FORMER IRELAND DEFENDER ON LIFE MANAGING ST MIRREN
Ambitious Waterford native is loving life in Scotland after avoiding return to the ‘rat race’
HE WENT toe to toe with Scotland’s best and came away with head held high, the mission of keeping his club in the top flight accomplished. But while Jim Goodwin, the Irish manager of St Mirren, welcomes the certainty brought by the decision to end the Scottish top flight season while the English equivalent attempts to resume, he knows that the financial black hole created by the Covid-19 pandemic will pose huge challenges.
Monday’s decision to end the Scottish season led to celebrations in the green half of Glasgow, as Celtic were crowned champions, and tears in the maroon side of Edinburgh due to relegation for Hearts. St Mirren also had cause to smile as closing the curtains on the season ensured that their topflight status was safe, a major achievement for Waterford native Goodwin in his first season at the club.
“I’m delighted on a personal note as it was a great experience for me. I’d had a good learning curve managing Alloa part-time but my ambition was always to go full-time and thankfully I got to do that at St Mirren,” Goodwin says.
Remit
“The remit for the year was to stay in the league but we have bigger ambitions as a club. This season was all about staying up and now we can build on that.
“I loved every minute of it, you test yourself against some really big managers, I always enjoyed that aspect of it, trying to outwit the opposing manager and I’m looking forward to using that experience next season.
“The certainty is the big thing as it was the uncertainty over the last two months which was difficult for everyone, all the teams no matter where they were in the table, now we all know the season is concluded but my club know we’ll be a Premier League club for next season.”
He says he’d have preferred to secure their Premier status on the field, confident that pre-Covid form would have been enough but at least he can now focus on the season ahead.
Of course changes are needed. It was difficult for Goodwin on Monday to inform a number of players they were being released.
“They are good people and these are difficult conversations; you know you are putting lads into uncharted waters. I am human and I know what they are going though,” he says. “I have been there as a player where the contract you were expecting is not there and those players have a big challenge to try and get the income they have been used to.”
But there are bigger challenges ahead for all football clubs. St Mirren run a tight ship so he has some security. “In Scotland, and especially at St Mirren, we didn’t have the huge wages that you get in England, we live within our means. I think people would be surprised if they knew some of the salaries our players get, compared to League Two in England.
“I’d say if you carried out an audit on the lower league clubs in England, the level of debt would be scary,” he says, wary of what’s to come as football tries to find its feet.
“It’s inevitable that there will be changes,” Goodwin says. “Sport without fans is not what you want, the fans’ passion drives players and managers. I watched the Bundesliga last weekend and I didn’t see that, it was sad to see, to hear all the shouts of the players, not seeing excitement when a goal was scored, and you feed off that.
“But it is the way forward, hopefully not long-term but in the medium term it’s inevitable that we are playing games behind closed doors, with some kind of phased return to having fans back, and we just have to put up with it. Not having fans takes away a lot from the game, and there’s the financial impact for the clubs, we are all trying to weigh that up.
“It’s different in the Premier League as the TV revenue is so important but while the Sky deal for the league in Scotland is a decent one, it’s not what keeps the clubs going. Off the top of my head, 40 per cent of the income here is from the gates, ticket sales and the club shops, that’s 40 per cent that clubs will have to go without for some time and I don’t know how you replace it as it will impact on all our budgets.”
With only 12 players signed for next season, he needs to plan but a mid-season raid of the League of Ireland, for Jamie McGrath (Dundalk) and Conor McCarthy (Cork City) has opened a door to the Irish market. “The two lads have been brilliant; they’re not just good footballers but good lads too, very professional,” he says. “I know some people are unsure of the standard in Ireland but I had no hesitation about bringing Conor and Jamie in. There are players in Ireland we’d be interested in, though we’re not in a position to pay fees, but it’s definitely a market I will dip into again.”
He worked in what he calls the “rat race” of a full-time job outside of football while he managed part-time side Alloa, memories of 5am starts with an 8pm finish daily while running a courier company still fresh.
Yet Goodwin, capped once at senior level in 2002, enjoys his status as one of the few Irish managers cross-channel and sees a path to bigger things.
Loving
“I’m very patriotic, I love flying the flag for Ireland and I’d like there to be more of us in management, nationality shouldn’t come into it when a job is available, it’s just the right man for the job,” he says.
“I am in the Premier League, mixing it with some top managers, I am loving every minute of it, I have ambitions as a manager and being Irish shouldn’t hold me back from that.
“I had a taste of working for a living, I know that 99 per cent of the population do that so doing what I am doing for a living now is a hell of a lot better than what I did before, I was in the rat race like everyone else. I had a few jobs after I left St Mirren as a player, it was full on. So I am very lucky, if I do the job to the best of my ability, it should give me the opportunity to fulfil my ambitions in the future.”