Which team in Scottish Football has had the most fraud managers?

[FTOF]

12 hours ago, pozbaird said:

Close thread.

 

Preceding Jack Ross, we had a horrific spell of appointments in Tommy, Craig, Ian Murray and Alex Rae, that took us to the brink of the third tier.

[welldaft]

11 hours ago, Leith Green said:

When Johnson is announced binned tomorrow, we will have had Maloney, Gray, Johnson, Gray again, and (presumably) AN Other in a calendar year.

I think the case is closed.

If good old Ron boy could wait a week until we beat you. That would be nice. 

However it is true that Hibs could lose 782 games in a row and the turn up at Fir Park and win. 

So if he is not gone this week. Then you will probably have him for a couple of weeks more. 

[Stylish Kid]

43 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

We've had a good rollercoaster:

2003, we appoint British football's first Brazilian coach, a guy that coached Ronaldo and Ronaldinho the Brazil youth teams. He resigns after 9 games. Remarkably David Hay takes over that side and wins the League Cup, and promptly leaves the club at the end of his contract. 

Allan Preston steps in and is sacked with a 22% win rate and 7 defeats in a row. Richard Gough takes over and we stay up by way of Hassan Kachloul somehow. Gough then resigns.

Surely we've learned our lesson right? Nope. Paul Lambert takes over as player manager, a guy that's played with Celtic, Borussia Dortmund and a Champions League winner. He never intended to play for us, yet makes 7 appearances in his 32 game spell. 15.63% win rate. One of the all time worst top flight showings by any club in Scotland. 

Relegation should give us some stability and a base to build from... right? From 2006-2009 7 different people had taken charge of first team affairs in one way or another at Livingston. Roughly one every 5 months or so. 

Batshit Italian time. If it wasn't bad enough that we had spun the managerial carousel into hyperdrive, we had some Italian spice in the mix too. A group of Italians who come in making grand claims about Livingston as Scotland's third force. They install their own man, Roberto Landi who gets the sack after losing 2-1 to East Stirlingshire in the Scottish Cup after 5 months. He leaves with a 55% win rate and a manager of the month trophy for August.  In the middle of this we go into financial turmoil, decide it's funny not to pay our bills. Get our power cut off, Massone calls for the fans to raise funds. £149.50 is raised towards the £32,000 bill. 

Landi's replacement? Paul Hegarty, who is sacked without even being told. Literally locked out the stadium by Massone. The official line was that he was 'suspended' by the club. Massone perhaps ahead of his time claims it would've been best to take the club 'to the wall' and restart as the same club but with zero debts.

In a face saving quote he says "No, the debts would have to be paid, especially in a small working community" - how admirable(?). Oh wait, he also says this " The truth is that there are other plans. Livingston will have to remain a small club and the stadium will become a big shopping centre.". He somehow manages to also come out with this "I had decided to say nothing until today mainly for respect towards the Livingston supporters who loved me and who are still the vast majority."

With the Italians gone you'd think maybe, just maybe there'd be some stability? Finally? Well, we've been demoted to the third tier (again ahead of our time apparently) and get back to back promotions/titles under Gary Bollan. 2012 beckons and he's sacked. From 2012-2014 we send the carousel back into hyperdrive and see 6 managers take the first team within a two year spell. 

A spell from John Hughes, a P&B all time favourite in these threads calls to us. Recently sacked from Hibs, he seems like a decent enough candidate. He talks about building long term. Tells a fan if he doesn't like his football then to go shopping with their wife on Saturdays from now on. The football incidentally was eye-bleeding. He leaves for Hartlepool after 9 months. 

Gareth Evans, sacked after 3 months. Richie Burke, gone after 7. Even John McGlynn survives only just over a year.

Player manager Mark Burchill seems to just about get by, we have a great escape season and win the Challenge Cup which was decent. Sacked after a year with us hanging about the bottom end of the table. 

