SPECIAL ONE
After eight managers in as many years, Killie have finally struck gold with Mourinho’s former assistant ... Steve Clarke is their
FOR Kilmarnock, the decision to appoint Steve Clarke as manager was a bold statement of intent. In recent weeks, Scottish football has been forced to heed the message.
Three months since the club’s three-man board fired a shot of adrenaline through a comatose football club, the fortunes of the Ayrshire outfit have taken an upwards turn.
Four wins and two draws have reaped more points in their last six games than Celtic and Aberdeen have managed.
The team have surged from the foot of the table to sixth. The finances have improved.
And, after years of rancour and disunity, the calls for boycotts and boardroom change have finally ceased. Kilmarnock enter the new year in a good place.
‘Kudos to the board for getting Steve,’ chief executive Kirsten Callaghan tells Sportsmail. ‘It’s where the club wants to go.
‘Sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate.
‘Steve had been on the radar as a potential manager for a while and it was the right time for him to come. As chief executive, I have to thank the board for ensuring it happened.
‘I’ve been through the process of appointing a manager a few times now. This time there was a conscious effort from everyone to invigorate supporters.’
The club’s eighth managerial appointment in as many years, Clarke is, by some distance, the most ambitious.
During an extensive interview process, major shareholder Billy Bowie and fellow director John Kiltie came to a conclusion.
Playing it safe would not restore the faith and backing of a disillusioned support.
Twelve months ago, the longrunning battle between fans and ex-chairman Michael Johnston culminated in a 3,000-name petition calling for his removal.
The Ayr solicitor still owns 40 per cent of the club.
Yet his decision to resign in May, following the untimely death of his wife, presented Kilmarnock with the opportunity to build bridges. To make a fresh start.
The imaginative appointment of former West Brom boss Clarke was akin to an olive branch to supporters.
‘You can’t just remain with the status quo forever,’ Callaghan acknowledges.
‘We are ambitious and don’t want to rest on our laurels.
‘Steve was enthusiastic about coming to Kilmarnock. It helps that he is an Ayrshireman with links to the area.’
A 2-1 win over Rangers was followed, before the winter break, by a 1-1 draw against Hibs at Easter Road.
Kilmarnock have become one of Scottish football’s good-news stories. The fortunes of any club are cyclical, as Motherwell show.
Yet the days of trademark rows over the iconic club pie, and sponsors withdrawing their support until Johnston was gone, have now been consigned to the past.
As a football club, Killie have been offered a fresh start and fully intend to capitalise. A former club secretary whose association began selling pies as a teenager, Callaghan admits: ‘It’s a long time since I have had these feelings of excitement for the future of the club.
‘A huge amount of change has taken place and Steve is one of the driving aspects of that change.
‘There is a definite feeling of a collective now. A sense of unity and alignment exists between all the departments now.
‘Everybody is pulling together closely. Everybody is going in the same direction.
‘I know that might sound a bit of a cliche, but that wasn’t always the case.
‘So much of what happens at a football is dictated by results.
‘As chief executive, I can put all the policies and procedures and strategies in place. But they won’t make the slightest bit of difference unless you get results on the pitch. If the results are good, everything else is easy.’
Currently assessing sites in Ayrshire for a new training centre, results are the key to getting supporters back on side.
During the brief reign of Lee Clark, players came and went through a revolving door, the Englishman signing no fewer than 26 over a 12-month period.
Where supporters could barely spot their own players in an identity parade, the likes of Youssouf Mulumbu now threaten to acquire cult status.
‘We started encouraging players to meet fans at forums before Steve arrived as manager,’ admits Callaghan.
‘We were never forcing players on fans, but people weren’t as excited about meeting players that weren’t winning games.
‘There was a level of disengagement — these things happen at football clubs.
‘But the team is doing well and the club is doing well and fans have made no secret of how content they are with the way things are going.
‘The numbers of travelling supporters shows they are buying into what we are doing.’
Success brings its own hazards, of course.
A former assistant manager to Jose Mourinho, Ruud Gullit and Kenny Dalglish, Clarke’s CV would be an easy sell to supporters of clubs with deeper pockets. One in the Govan area of Glasgow springs readily to mind.
‘If you have a player doing well, clubs take an interest,’ acknowledges Callaghan.
‘And when a manager is getting results, there is always the risk somebody else will try and take them. But we are keen to continue the relationship with Steve.
‘We are not keen to make any massive changes to the squad going forward.
‘We are in a happy place where everybody feels comfortable and sees a real opportunity to grow the club. Stability is key to what we do now. I don’t imagine the January window will be a time of huge upheaval.’
Describing talk of interest in winger Jordan Jones as ‘speculation’, Callaghan has received no offers for players. Neither is there much encouragement of talk of a loan move for Steven Naismith.
With the ship steadying after years of turbulence and heavy seas, Kilmarnock are content to plot a stable course with Captain Steve Clarke on the bridge.
‘Sometimes you have to take the risk and push the boat out,’ adds Callaghan.
‘We are coming up to the 150th anniversary of Kilmarnock.
‘We are the oldest professional club in Scotland and we are very proud of that.
‘We want to see the club develop and grow ahead of the next 150 years. And we hope the changes the club have made will get us there safely.’