RIGHT TIME WRONG CLUB
Stubbs quit Hibs on a high at Hampden for a failed gamble at Rotherham but insists he has no regrets
WHAT to do when you have just become a bona fide club legend? In Alan Stubbs’ case, the answer was to quit on the intoxicating high of becoming the first manager to lead Hibernian to Scottish Cup glory in 114 years.
Despite his current unemployed status, he still suspects he made the right decision to leave. Whether Rotherham was the right career move is an entirely different question.
Stubbs spent two years at Easter Road and was reminded almost on a daily basis of the club’s century-long obsession with the Scottish Cup. When he became the first Hibs boss to raise the cup since Dan McMichael in 1902, he figured he had peaked in the job and agreed to speak to the English Championship strugglers.
‘It’s always easy to look back when something hasn’t worked out and say it was a regret,’ he reasons. ‘I looked at the situation and, after winning the cup, I didn’t think promotion would have the same impact.’
There followed a quite miserable tenure at the misleadingly named New York Stadium, where Stubbs found he had not so much been served a bite of the big apple as a portion of small fry as the club’s infrastructure failed to match his expectations.
He was sacked in October after presiding over just one win from the opening 13 league fixtures.
‘You listen to people and I just felt it was a good offer to go there, with the potential to do something at a Championship club,’ continues the 45-year-old. ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
‘I’m not going to sit here and say Rotherham are this or that, there’s no point and I don’t see the benefit in it. It just didn’t work out.’
Stubbs arrived in Yorkshire with the promise of grand ambitions and the chance to build his squad into a unit capable of mounting a challenge for promotion to the English Premier League. In reality, he found his mobile battery drained by a cycle of phone calls to agents and prospective signing targets.
As a consequence his recruitment — of Will Vaulks, Scott Allan, Darnell Fisher and Dominic Ball — largely drew on his first-hand experiences in Scottish football and proved inadequate for a league in which an ability to kick high and jump higher than the rest is of paramount importance.
Somewhat inevitably, he also cites issues surrounding cash.
‘You’re working on a very challenging budget, you’re trying to add to it and bring in better quality,’ he reflects of his early weeks in charge. ‘It’s very difficult when you’re missing out on players for money. If you want to be competitive, you’ve got to be able to go that little bit extra at times.
The biggest thing that didn’t happen was recruitment. For me the most important structure at a club is recruitment, without that I’m afraid you’re snookered.
‘I literally had to do all that myself, I was constantly on the phone. The club are now starting to realise how important it is and I think they have appointed a head of recruitment. Maybe it’s just too late and it’s caught up on them.’
Stubbs’ portrayal of a somewhat dysfunctional club structure rings true when bringing into account the fact his successor Kenny Jackett lasted just five matches before submitting his letter of resignation. Caretaker Paul Warne remains in
charge as the club remains rooted to the foot of the table while searching for another ‘permanent’ appointment.
While Stubbs’ failure at the Millers can be explained, it is equally fair to state that he will have no excuses for not exercising due diligence on his next employers, should he succeed in his aim of a return to the game.
‘I’ve just had my first Christmas and New Year off since I started playing professional football,’ he continues. ‘That was decent, I must admit, but it’s not something I want to get used to.
‘I’ve enjoyed the break, not because the stress of football bothered me, but because it’s been decent to reflect on things, good decisions, bad decisions. Then you regroup, dust yourself down and get ready to go again.
‘I do want to manage again, I’ve been going around looking at other coaches, watching. It’s been something to do to keep me occupied before I get back involved again.’
Stubbs has watched on from afar as his old Celtic team-mate Neil Lennon took over at Easter Road. Like Stubbs, Lennon too was stung by an unpleasant experience at the bottom end of English football’s second tier, with Bolton Wanderers, before returning to Scotland to rejuvenate his reputation.
Friday night’s thumping 3-0 win over promotion rivals Dundee United has Hibs leading the title race by four points but, after three years away from the top flight, Stubbs reckons the club has an absolute requirement to make it up this term.
If it was Stubbs’ misfortune to find himself in the same promotion fight as a resurgent Hearts and Rangers during his first season in charge, the Cup victory did much to gloss over the fact his team came up short for a second time last term.
The club continues to run on a Premiership budget but Stubbs acknowledges that is just one of the fundamental factors behind the club’s need for promotion.
‘Take the financial side away from
I am not going to sit here and say Rotherham were this or that. Unfortunately, it did not work out
‘I LOOKED AT THE SITUATION AND, AFTER WINNING THE CUP, I JUST DIDN’T THINK THAT PROMOTION WOULD HAVE THE SAME IMPACT’
it — they need to go up this season and I really hope Neil is the man to do it,’ he states. ‘He’s done well up to now and he’s in a good position to really take the club forward.
‘They’ve already added in this window and hopefully it’ll be enough for them to get across that line and start competing at the top level.
‘When you look at the squad they’ve got, they were always going to be competitive with Dundee United. I do think it’s going to be a two-horse race in the end, it’s going to be very close.’
Even as he edged closer to history last year, Stubbs maintained that the task of restoring the club to the top league remained his prime objective.
His board of directors may have agreed but the wider fanbase coveted the Cup. The club commences its defence of the trophy with an intriguing tie against Bonnyrigg Rose at Tynecastle on January 21 and Stubbs believes there will come a new pressure.
‘For me, to do it for a second year would probably be harder because everyone will want to beat the Cup holders,’ he adds. ‘You only have to look at what the headlines were last season when Inverness lost: “Cup holders out”. It is a nice pressure to start as holders but, once that whistle goes, it is over again.’
Stubbs is speaking on his first visit to Hampden since May and the day David Gray’s historic goal claimed a 3-2 win over Rangers.
‘No one can ever take it off my CV,’ he concludes. ‘I thought I done a decent job there. Rotherham fans will probably think I was **** but I know what I can do.
‘No regrets, I made my decision. Obviously now you would say it was the wrong one but I made it, I live by it and move on.’
Stubbs was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup