LIVVY BOSS MARTINDALE AIMS TO MAKE IT COUNT BUDDIES STAR McCARTHY EYES FINAL SHOWDOWN
Betfred Cup semi-final preview
FOR as long as he remained Livingston’s assistant manager, David Martindale’s criminal past was a largely unspoken issue. The minute he stepped in to replace Gary Holt on the frontline, the subject could no longer be kept hidden in the shadows.
Confronting his past in the face of a curious media or a Scottish FA adjudication panel is one thing. Doing so in the presence of his eight-year-old daughter quite another.
In the more innocent pre-internet age it was considerably easier for a parent to postpone certain conversations with inquisitive offspring.
The task of explaining the four-and-a-half years Martindale spent in prison following his 2006 conviction for drug and money-laundering offences was always liable to prove more emotionally-exhausting than gently revealing the truth surrounding the tooth fairy.
‘Georgia is eight years old,’ he says. ‘When all this came out, I had to sit her down and explain what happened before she was born.
‘She’s incredibly intelligent, and has probably had an iPad since she was two. I don’t think I had seen a computer when I was eight!
‘She was googling Livingston Football Club and stuff like that so, although that conversation probably wasn’t too far away, it got accelerated because of the amount of press around it.
‘I thought it would be difficult, but it wasn’t. She just said ‘thanks for telling me’ and asked ‘was it scary, dad?’. Stuff like that. Nothing about the crime or anything.
‘I thought that maybe when I left the room she would ask my wife Martha about it but, weirdly, she has never really elaborated.
‘That surprised me because she is really inquisitive or, should I say, really nosy!
‘So she’s now saying: “Dad, what’s happening, are you the manager yet?” and I am saying: “I don’t know darling, I need to go to a meeting”.’
Unbeaten and with eight wins from his first 10 games in situ and a manager-of-the-month award perched on his mantelpiece, Martindale’s football credentials are firmly established.
Today, he breaks new ground as he manages Livingston in a Betfred Cup semi-final at Hampden.
Whether he will fit the SFA’s fit and proper requirements remain to be seen.
A congested fixture list has thus far put paid to Martindale’s hearing before a three-man panel.
It would have happened in midweek but he had the league visit of Celtic to contend with.
‘Martha worries but personally I am relaxed about it,’ he shrugs. ‘I’m a big believer that what will be, will be. I try not to worry about things that are outwith my control. I can’t physically do anything to change that decision.
‘The hearing got cancelled and then they rearranged for Wednesday at 2pm. We accepted that but then they came back and asked to change it to half-past three.
‘There’s no way on earth I could sit in what could be a two-hour meeting at that time on match day.
‘So it’s probably just trying to get a date and a time that suits everybody. Personally, I’m relaxed but the wee one keeps asking: “Dad, dad, what’s happening?”.’
There’s a disarming candour about Martindale as he discusses all of this. At no point does he attempt to offer excuses or change the subject.
And while he has put in long hours — first as a student at Heriot-Watt University and then working his way up the ranks at Livingston — to turn his life around, he does feel uncomfortable in celebrating his story as some kind of redemption tale.
‘I can see why people see it like that but I don’t, to be honest,’ he says. ‘Part of the feel-good story is my past, but I don’t want to be positive about that. It is still an embarrassment, if that makes sense.
‘I want to be positive about now. I don’t want to put it all together and say: “Look at this remarkable story” because, let’s be honest, half the story is terrible. It is poor, it is not great, it is negative.’
While working as assistant to David Hopkin during the club’s consecutive promotions from League One to Premiership level, he operated firmly under the radar.
In the top tier, his profile grew but not to the point where he could overshadow Hopkin’s successors Kenny Miller or Holt, both former international footballers.
And yet as Martindale tightened up his coaching skills, his influence grew. After a polite rejection from the SFA, he earned his badges under the auspices of the Northern Irish FA in Belfast.
All the while he knew the day would come when his story would be subjected to the full glare of public scrutiny.
Ultimately, he knows he is now in a position to do some good.
If rehabilitation is at the very centre of the country’s justice system then Martindale feels he has earned his chance.
And he is prepared to give back to others who may have wandered off the rails and are looking to rebuild their lives away from the criminal world. ‘One of the disappointing aspects of my time at Livingston is that everything was always about the negative,’ he continues.
‘I have never been approached by anyone saying: “Do you want to speak on behalf of this group?”.’
‘I never really had the positive side of it until I became the caretaker manager.
‘I’ve had a lot of letters and it is really humbling to see how much it has touched people’s lives or how there are similarities between their lives and mine.
‘It is humbling that people have looked at my story and it has given them a wee bit of hope. That is a positive from a negative.
‘I would try to help anyone. I get a lot of requests on LinkedIn, people sending me their messages and stories. I try and answer them.
‘You get a lot of people thinking: “I will do the same and start picking cones up at football clubs”.
‘Unfortunately, I don’t think life works like that — I know I have been extremely fortunate.
‘You can still be successful in life, it just might not be the same career path, coming from an offender background.’ A Livingston win today would only sharpen the focus on the SFA adjudication.
It would seem unduly punitive were the club forced to return to Hampden without the man who got them to only the second major cup final in the club’s history.
Martindale gambled by resting a number of regulars for the visit of Celtic and still came up trumps with a 2-2 draw in midweek.
As such, he now has a selection headache for today’s meeting with St Mirren.
He does not anticipate having any time to soak in the gravity of the occasion.
‘I will just be thinking: “I hope to God we get to this final”,’ he says. ‘Nobody remembers semi-finalists, do they?
‘I have been to Hampden two or three times with Livingston, playing against Queen’s Park, so we’re used to playing there with no fans. That’s normal!
‘If I leave Hampden and I’m not in the final, I couldn’t care how far I’ve come.
‘I will just be gutted for the boys and the club.’