coaching staff would be resigning the next day.
McCrory’s consortium were quick to appoint Kevin MacDonald, a man whose quietly spoken and studious nature are the polar opposite to his predecessor in the manager’s office – on which Di Canio staged a night-time raid following his departure to retrieve mementoes of his time at the club.
MacDonald’s reputation was predominantly built on his nurturing a raft of precocious talent in his roles as a coach and reserve team manager at Aston Villa. His only previous management experience had come on a caretaker basis with Leicester City and Villa, but McCrory regards the new man as entirely capable of sustaining the progress overseen by Di Canio;