The Daily Post’s Tranmere Rovers reporter Nick Hilton reflects on Friday’s surprise sacking of manager Ronnie Moore

YOU can be sure Ronnie Moore won’t pass on the opportunity to offer some wry reflection on the unstable nature of the football management business when he stands up to address his wedding guests this week.

The man I have known professionally for the past 35 years isn’t the type to hide his thoughts from friends or strangers. And he has been around long enough to remember the kind of music hall jokes that begin: “A funny thing happened on my way to the ceremony ....”

This one ends with “I got sacked.”

Moore’s long experience in the game as a player, coach and manager with Tranmere and half a dozen other clubs has helped him to appreciate that it pays to always expect the unexpected.

Even so, the 56-year-old did not see his dismissal by Rovers coming. So much so that when first informed of his fate in a meeting with club owner and chairman Peter Johnson on Friday, Moore thought he was “being given the wind-up.”

After all, Moore won widespread praise in professional circles and among supporters for his work in guiding Tranmere to within a whisker of the League One play-offs on a limited budget in the 2008/09 campaign.

He arrived at the meeting with Johnson expecting to discuss plans for next season and left it soon afterwards without a job.

Moore said: “I thought we were going to have a conversation about where we were up to in preparations for next season, but unfortunately it was bad news instead. It came as a total surprise when you consider how well we performed last season.”