Quick-fire managers

Following Colin Todd's sacking as Derby boss after just 98 days, BBC Sport Online's Simon Austin looks at football's shortest managerial reigns.

Colin Todd's enforced exit from Derby County again shows that football management is the last vocation to choose if you want job security.

Todd was in charge at Pride Park for just 17 games before being ruthlessly axed on Monday.

  Short reigns

Dave Bassett (Crystal Palace, 1984): 4 days

Kevin Cullis (Swansea, 1996): 7 days

Micky Adams (Swansea, 1997): 13 days

Johnny Cochrane (Reading, 1939): 13 days

Brian Clough (Leeds, 1975): 44 days

Colin Todd (Derby, 2002): 98 days

The financial rewards for staying in the Premiership are now so great that chairmen feel they have to act quickly to avert the threat of relegation.

Southampton's Stuart Gray was the Premiership's first managerial casualty of the season.

He was sacked in October, even though it was his first job in management and he had only been in charge for 19 games.

Similarly, Chris Hutchings was sacked from his first managerial post by Bradford in 2000 after 12 games at the helm.

But trigger-happy chairmen are nothing new.

The most famous example of a manager leaving a club almost as soon as he had arrived came in 1975 when Brian Clough was fired by Leeds.

Laid-back Cochrane

"Old Big Head" was the most coveted young manager in the country when he moved to Elland Road in January that year.

He had led unfashionable Derby to the league title and the semi-finals of the European Cup.

Furthermore, his unconventional and outspoken style had made him a household name.

Adams lasted just 13 days at Swansea

Leeds were the dominant force in English football at the time and Clough was taking over from Don Revie, who had become England manager.

There were problems from the start, as Clough and his star players, like Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner, clashed.

After just 44 days in charge Clough was sacked amid talk of a player's revolt.

His tenure at Leeds seems positively lengthy compared to some other examples.

Johny Cochrane was boss at Reading for only 13 days in April 1939 before his laid-back approach led to his dismissal.

One former player described Cochrane's managerial style like this: "Just before a game this man wearing a bowler hat, smoking a cigar and drinking a whisky would pop his head round the dressing room door and ask 'Who are we playing today?''"

Micky Adams also lasted just 13 days as manager of Swansea.

He resigned in 1997 after money promised for new signings failed to materialise.

The Welsh side had had five different managers during the season before.

The shortest-lived was Kevin Cullis, a PE teacher who lasted only a week.

His record was played two, lost two, and he unsurprisingly never returned to management.

But the record for the shortest reign goes to Dave Bassett.

Leicester's boss was announced as Crystal Palace manager in May 1984.

But he had not signed a contract and four days later he moved back to Wimbledon.