LIVINGSTON BOSS MARTINDALE DESERVES HIS SECOND CHANCE
ONE of the recent stories of the season in Scotland is the progress of Livingston. Under new manager David Martindale, the club have won six and drawn two of their last eight Scottish Premiership games.
Yesterday they beat St Mirren 1-0 in the Scottish League Cup semi-final.
Martindale, though, has a criminal past and this is where his problems begin.
Having been appointed manager just before Christmas, he is waiting for the Scottish Football Association to decide if he passes their ‘fit and proper person’ test. As it stands, they are yet to rubber stamp his appointment.
So what is Martindale’s story? Never good enough to make it as a professional, he ran a pub and restaurant business that hit financial difficulties almost 20 years ago. He turned to crime — drug dealing and money laundering essentially — was caught in 2004, sentenced two years later and served four.
Martindale could have returned to crime on his release. Many do. Instead he turned to football, first as a volunteer on the Livingston ground staff and then, slowly over the years, moving into coaching taking his qualifications and, eventually, reaching first-team level.
When manager Gary Holt quit last November, Martindale took the team on and was subsequently offered the job.
How you view this story depends on your outlook on life, I suppose. If you believe in second chances, in people’s ability to change and in sport’s role in facilitating and furthering such change, you believe in Martindale and his right to turn his life around.
If you don’t believe in any of this, then that’s a shame and we had better build some bigger prisons. Martindale deserves to work. He has earned a new life and deserves to continue — in his own unflashy, quiet way — to demonstrate that a spell in prison does not necessarily have to signal the end of one’s prospects.
And while the SFA take time to consider all of this, they may wish to consider one other potentially thorny fact. That being that they will have a convicted violent criminal playing for them at this summer’s European Championship. Declan Gallagher, a central defender playing for Motherwell and Scotland, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2015 for hitting a wedding guest over the head with a baseball bat.
Now 29, Gallagher is said to be a reformed enough character to be captain of his club and a good enough player to currently be linked with a move to Celtic.
Those who know and play with Gallagher speak highly of him. Nevertheless, the assault left his victim with a fractured skull and the matter feels relevant now as the men in suits sit with Martindale’s career prospects in their hands.
If Gallagher has remained free to rebuild his life and career then why not Martindale?
The only distinction to be made between the two is that one is a player, the other a manager. I suppose there is an argument to be constructed that Martindale wishes to be a leader, a figurehead, and therefore his appointment should be scrutinised rather more closely.
But if it is an argument, it’s a pretty weak one. Yes, Martindale does stand as an example to players who work for him, but in an altogether positive way. Now 46, he has never sought to downplay what he did. ‘I will never sugar- coat it,’ he told the Guardian last year. ‘People will have reservations about me and that’s totally acceptable. All I ask is they judge me on the person I am today.’
If the SFA turn their backs on Martindale, it would be archaic and very unjust. Given Gallagher’s presence in their national team, it would also be deeply hypocritical. Ian.Ladyman@dailymail.co.uk