of life in the top flight and a bitter quarrel soon developed between Megson and the club's chairman Paul Thompson over what Megson perceived as the latter's interference in footballing matters. An undignified public showdown resulted in Thompson resigning from the board in order to forestall Megson's departure. The board elected Jeremy Peace as Thompson's successor, and in July 2002 Megson signed a new three-year contract with Albion. However, in 2002–03 the club were relegated after just a single season in the Premier League. Megson mounted a successful promotion campaign the following season, and a return to the Premier League – but by the summer of 2004, the relationship between Megson and Peace had become strained. By September, after a poor start to the season, Megson's job appeared to be under threat. The following month Megson, whose contract was due to end in June 2005, announced that he would not sign a new deal if the club offered one. The board chose to interpret this as a resignation, and on 26 October Megson was dismissed. A settlement for the remainder of his contract was reached in November 2004. Nottingham Forest Within a week of being sacked at West Bromwich Albion, Gary Megson was linked with the manager's job at Albion's local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers, which became vacant after Dave Jones was sacked – but that job went to Glenn Hoddle instead. On 10 January 2005, Megson was appointed to succeed Joe Kinnear as manager of struggling Nottingham Forest, but was unable to save them from slipping into the third tier of English football for the first time in more than half a century. Promotion back to the Championship was to be his priority for 2005–06, but Forest struggled, especially away from home, for most of the season. In terms of points they were nearer to the relegation zone than the playoff zone when he resigned in February 2006 after being put under a lot of pressure by the Forest fans. He claimed that his resignation had cost him £500,000. In June 2007 Megson was appointed as a coach at Stoke City by manager Tony Pulis. He retained this role until his appointment as manager of Leicester City. Leicester City On 13 September 2007, Leicester City chairman Milan Mandarić announced Gary Megson as the new manager of the club, citing Megson's "wealth of experience" as a deciding factor in the appointment.