Martindale offers platform for staff and players alike
Livingston manager accepts draw of club
DAVIE MARTINDALE is under no illusions about Livingston’s place in the grand scheme of things. The manager of the Premiership side accepts that many who pass through the doors at the Tony Macaroni Arena are using the club as something of a stepping stone, as a platform on which they can showcase themselves to earn a future move, and he is happy to provide one.
Some will leave for the more lucrative remuneration; others will depart for a bigger club or a different league to test themselves in a new environment. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship where the club enjoy having ambitious players, who themselves are safe in the knowledge that their employer will not stand in their way when a better opportunity comes along.
Usually this line of thinking is only applied to players, but Martindale’s philosophy extends to his staff as well. And it’s a good thing, too, given the seemingly endless conveyer belt of coaches that are being produced in West Lothian of late – even if it does cause one or two headaches for the Livi manager.
“You’ve got to remember that my unique selling point when you come to Livingston is that you come here and get yourself a move,” Martindale explained. “That includes players but it includes staff too. It’s getting more difficult because you have got to coach your staff – people talk about players but you have still got to coach your staff. My ideals, my philosophies, how I like to work – you’ve got to coach that as well.
“The reason why [ young coaches] come to the club is the opportunity to become a coach in the Premiership, but 99 per cent of people who come to the club are looking to get a better job financially.
“There’s one attraction and one attraction only: the Premiership. It definitely isn’t finances. That’s why people take up the opportunity. There are very few coaching roles in football and there are even fewer in the Premiership. I think the opportunity to come and work at a progressive club in the top flight is one of the attractions.
“Look at who I’ve lost over the years. Tony Caig, who went to Dundee United to be a goalie coach. He’s now head of goalkeeping or something like that at Newcastle, working on the fringes of the first team. Then there’s Foxy [ Liam Fox], he moved on to be the assistant at Dundee United and now he’s the manager. Marvin Bartley came in, he’s now the manager of Queen of the South. I brought Dougie [ Imrie] in, he’s now the manager at Morton. I brought Stuart Garden in and he’s now the goalie coach at Hibs.
“They play a part in our success, so it’s a success for Livingston that we have given these coaches the opportunities to move on – as much as it is for a player also.
“There’s a little bit [ of satisfaction in developing coaches] but I’d rather keep a hold of my coaches than lose them all the time. It’s the same with players, there’s a side where you’re happy for them to progress to a probably more financially secure job, or a job where they can go into management. You’re happy in that respect but there’s also a bit of sadness because you build up a relationship with your coaching staff.
“If a business keeps losing important employees each year, it’s very hard to keep re- coaching and bringing new employees in. So as much as I would like to try and keep continuity in the building, I do understand that the financial awards elsewhere, or the change in job title, is beneficial to the individual.”
Martindale’s roll- call of former proteges is impressive but so too are their achievements at their respective clubs: Fox appears to have United back on track after a disastrous start to the Arabs’ campaign; Imrie has made a mockery of pre- season predictions of a relegation battle and has Morton challenging for promotion to the Premiership; and the latest departure, Bartley, is highly regarded within coaching circles.
It would appear that Martindale has an eye for up- and- coming coaches as well as players, but he insists his focus is on the group as a whole. For those of us who have watched his Livingston side in action, it’s perhaps un- surprising that the 48- year- old prizes hard graft above all else when identifying a prospective addition to his backroom team.
“I don’t really think about it to be honest,” he said. “It’s not something where I look at someone and go, ‘ He’ll be a good coach, he’ll make a good manager’. We just muck in and put the hard work into the detail before a training session.
“We are a very tight group, we are very close – even the proximity of the staff office to the players’ changing room is very close, you’re talking about a couple of metres. We are all in it together here and the focus is on the collective, so I don’t focus too much on individuals as coaches or players. That’s probably
the biggest strength of being at Livingston.”
Martindale continued: “There has to be a work ethic there. You might not have a skill- set in terms of coaching at this level but you will pick it up very, very quickly. You need that hard work ethic but you need a bit of ability as well.
“You need to roll your sleeves up. At a club of this size you don’t just have one job. We all wear two or three different hats and we all muck in and help one another. Myself and all the coaches will go around and collect the balls in after training. We won’t leave the field until every single ball is accounted for. We do a lot of different jobs within the term “coach”.
“You’ve got to be loyal. There has got to be a huge sense of loyalty that is one of the biggest things in football. I like to surround myself with people that are loyal. You need honesty, you need loyalty and you need a hard work ethic. You’ve got to be able to forego yourself as an individual for the collective and I look for those traits in people.
“I’m lucky in the sense that there are a lot of backroom staff that have been here for a while. Next season will be my 10th season here and I’ve got a kitman and a physio that have been here a couple of years longer than myself. As much as we lose staff, we have kept some continuity there as well.”
Martindale, of course, has probably provided more of that continuity than anyone else at Livingston during his time at the club. Having worked his way up from doing odd- jobs around the stadium to managing the team and establishing them as a mid- table Premiership side, his influence stretches all around the club.
The manager’s own circuitous route to the top means he knows all too well how hard it can be to climb the ladder, particularly with the scarcity of coaching gigs on offer in Scottish football, and is adamant that he has just as much to learn from his staff as they do from him.
“I don’t know if I consider myself to be an educator,” Martindale mused. “I go out and put my session on and coach the way I want to coach and how I want to prepare for that game. Your coaches are in the building for a reason, they obviously have a good level of intellect, so I wouldn’t say I go out there to educate coaches on the park. We are educating each other on a daily basis. I would like to think we do anyway!
“I can only comment on what goes on at my club so I don’t know if Scottish coaching is in a good place or a bad place, but what I do know is that there are some fantastic Scottish coaches involved in football and not involved in football.
“I always enjoy seeing Scottish coaches getting jobs elsewhere, whether it’s abroad or in England. I enjoy seeing them progress their own careers.”
One thing is for certain: Martindale has played his part in nourishing quite a few of those careers. And he won’t be stopping anytime soon.