Plot twists turn Jackie’s script into a horror show
AS co-author of a football-based sit-com called The Therapy Room, Jackie McNamara knows a thing or two about plot twists. Written in the twilight of his playing days at Partick Thistle — in lieu of upsetting former team-mates with a warts-and-all autobiography — the pilot episode featured the talents of Gary Lewis of Billy Elliot fame as well as Still Game actor Frank Gilhooley.
The Therapy Room failed to make much of an impact on the small screen but, in any case, McNamara had al ways prioritised a career pursuing silverware as a football manager once his boots were hung up for good following a highlysuccessful playing career.
However, as the relaxed and smiling 41-year-old held court on his twin passions of football and screenwriting before a League Cup semi-final against Aberdeen in late January, even he could not have scripted the scale of the fall from grace that awaited him at troubled Tannadice.
After beating the Dons 2-1, McNamara was being lauded as the first manager since the legendary Jim McLean 29 years previously to steer United to back-to-back major cup finals.
So impressive was he in spotting talent and moulding young players i nto a thrilling attacking unit, the former Celtic captain was even being spoken of as a future Parkhead boss.
His own goalkeeper, Rado Cierzniak, meanwhile, even boasted that McNamara could lead United to an unprecedented domestic Treble that very season.
However, across a traumatic eight-month period, culminating in McNamara being dismissed in the corridors of McDiarmid Park on Saturday, The Therapy Room cowriter increasingly resembled a man in need of a long lie on a couch himself.
The seeds of McNamara’s decline were sown just 24 hours after that 2-1 League Cup last-four win over Derek McInnes’ side, when chairman Stephen Thompson took the controversial decision to sell star players Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay- Steven to Celtic. Nadir Ciftci would ultimately follow.
As furious fans pointed out, Thompson had declared on the eve of the 2014 Scottish Cup Final defeat to St Johnstone that Tannadice finances were at their strongest since 1986 — before vowing there would be no player exodus, as had happened after the Scottish Cup win in 2010 under Peter Houston.
The Tannadice supremo even named Armstrong along with Ryan Gauld and Andrew Robertson as players he would like to keep for ‘at least another year’ to help the club ‘compete’ with Celtic. Gauld and Robertson were both sold that very summer for £3million each to Sporting Lisbon and Hull City respectively.
At first, the United hierarchy closed ranks to sl a p down their detractors, reacting with weary derision to anyone questioning the wisdom of selling key players at such a crucial part of the season.
It was pointed out that, as United stormed to the top of the league at the start of that season, Armstrong was often injured while an off-form Mackay-Steven was regularly left on the bench.
After their departures, however, United’s form plunged off a cliff as they slumped to their first back-toback defeats of the season, then emphatically lost the League Cup Final 2-0 to Celtic.
Over the course of four March encounters with Ronny Deila’s men, United were also knocked out of the Scottish Cup and defeated in the Premiership as their season began to disintegrate and, with it, McNamara’s tenure.
Chairman Thompson reacted to the growing heat by admitting the player sales to Celtic were a wrong footballing decision but correct from a financial standpoint.
If the fans had any degree of sympathy for McNamara, however, it evaporated when it was leaked into the public domain that he was entitled to a cut of outgoing player sales. Even if the reward scheme was done with the best intentions — to reduce the manager’s salary in straitened times while bumping his earnings i f successful in developing young talent to sell — the revelation was viewed as toxic by many fans.
However, anyone present at United’s first press conference after the sales of Mackay-Steven and Armstrong were left in no doubt as to how devastated McNamara had been left by the duo’s departure.
Regardless, the damage was done and the bitter backlash meant the reservoir of goodwill had run dry as United slumped to a first derby loss in 11 years to city foes Dundee.
April’s 3-1 defeat at Dens Park was the club’s 10th game without a win and the first time the team had lost five in a row since May 2006.
McNamara, who signed 36 players since being lured from the helm at Partick Thistle in February 2013, spent £500,000 in transfer fees at United and was understood to have the fourth-highest playing budget in the top flight.
Despite being backed to bolster his squad for the new campaign, United duly embarked upon their worst start to a league season since 2003. Try as he might, McNamara just could not stop the rot and the beginning of the end was a lifeless 4-0 thrashing at Hamilton Accies.
The final straw, Saturday’s 2-1 defeat in Perth, came after United had been one goal up against a Saints side that played with 10 men for 66 minutes after home keeper Alan Mannus was sent off.
It was a particularly grim irony that St Johnstone inflicted the final blow on McNamara, with Wright and his team having proven a regular thorn in their flesh over the manager’s tenure, most notably in the 2014 Scottish Cup Final. It would be the final insult if the vastly-underrated Wright now took over at Tannadice.
At the point of McNamara’s departure, United had won just six times in all competitions since that January 31 semi-final win over Aberdeen. But two of those were cup ties against l ower- l eague opposition — Stranraer and Dunfermline — with United requiring extra time to get past the Pars in the League Cup last week.
The United boss was reportedly surprised to get the bullet on Saturday, but not so the fans who feared he would be their first manager to finish below Dundee since 2002/03.
For McNamara, the one-time scriptwriter, there was to be no happy ending to his Tayside tale.