Uninspiringly he's replaced by his assistant, David Hopkin who promptly takes us down following an all-time disasterclass playoff performance where we lose to Stranraer 5-2 in the first leg. All but done right? No. An 89th minute goal and a 94th minute goal see us draw the tie level. To then collapse and lose two goals and get emptied down to League 1. The main stand is filled with abuse towards the team and Hopkin, Hopkin is told to never show his face at the club again by some fans  

Fans are raging at the fact that he's then appointed manager on a full time basis. We then go on a fairy-tale romp to win League 1 and then shitfest our way to winning the playoffs. Right. Eventually stability, right? Naw. Hopkin decides his work here is done and just fucks off with no job in place. 

Step forward the 4-4-Kenny Formation. Kenny Miller ladies and gentlemen. A very odd period for us where it looks as though we're destined to go down. The interview process came down to 2 candidates, Kenny Miller and Gary Holt. We went with Kenny Miller due to his ability to be a player as well as a manager, we then ask him about 3 months in to stop playing, and he says no. So we just end up going back to Holt....?

We eventually do get our stability (so far) under Martindale who replaces Holt at least. As of a few days ago Martindale has become one of only 4 Livi managers to manage a spell containing 4 different years. Ray Stewart 97-00, Jim Leishman 00-03, Gary Bollan 09-12, Martindale 20-23

Great summary!

 

Does the Holt era not have the twist that it was Martindale pulling the strings but officially couldn't because of coaching badges/historic conviction issues?

[ATLIS]

4 minutes ago, Stylish Kid said:

Great summary!

 

Does the Holt era not have the twist that it was Martindale pulling the strings but officially couldn't because of coaching badges/historic conviction issues?

To be fair that claims goes all the way back to Hopkin being in charge, but I think it comes from the fact that when Hopkin took over he just gave Martindale full control of all transfers and he kept that through to getting the job

[Stylish Kid]

16 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

To be fair that claims goes all the way back to Hopkin being in charge, but I think it comes from the fact that when Hopkin took over he just gave Martindale full control of all transfers and he kept that through to getting the job

Well, I guess this makes Livi the undisputed champs of "Fraud Manager", as theirs are genuinely fronts to cover for the real power on the throne

Edited January 3, 2023 by Stylish Kid
There/thier

[tamthebam]

Cowdenbeath and Arbroath used to regularly change managers at the drop of a hat.

Arbroath have been fairly stable in the last two decades though. 

Seeing as they've gone from Championship survivors to the lower reaches of the Lowland League maybe Cowden are a good shout. See also: Berwick Rangers, Brechin City (may stage a comeback soon though)

 

[SlipperyP]

4 hours ago, ATLIS said:

Paul Hegarty, who is sacked without even being told. Literally locked out the stadium by Massone

I which we had a done this.

[Molotov]

3 hours ago, ATLIS said:

To be fair that claims goes all the way back to Hopkin being in charge, but I think it comes from the fact that when Hopkin took over he just gave Martindale full control of all transfers and he kept that through to getting the job

I actually find it incredible that a bigger club has not tempted Martindale away from Livingston. 

He has done the crime, served the time and as acknowledged that what he did was wrong. 

What he has achieved with the limited resources available is nothing short of remarkable.

Goodwin left St Mirren for Aberdeen after a freak set of results that Saints only just managed to scrape some wins together. He is clearly being found out.
 

I believe that Martindale would have had a bigger impact on Aberdeen but his previous misdemeanours are being held against him.  

The Livingston model must surely operate on a low basic wage with high win bonuses.

Other clubs should adopt it. St Mirren might have seen more of guys like Brophy who are on such a high basic wage that they just cannae be arsed.

[ATLIS]

Just now, Molotov said:

I actually find it incredible that a bigger club has not tempted Martindale away from Livingston. 

He has done the crime, served the time and as acknowledged that what he did was wrong. 

What he has achieved with the limited resources available is nothing short of remarkable.

Goodwin left St Mirren for Aberdeen after a freak set of results that Saints only just managed to scrape some wins together. He is clearly being found out.
 

I believe that Martindale would have had a bigger impact on Aberdeen but his previous misdemeanours are being held against him.  

The Livingston model must surely operate on a low basic wage with high win bonuses.

Other clubs should adopt it. St Mirren might have seen more of guys like Brophy who are on such a high basic wage that they just cannae be arsed.

