FOOTBALLERS’ LIVES
Reds and Glens hero Tim McCann on why doubts over his future as a player and tough times as a coach made him stronger for his role in Larne revival
QFor many, you epitomise the grit, commitment and raw appeal of the Irish League. What has been your secret?
AA winning mentality — it’s simply in you or it isn’t. I played from a young age and joined Cliftonville when I was around 15, and it was drilled into you. The team probably wasn’t as strong as it is now, but the hunger was there. When I first moved into the first team I was playing with Tommy Breslin, Eddie Patterson and others who had been there for some time. Billy Sinclair was the manager and it was built into me.
My whole career carried the attitude that it was unacceptable to lose, even a five-a-side match in training. Whether it was a race, or a sprint, you had to be first. I never wanted to lose. I understand now that managers reminisce, maybe complain too that some parts of the game have gone, but there’s no way the winning mentality, hunger or desire can ever be taken out of the game. I think you can instil it in any player if you get them at the right age. It’s something I try to do as a coach, whether that’s with my kids’ U10 team or at Larne, and I always have.
There are certain ways of doing it, you dangle a carrot and make sure they always know where the fine line between having a desire to win and going over the top lies. You want players kicking each other and battling for each other to say, ‘We’re not going to lose this training match’, but you also don’t want them throwing digs.
QAHow has the game changed for you? It’s more about the players now than ever before. When I got my first managerial position I was at Distillery, I went into the dressing room at half-time to have a crack at the players and, while I won’t name him, there was one 6ft strapping centre-forward who looked really sheepish and I thought he was going to cry. I asked, ‘What’s wrong with you?’, and he said, ‘Please don’t shout at me’. I wasn’t expecting that, but that was when it hit me. Some players react well to a rollicking, some don’t.
QWhat do you remember about your playing days?
AI had been playing for Newington Youth Club but had given it up when I was 15, and hadn’t played for several months —
I had just lost interest. Then a friend of mine said Cliftonville were looking for a forward for their youth team, so I thought I’d go along to training on Tuesday, returned on Thursday and started against Linfield that Saturday, and scored two goals. I made my way to the reserves then, and was training with the first team, so to have been around players like Peter Murray, Jim McFadden and Tommy Breslin was a real eye-opener.
They were guys you looked up to. Then Billy Sinclair gave me my first start, and at that stage I was just getting £8 a week in expenses — which I was over the moon with because I only had to walk from my house!
I wasn’t that smart when it came to my first proper one, at that stage I was really gullible! Billy cut a deal with me by offering me a tracksuit and pair of boots, and I said yes. So I signed for a tracksuit and a pair of boots. I thought this was standard because everyone in the changing room had them too, but the players just laughed at me and told me I’d been done.
QThings got much better for you at Solitude. What are your memories of being part of such a successful team?
AI loved playing in the top flight in the 1990s. I gradually worked my way up through the ranks until Marty Quinn took over and we won our first trophy in 16 years, when we lifted the Coca-Cola Cup in 1996. We followed that up with the County Antrim Shield in ‘97 and the next year, we were league champions, which was phenomenal. To have gone from where we were at that particular point was amazing. I don’t think it ever really sank in for us as players — you had a very good Linfield, Portadown, Glenavon, Crusaders and many others, I think there were almost 10 teams who could have taken that title, and it went down to the penultimate game for us to win it. We were a group who were not, to be honest, the best individuals in the league, but Marty had instilled something very strong in us. I know they’ve won the league since then, but with better players. In my eyes, our glory years were a feat which will never be matched. We had no right to win that league, but we did because the manager believed in us.
QAHow did the move to Glentoran come about? A few players started to leave Cliftonville, we played in the Champions League and were absolutely tanked by Kosice, who had beaten Manchester United in the group stage the season before, and then the Glens approached me. I met with Roy Coyle and I couldn’t say no. He epitomised what the club was all about, and it was an appealing challenge for me to see how I would fare at a Big Two club. I won the league with Glentoran and it went on from there, with more silverware, including Irish Cups. It was frightening in some ways. I really, really loved my time there, until Roy let me go in 2004. He told me my legs were done, which I disagreed with — so I went to join Ballymena under Kenny Shiels and had a great six months there until I tore my cruciate.
QDo you ever think that was the beginning of the end of your career?
ANever. I was out for eight and a half months, then tore it again and had another six months of rehab. The manager at Ballymena at the time was Tommy Wright, who just said he thought it was time to hang the boots up, but I wouldn’t listen. It was like a red rag to a bull, so I knocked my pan in for a year and a half, trying to get myself back to where I wanted to be. Then Paul Millar gave me a chance and brought me back to Glentoran, and I was on pay as you play, so I played a lot of games for the reserves to get my strength up.
Then Alan McDonald took over, and I signed another year’s contract before finally doing my cruciate for the third time when I was 37. That was the point I accepted it. When Roy let me go, I knew I was out to prove him and everybody else wrong, that I wasn’t done at 32 years of age. I had just won the Irish Cup, so I worked really hard.
QHow difficult was it to go through rehabilitation when doubts were cast over your future as a player?
