Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
XIE SWAIN talks to Larne coach TIM MCCANN ahead of Glens visit me and be arne
too much and it doesn’t stand them in good stead when it gets to the serious end and you’re playing matches and going for titles.
“Every manager has a right to have a go at players and have a shout, it’s just nowadays there are too many you can’t have a crack at because they go into their shell, they might not be mentally strong enough.
“I was fortunate to be in an era where that was part and parcel. When you got shouted at by the likes of Marty Quinn or Roy Coyle (circled left), it actually gave me a lift, you went out and tried to do better.”
As a boyhood Red who followed the club with his father Tim Snr, Mccann lived the dream – but he was destined not to stick around for too long.
Ambition can sometimes be a dirty word, but rarely in football. Though fans can rightly bemoan a lack of loyalty in today’s game, in Mccann’s case, Cliftonville were guilty of stagnating.
After reaching the top, they failed to consolidate from a position of strength and when Glentoran came calling, he took the advice of the more senior players and jumped ship.
“I won the Coca-cola Cup against the Glens, I was lucky enough to score, and I’ll never forget it. The
North Stand was completely filled and the fans probably didn’t have that much expectation because we’d been in the doldrums for so long,” explained Mccann.
“But the team at that time, Marty Tabb, Gerry Flynn, Paul Stokes, that was really the start of those successful years and that was my first ever trophy.
“The following year we won the County Antrim Shield and the following year the league title, so it had been building, and we also got into the Irish Cup final in 1997 and lost to Glenavon.
“Under a manager like Marty, you were kicking the door down to get onto the pitch and we were very successful, but then in December 1998, I moved to the Glens.
“The players at Cliftonville were all expecting the club to kick on when we won the league.
“We got mauled in the Champions League and we let a few players go, it just wasn’t going well and it wasn’t the same atmosphere around the club.
“I got word there was a bit of interest from Glentoran and I went round and asked the likes of Micky Donnelly, Marty Tabb, Stevie Small, Gerry Flynn, and they said, ‘Look, you’ll never get the opportunity again, you might as well take it’.
“So I moved and in my first game I played against the Blues in front of 10,000 people. The move was good for me, it brought my game to another level. I won the league that year as well, 1999, and that was the start of Glentoran being dominant.”
Having played under two Irish League greats in Quinn and Coyle, naturally Mccann integrates some of their qualities into his own methodology now he is a coach at Larne.
He admits he loves it at Inver Park and feels privileged to have been there to witness its still barely believable transformation under Kenny Bruce.
Saturday’s painful 3-0 loss at Crusaders might just have put their lights out as far as any outside title chances go, but Mccann is adamant this season, their first back in the big time in more than a decade after all, was always just about being competitive.
“Seamus and Tiernan are lifelong friends of mine and what they did was take a massive gamble up there,” said Mccann.
“At the very start, there was no Kenny Bruce, we were struggling and six points adrift but eventually we got some players and went on an 18game unbeaten run to finish sixth or seventh, and then we got the likes of Conor Devlin, Marty Donnelly, Tommy Stewart and Davy Mcdaid and kicked on from then.
“This year is a different challenge. People thought we’d come into the league and it’d be easy but it doesn’t work like that and I think it’s a fantastic achievement to be in the top six with these teams that have been there for the last eight or 10 years.
“We are just now finding our feet, because the Irish League is a different animal to the Championship and it takes players a while to adjust.
“I think we’ve been holding our own and as long as the players leave absolutely everything out on the pitch, the fans can walk away knowing they gave everything for the jersey.”