I think he's said a few times publicly that he's not interested in a move. IMO It'd need to be something huge where he's making a massive wage to set his family up. Previously he'd talked about the debt owed to Livi for allowing him to rebuild his life and that this is where he wants to be.

He's also the kind of manager that likes to be in charge of everything, I don't see him getting that anywhere that would be a step up. I don't doubt that Martindale could go to Hibs/Aberdeen and massively improve either one to be honest, I just don't think it appeals to him. He knows he's not going to be sacked on a whim with us, a club and a manager that seem to fit each other quite well. 

As far as I'm aware since we came up we've had the smallest budget each year, that's included a fair few top 6 finishes too. 

I think his quote previously was that he's at Livi until someone tells him he's not. Even if it's club's approaching him, he'll leave it up to our board if we want him to take it or not. 

[Molotov]

3 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

I think he's said a few times publicly that he's not interested in a move. 

Ach is that not the usual line managers use to convince the fans at the current club all is fine and dandy?

Goodwin easily tripled his wage going north. It’s an easier stepping stone to move from Aberdeen down south than direct from St Mirren or Livingston. Goodwin harbours a desire to manage down south and also his country. I just can’t see him achieving those goals without some remarkable change in tactics and luck along the way.

As an aside I find incredible is that Alex fucking Rae has landed himself another job down south earning a fortune as a number 2 to Paul Ince.

That must be a tactical masterpiece with those two in charge!

[ATLIS]

Just now, Molotov said:

Ach is that not the usual line managers use to convince the fans at the current club all is fine and dandy?

Goodwin easily tripled his wage going north. It’s an easier stepping stone to move from Aberdeen down south than direct from St Mirren or Livingston. Goodwin harbours a desire to manage down south and also his country. I just can’t see him achieving those goals without some remarkable change in tactics and luck along the way.

As an aside I find incredible is that Alex fucking Rae has landed himself another job down south earning a fortune as a number 2 to Paul Ince.

That must be a tactical masterpiece with those two in charge!

I'd usually say it is but he refused to even return Fleetwood's call when they thought they could easily take him  From the sounds of it a few bigger clubs down south couldn't even get him to listen. 

I get the feeling it's not about money for him, and he's just appreciating getting to do a job with us. One of they very rare folk in football that couldn't care about money, lucky for us as we're a club with next to none  

[Molotov]

1 minute ago, ATLIS said:

I'd usually say it is but he refused to even return Fleetwood's call when they thought they could easily take him  From the sounds of it a few bigger clubs down south couldn't even get him to listen. 

I get the feeling it's not about money for him, and he's just appreciating getting to do a job with us. One of they very rare folk in football that couldn't care about money, lucky for us as we're a club with next to none  

Well he’s a welcome addition to Scottish football. His players clearly like his style and his work ethic.

Just wish he’d convince your owners to lay some real “grass”. 

I fucking hate plastic pitches!

[ATLIS]

4 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Well he’s a welcome addition to Scottish football. His players clearly like his style and his work ethic.

Just wish he’d convince your owners to lay some real “grass”. 

I fucking hate plastic pitches!

Main issue with grass is that our stadium is at the low point of a valley next to a river. There's a corner of the stadium that receives zero sunlight in the winter too. If we did have grass we'd genuinely have 7-8 postponements each winter. At least the plastic is a bit more durable and doesn't care if it doesn't get much sun.  Low point of the valley means that we have bad issues with water pooling in the corners as well. 

There comes a point it just isn't viable and we'd probably need to build a new stadium just to even see it as a viable option. Stadium is just in an awful position for grass in general.

[TAFKAC]

5 hours ago, ATLIS said:

We've had a good rollercoaster:

2003, we appoint British football's first Brazilian coach, a guy that coached Ronaldo and Ronaldinho the Brazil youth teams. He resigns after 9 games. Remarkably David Hay takes over that side and wins the League Cup, and promptly leaves the club at the end of his contract. 

Allan Preston steps in and is sacked with a 22% win rate and 7 defeats in a row. Richard Gough takes over and we stay up by way of Hassan Kachloul somehow. Gough then resigns.

