Mark: He can’t take club any further

MARK BURCHILL thought David Hopkin looked like a nutter when he first clapped eyes on him almost 20 years ago.

But he reckons his former Scotland team-mate has pulled off the smartest move by leaving Livingston on a high.

It was Burchill who first took Hopkin to the West Lothian club as his assistant and was later replaced by him when sacked by the Lions.

The ex-Celtic striker admitted Hopkin worked miracles in leading the club to successive promotions and a place in the Premiership.

But the 47-year-old rejected a new contract offer with his stock at its highest as he continues to be linked with jobs in England and Burchill believes it’s a wise move.

He said: “It’s a masterstroke by David to leave and that’s no disrespect to Livi who are a fantastic club and who should be in the Premiership.

“But for his first management job, to do what he did in two and a half years then have the BY GAVIN BERRY cojones to leave, you have to take your hat off to him.

“He believes he can go to a higher level. Who knows where he’ll end up next. In an ideal world as a football manager you want to leave a club when they’re at the top.

“You have to be brave enough to do that because you never know what’s round the corner, you can be quickly forgotten.

“He’s maybe felt the achievement is so big, how do you match that next season in the Premiership? You go into next season and lose two of your first three games and wonder where it’s gone. I brought David in as assistant and the last two seasons have been incredible, the results and performances.

“Nothing can be taken away from the achievement. His budget was comparable with teams in the relegation area so to get where they got to was incredible.

“You can’t speak highly enough of what he’s done. Even now you sit down and wonder how he did it. The players weren’t any better than anyone else’s but the players got in a run, they’d the momentum from League One and carried that into the Championship.

“Nobody expected them to carry it on like they did but their win ratio over the last two seasons has been incredible.

“I played with Hoppy with Scotland. We were in a couple of squads together. The first time I met him with Scotland I was 19 and really shy and quiet.

“There was this guy sitting across the table from me, a big ginger, hundreds of tattoos, swearing all the time. I was like, ‘Who’s this guy?’.

“I always thought he was a bit of a nutter but he’d a likeable charm about his personality.”

Burchill, now doing work for Bournemouth, lost touch with Hopkin but appointed him as his assistant at Livingston after coming across him again while doing his coaching badges.

The 37-year-old said: “You lose touch with people but when I was over in Cyprus I came back to do my coaching badges and he started his at exactly the same time.

“We met the first day and we were there four summers in a row. I liked the way he worked then when I got the Livi job I got him in from Morton where he’d been in the youth set-up.

“What I liked about him and why I brought him in to Livi was that he was no-nonsense and says it how it is.

“He’s not scared of anyone or any situation, whereas I was a bit more pragmatic. You’re looking for someone like that, a ‘bad cop’ almost.

“People might look at him and think he’s a scary guy but once you get to know him he’s a really likable guy.”