2006
Big Ron Manager is a television documentary series based on Ron Atkinson's efforts as a troubleshooter at the English football club Peterborough United, at the time playing in Football League Two. The series was screened on Sky TV in 2006. Originally, the show was going to feature Swindon Town and Sky spent around four weeks filming there before being asked to leave by the Swindon management. Peterborough United received a fee of around £100,000 from Sky TV for access to the changing rooms and for Ron Atkinson to assist the rookie manager Steve Bleasdale. Bleasdale was unhappy at Atkinson's involvement in the changing room and subsequently banned him and the cameras from the changing rooms on matchdays. However, later in the series Bleasdale relented after being overruled by Chairman Barry Fry. Some scenes caused quite a stir in Peterborough when the show was aired, including a dressing room brawl between Mark Arber and Paul Carden and Bleasdale rowing with youngsters Sean St Ledger and Danny Crow. St Ledger joked about suing Sky TV, after claiming the programme showed him as the team's bad boy, which he denied. The media alighted on this, and he was later forced to clarify that the statement was in fact, a joke.