Surely we've learned our lesson right? Nope. Paul Lambert takes over as player manager, a guy that's played with Celtic, Borussia Dortmund and a Champions League winner. He never intended to play for us, yet makes 7 appearances in his 32 game spell. 15.63% win rate. One of the all time worst top flight showings by any club in Scotland. 

Relegation should give us some stability and a base to build from... right? From 2006-2009 7 different people had taken charge of first team affairs in one way or another at Livingston. Roughly one every 5 months or so. 

Batshit Italian time. If it wasn't bad enough that we had spun the managerial carousel into hyperdrive, we had some Italian spice in the mix too. A group of Italians who come in making grand claims about Livingston as Scotland's third force. They install their own man, Roberto Landi who gets the sack after losing 2-1 to East Stirlingshire in the Scottish Cup after 5 months. He leaves with a 55% win rate and a manager of the month trophy for August.  In the middle of this we go into financial turmoil, decide it's funny not to pay our bills. Get our power cut off, Massone calls for the fans to raise funds. £149.50 is raised towards the £32,000 bill. 

Landi's replacement? Paul Hegarty, who is sacked without even being told. Literally locked out the stadium by Massone. The official line was that he was 'suspended' by the club. Massone perhaps ahead of his time claims it would've been best to take the club 'to the wall' and restart as the same club but with zero debts.

In a face saving quote he says "No, the debts would have to be paid, especially in a small working community" - how admirable(?). Oh wait, he also says this " The truth is that there are other plans. Livingston will have to remain a small club and the stadium will become a big shopping centre.". He somehow manages to also come out with this "I had decided to say nothing until today mainly for respect towards the Livingston supporters who loved me and who are still the vast majority."

With the Italians gone you'd think maybe, just maybe there'd be some stability? Finally? Well, we've been demoted to the third tier (again ahead of our time apparently) and get back to back promotions/titles under Gary Bollan. 2012 beckons and he's sacked. From 2012-2014 we send the carousel back into hyperdrive and see 6 managers take the first team within a two year spell. 

A spell from John Hughes, a P&B all time favourite in these threads calls to us. Recently sacked from Hibs, he seems like a decent enough candidate. He talks about building long term. Tells a fan if he doesn't like his football then to go shopping with their wife on Saturdays from now on. The football incidentally was eye-bleeding. He leaves for Hartlepool after 9 months. 

Gareth Evans, sacked after 3 months. Richie Burke, gone after 7. Even John McGlynn survives only just over a year.

Player manager Mark Burchill seems to just about get by, we have a great escape season and win the Challenge Cup which was decent. Sacked after a year with us hanging about the bottom end of the table. 

Uninspiringly he's replaced by his assistant, David Hopkin who promptly takes us down following an all-time disasterclass playoff performance where we lose to Stranraer 5-2 in the first leg. All but done right? No. An 89th minute goal and a 94th minute goal see us draw the tie level. To then collapse and lose two goals and get emptied down to League 1. The main stand is filled with abuse towards the team and Hopkin, Hopkin is told to never show his face at the club again by some fans  

Fans are raging at the fact that he's then appointed manager on a full time basis. We then go on a fairy-tale romp to win League 1 and then shitfest our way to winning the playoffs. Right. Eventually stability, right? Naw. Hopkin decides his work here is done and just fucks off with no job in place. 

Step forward the 4-4-Kenny Formation. Kenny Miller ladies and gentlemen. A very odd period for us where it looks as though we're destined to go down. The interview process came down to 2 candidates, Kenny Miller and Gary Holt. We went with Kenny Miller due to his ability to be a player as well as a manager, we then ask him about 3 months in to stop playing, and he says no. So we just end up going back to Holt....?

We eventually do get our stability (so far) under Martindale who replaces Holt at least. As of a few days ago Martindale has become one of only 4 Livi managers to manage a spell containing 4 different years. Ray Stewart 97-00, Jim Leishman 00-03, Gary Bollan 09-12, Martindale 20-23

Impressively, this also misses out John Murphy. He replaced David Hay at the end of the 2008/09 season but was then replaced by Bollan. Fairly certain, he didn't even manage a game...