AVery difficult. I had a life-changing moment during my rehab. I met my wife when I was 18 at a youth club and I’ve been with her ever since; we married when we were 25. The thing is, we had never thought about kids, but Luighseach fell pregnant in 2005 for the first time. We lost our son, he lived for about two minutes. His name was Tim Og, and that sent me over the edge quite a bit. It was a really tough time in my life, I was still playing but I had done the cruciate. I so desperately needed the release of training, or running out on a pitch but couldn’t have either, so it was a really, really tough period.
In 2007 we had our second son, Cillian, and then they were like buses! We had Lennon and Annie, too. They were my life-changing moments. But to get through that only makes you stronger. I would never wish that on a worst enemy, having to carry a white coffin to a grave. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but it makes you stronger individually and as a family because nothing could be worse. I now try to have the most positive outlook on life possible, and to try and spend as much time as I can with them. We got Charlie, a Cockapoo, recently, so he’s bringing lots of happiness to the home. You just never know what’s around the corner, in football or in life.
QYou have played under some of the very best coaches in the league, how has that
helped to shape you now?
AI’ve had a rollercoaster ride as a player, really. When I think about the coaches who worked with me, it’s incredible. Marty was a great person to work with, he really got to know you, whereas Roy’s tactical mind is amazing. I hadn’t a clue about some of the sides of the game which he is an undisputed expert in. I used to get my head down, stick the ball in the box and try to score goals, that was it. Kenny’s enthusiasm is wonderful, another guy who just had a will to win and had limitless energy. But I wouldn’t be where I am as a coach without Alan McDonald. When I did my cruciate for the third time he made sure I stayed around the club, help- ing to coach the reserves. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I was winging it! But it was great fun. I had a bit of help but I was using drills I’d seen through my whole career.
The faith Alan had in me in the cup competitions extended to him going to sit in the stands and allowing me to take control of the match. He’d tell me to pick the team. It was astonishing, and I’d never have got into coaching if it wasn’t for him. His death was devastating. We miss him every day, he was a real gentleman with a lust for life and I don’t think he ever got the credit he deserved at Glentoran. It was disgusting, really, he had won a league title for the club. I still love that footage of him in the Northern Ireland shirt after the draw with England, his determination and drive were admirable.
QWhat are your memories of making that transition from player to coach?
AI had to do some rehab after doing my cruciate, which was in December of 2007, and three or four months later I was helping with the reserves. But when the summer came around, I was out on my own and that was a big eye-opener. Gary Hamilton and a few of the other players would have come to help out too, if they’d finished early. They joined with me and the younger players, and would say, ‘Now you do as Tim tells you’ and put a few sessions on with me.
QThe takeover by Kenny Bruce has changed Larne enormously, but how have you been received in the Championship? Has there been envy or eye-rolling from other clubs, given the money available to you?
AYou get people saying, ‘Who do they think they are?’, but at no stage has any player or member of staff from our club said, ‘We’re going to do this or that’. When we win, it’s a big event for us as we are passionate about it. We were trailing 2-1 to the Welders, but won 3-2 and when we went into the changing room, we went ballistic. We were hugging, cheering and spraying water. A couple of their players came in and said it looked as if we had won the World Cup, but that’s what it means to us.
I was chatting to another manager recently who said, ‘I’ll get something out of our players today because we are playing you’, and I just thought that was so unfair in some ways. Why did he have to wait until they were playing us before they gave anything?
QDoes that togetherness start from within the dressing room?
AI am going to go back to my playing days at Glentoran and Cliftonville and say it’s up there with those. The banter is unbelievable, the trust and the camaraderie is phenomenal. Everyone gets on, there are no cliques. All the players were hand-picked, and when the players were being selected it was just as much about their behaviour and attitude off the pitch.
We created an ethos when we went to Andorra for a training camp, and told them exactly what we wanted them to represent. We impose drink bans, if we’ve an important game on a Tuesday for instance, and these are respected.
QThe Larne dream must be strong, given it was enough to convince you back to the game after a deflating experience with Lisburn Distillery.
AAbsolutely. Tiernan, (his brother) Seamus and I have been friends for many, many years. Our families are very close, and now to be on this journey together is amazing. I probably had no interest in going back after Distillery. It put me off, and I filled the Saturdays with media work. Then last year, I was up at Tiernan’s house and we just got chatting about Larne. One thing led to another and he brought me in as first-team coach.
I was in a really bad way in terms of my mental state after being let go from Distillery, I’d never felt so low in my career because I just felt I had failed, but also that I wasn’t helped at all. The touchline is a very, very lonely place if you’ve no support. I remember my second game, Ballinamallard had just come up and nobody really knew who they were. They came to ours and beat us 5-0 and I wondered what I had let myself in for.
We had some great times at the club and a good changing room too, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll probably have a big decision to make when Larne go full-time. I’m currently working in sales for Zeus Packaging in Mallusk, who supply environmentally-friendly packaging. The doubts over my future as a player, the loneliest times as a coach, they have all served to make me stronger mentally professionally — and a person — to try to handle things going forward.