KRIS BOYD TESTIMONIAL
Clarke reveals how veteran threatened to walk out before renaissance season
RIGHT, let’s picture the scene. Steve Clarke has just held his first training session as Kilmarnock manager. He pops into his office. Perhaps he has a playful swivel on his new chair and nonchalantly jabs a couple of buttons on the phone on his desk and inadvertently rings Irene in the kitchen. He may even crumple up a bit of paper into a ball and head it towards the waste basket before giving a little pump of the fist as it hits the target.
And then Kris Boyd comes clumping through the door.
“He came in to see me in all his gear, plonked himself down in the chair in front of me and said, ‘That’s it, gaffer, I’m quitting’,” said Clarke as he recalled his initial exchange with the Kilmarnock talisman.
“I said, ‘Kris I’ve just walked in the door, you can’t quit’. The first conversation we had was not a particularly good one because he told me he wanted to stop playing. It was after my very first training session. My first sessions are usually pretty good and enjoyable so the guys think, ‘This guy is all right’.”
With Kilmarnock bottom of the league and the general atmosphere around Rugby Park about as upbeat as Theresa May going through her mail, Clarke breezed in and galvanised both the club and Boyd. It was the start of a relationship which would have mutual benefits.
“How resolute was he in that conversation that he wanted to leave?” reflected Clarke. “He obviously wasn’t 100-per-cent resolute because I managed to persuade him to give me time to show him how I worked. I was confident I could get the best out of him. That was how our relationship started but I was happy with how it finished.
“I think he was probably worried that I’d be coming here to chuck him out because everybody looks at Kris and thinks, ‘He’s not fit enough, he can’t do this and he can’t do that.’ But I was only looking at what Kris Boyd can do.
“The things you notice when you are not working is who scores all the goals and I’d seen Kris Boyd’s name popping up regularly on Jeff Stelling’s Soccer Saturday programme on Sky. He is a goalscorer who always scores goals.
“Kris also probably felt a bit bad at the sacking of Lee McCulloch because Lee is a friend of his and maybe he didn’t see the team improving the way it did. And it’s only natural when you get to that age that you think about finishing up.
‘‘ I knew if we could create chances for Boyd he would score
“But I knew that if we could create chances for Kris Boyd then he would score goals. And that’s exactly how it turned out. He has been good for me on and off the park. He’s a senior player and he takes that role and responsibility seriously. Since I have been at Kilmarnock, Kris Boyd has been absolutely crucial for me.”
Boyd enjoyed such a renaissance under Clarke, they should have nicknamed him Da Vinci. He ended last season as the top-flight’s leading goalscorer and, this weekend, his efforts for Kilmarnock over the course of three different spells with the Ayrshire club will be rewarded with a testimonial.
The 35-yearold has not been an ever-present in the starting XI in the current campaign but Clarke continues to appreciate the value of the weapon he has in his armoury.
“It’s been different this season because he’s found his way back onto the bench and out of the team,” added Clarke. “I can imagine Kris Boyd five years ago would not have been a very happy bunny at sitting on the bench. I can imagine him going to the manager and saying he should be playing because of what he has done in his career. But he has not done that with me. He has been very respectful. He’s worked ever so hard in training, probably the hardest he has ever worked. He knows his role has changed. He needs