[Richey Edwards]

Gordon Dalziel

Campbell Money

Mark Shanks

Robert Connor

Neil Watt

Mark Roberts

David Hopkin

Jim Duffy

[Monkey Tennis]

8 hours ago, Sarto Mutiny said:

We had Jackie McNamara, who supercedes any shit managers anyone else might have had.

The rest of you can come back when you have had a manager so incompetent he relegated two clubs in one season.

And who benefited financially by getting rid of good players.

[DA Baracus]

7 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

It's a Scottish football problem. There is a giant manager merry-go-round consisting of failed managers and old dinosaurs that the majority of clubs look to every time they need a new manager. It's truly tragic. I think Scottish football needs more foreign managers. I don't believe for a second there aren't foreign managers out there that wouldn't want to ply their trade here. No more dinosaurs and English league jobbers. If anything it might make our league football more interesting and technical instead of playing horrific hoofball.

Aye but I heard that a foreign manager once didn't do very well in Scotland, so that now rules out foreign managers forever!

[Gibby82]

19 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

Let's go back 20 years for us. We are racking up £20million worth of debt. Signing genuinely world class superstars such as Claudio Caniggia, Temuri Ketsbaia, Fabrizio Ravanelli and players that had recently been capped by the likes of Argentina such as Beto Carranza. After realising, a former player most famous for getting a plate of chicken wings smashed off his coupon by Brian Law was an utter disaster, who did we think would be best placed to take us to the next level? Future Real Madrid manager, Bernd Schuster publicly declares interest, but f**k that, Jim Duffy is the man.

Fast forward to the Scot Gardiner era. Club legend and man that had led us to record runs is unceremoniously punted as we struggle as Club 12 in the Rangers banter years. We go to announce John Bomber Brown but chaos ensues and he and Scot Gardiner have to run to safety instead of announcing the appointment due to fan outrage.

And now the Nelms era. Appoints a good manager in Hartley and rightfully gets rid. Who do we appoint? A football commentator with zero experience of management all because he was a club hero. When he doesn't work out, we give it to a former United hero who tries to bring his mate that tried to kill the club previously. When as expected, it all ends in tears, he is on the Tannadice pitch with a United scarf draped round him giving it the fucking big one.

After that, we give it to a player that had just recently retired through injury because he was just at the club.

And then. Mark fucking McGhee.

These are the notable names but some of these don't feature in the top 5 worst we've had over that period which includes absolute frauds like Gordon Chisholm, Alan Kernaghan & Alex Rae.

Finally, I absolutely adore Jocky Scott. He's one of our biggest ever legends but when we have him the job the third time round, he'd been out the game for a good number of years. The other candidates at that time? Derek McInnes, Michael O'Neill & Craig Brown & Billy Davies (who publicly declared their interest).

If anyone is worse than us with managers, then it must be some fucking nightmare.

 

Was Schuster not linked before Bonetti was appointed, when Jocky Scott was binned? Sure I remember it being in the paper a few days after we lost the last derby that season, 99/00 season?

[Clown Job]

7 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

It's a Scottish football problem. There is a giant manager merry-go-round consisting of failed managers and old dinosaurs that the majority of clubs look to every time they need a new manager. It's truly tragic. I think Scottish football needs more foreign managers. I don't believe for a second there aren't foreign managers out there that wouldn't want to ply their trade here. No more dinosaurs and English league jobbers. If anything it might make our league football more interesting and technical instead of playing horrific hoofball.

It also helps having friends in the media 

He might have been a failure but someone like Cathro was never going to be given a fair chance because he wasn’t part of the old boys club

Similar with Ange, despite him having both domestic and international success you still have people like Chick Young in the media trying to push John Hughes for the Celtic job.

I refuse to believe Scottish football isn’t attractive to foreign coaches

If the Hibs job becomes available I think it would be pretty much a guarantee a lot of foreign coaches would be extremely interested, not just because of the club but also the opportunity to live in Edinburgh/Scotland

[Crùbag]

18 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

If it helps, hibs serve as good therapy for those in Aberdeen. 

Let's face it, Hibs are everybody's therapy. In recent years when Hearts have been in the doldrums, our neighbours were always there to consol us. Hell, even when hit with yon 15 point deduction, Hibs contrived to plummet from 4th place, IIRC, to relegation to join us in the second tier.