The 57-year-old coach was dismissed from his role of Director of Rugby at the club, which was previously known as Newcastle Falcons, after just one game of the Premiership season last September and while he supports the owners' right to make the decisions they see fit, he felt he deserved more than to be fired on a Zoom call.
He told Telegraph Sport: “On the Monday, I get this phone call, saying ‘can you do a meeting at five o’clock?'
“I joked with John Stokoe, the team manager, that if it was a Friday, I’d be worried, because these corporate people only sack you at five o’clock on a Friday. Turns out I spoke too soon.
“There’s a certain amount of respect that’s needed. I wasn’t the right man for them. Fair play. They’ve got the right to do that. Then sit down and explain, which I have always done with people who’ve left employment with me. Doing it by Zoom is not polite. I would never do that.
“We had been told all this stuff that ‘we’re no longer a profit-and-loss business, we’re a marketing business, we operate on the extreme, we are not status quo’. The one question I did ask when they sacked me off on Zoom was ‘tell me why?’ They say, ‘we’re bringing world-class people in’. ‘Who are they?’ ‘Well, we don’t want to tell you.’
“‘Is it because of my disciplinary record? I’d like to know because we had this presentation where you said you like people who are not conformists.’ I kept saying, ‘you’ve got to get your story right here’. They couldn’t answer it. Pete Charles [the managing director of Red Bull UK] was selling crisps five years ago for Walkers. And that bloke sacks me."
Steve was further infuriated when the club wanted to issue as statement which described his departure as being "by mutual consent".
He added: “They said we want to put this press statement out saying it is by mutual consent. I said, ‘Well, it’s not mutual. We’re not putting that out. Just say I finished today. It’s your decision, not mine. You can’t give me the reasoning for that decision, which disappoints me, and more importantly, it’s on Zoom’.”
