Still: Hak can take the flak

John Still says there’s a simple answer if you can’t take criticism – don’t do the job. A number of fans directed their frustration towards head coach Hakan Hayrettin following Maidstone’s 5-1 defeat at Weymouth last weekend.

Still, who was on a scouting mission as part of his head of football remit, accepts criticism comes with the job and knows Hayrettin can handle it.

“If he does this job and never gets any stick, I want to be next to him every week,” said Still.

“When you win, even if you don’t play great, supporters are happy. When you lose, even if you do play great, supporters are unhappy.

“If you do this job, everyone likes people to say well done and I think I’ve done it long enough to understand that sometimes people say you haven’t done well enough. “Well, if you can’t work with that, why are you doing this job?

“If we can put a good run together and drag ourselves up a little bit, everyone will be saying ‘well done, Hak’, and that’s how it is.

“Supporters can be personal now but it isn’t exclusive to us, to Hak, to Maidstone, it’s the world we live in now.

“If you find that difficult to deal with, don’t do the job. “That’s easy for me to say because I’m coming up 70 but people think – I don’t know why – when they talk to me that I’ve never had a difficult time.

“I’ve had loads and loads of difficult times in football but at the end of your career, they make you the manager you are, how you deal with disappointment.

“No one has success every day of the week.”