It’ll be spicy all right, we’ve not heard from Ray since he left us
AWaY from the football pitch, Chris Millar earns a living as a personal trainer. But, even working with fully-fledged fitness fanatics on a daily basis, he has yet to meet anyone with the turn of pace his former manager Ray Mckinnon showed in doing a runner from Morton earlier this season.
The speed of Mckinnon’s departure to Falkirk on august 31 was remarkable.
he had trained the Morton players in the morning, very much business as usual, only to have vanished out of sight by mid-afternoon.
all in double-quick time, without the slightest hint of a warning, he had jumped ship from a team who were joint-top of the Championship to join one who were pointless at the bottom of the table.
While Millar believes branding Mckinnon a ‘Judas’, the term used by local newspaper the Greenock
Telegraph is ‘a bit too far’, he can fully understand why everyone associated with the club still has a bitter taste in their mouths.
having taken the reins in the summer, Mckinnon had only been in the job for a couple of months, before leaving without so much as a courtesy call to let his players know.
They haven’t heard a word from him since then. Falkirk’s hotly-anticipated visit to Cappielow today will be the first time the home players have heard a peep from their old manager.
‘The thing you need to remember is that Ray brought the vast majority of us to the club in the summer, it was his team,’ said the 35-year-old midfielder, who returned for his second spell with the Greenock outfit as Mckinnon’s first signing.
‘When the news broke, everyone was just shocked and angry.
‘Football is a funny old game and things can happen quickly, but this was on another level.
‘I do a bit of personal training and I was with a new client in their house. We were just having a wee five-minute break when it all kicked off. he was just flicking through Twitter on his phone. he’s actually a Morton fan, so he turned to me and said: “The manager’s just left”.
‘I just looked at him with a blank expression on my face. I obviously thought he was at the wind-up. I said: “are you having a laugh?”. as a fan, he was raging. and, if I’m honest, I felt the same because it came as such a shock.
‘Ray had taken training just a few hours earlier and it was actually a really good session.
‘he was getting stuck into the lads with a wee bit of banter and everything seemed positive.
‘We then found out secondhand because the news broke on Twitter. We had no inclination whatsoever and never got so much as a phone call or a text to let us know what was happening.
‘That was the biggest thing for us as players that stuck in our throat. It was just handled really, really poorly.
‘I was angry because, as a senior player, a lot of the other boys were texting me asking what he hell was going on. But I had no idea, Ray never told me anything.
‘We have a big group chat on Whatsapp. a message was sent out asking what’s going on.
‘nobody replied and I think the silence said it all.
‘Give Ray his dues, I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted it to come out that way. But it did and that’s just the way things went.’
Both Morton and Falkirk have been in regular communication with Police Scotland this week to ensure the match passes without any unsavoury incidents. Millar would never condone any idiots taking things a step too far and has urged home fans to stay within the boundaries of good taste today.
BUT, warning his old boss to expect a fiery reception, he added: ‘It’ll be hostile, there’s no doubt about it. There’s definitely a bit of spice to it.
‘Listen, Ray is a good manager. I do still rate him and I don’t want to hold a grudge. We’re all big boys and we’ll move on.
‘But you have to see it from the point of view of the Morton fans. In their opinion, he did the dirty on their club.
‘The local people see it as disrespect. They have a right to voice their opinion, obviously as long as it doesn’t overstep the mark.
‘I live in the Greenock area. I’ve got mates who haven’t been to a Morton game in about ten years, but they’ve texted me to say they’re coming to this one.
‘That’s how big it has become. The local people just feel like Ray did the dirty on them.
‘It’ll be spicy, but Ray’s a big boy and I’m sure he won’t be expecting anything less. he can look after himself. he was out of work — an unemployed manager — and Morton gave him a chance to get back into the game.
‘I would be lying if I said it didn’t affect us. Of course it did.
‘We had a great start to the season then had the carpet pulled from under us.
‘Me and Jim Mcalister had to take training for the next week and things were really up in the air.
‘We were top of the league and Falkirk were bottom, so it made no sense whatsoever from a football point of view.
‘This will be the first time we’ve seen Ray since it happened.
‘In fact, it will actually be the first time we’ve heard anything at all from him, let alone seen him.’
Morton’s form has taken a sharp dip since Mckinnon’s departure, with the club still awaiting their first victory under new manager Jonatan Johansson.
‘It’s important that this game doesn’t become all about settling a vendetta against Ray Mckinnon,’ added Millar, who has overcome a groin injury and is fit to play.
‘The new gaffer has been great with us since he arrived and we’re desperate to get that first victory under the belt for him and really kick on.’