EVOLVE SURVIVE THRIVE
Work ethic and a human touch have been the key career motivators for Ross
DESPITE inspiring an infinite number of tomes on the subject, football management is a fairly simple concept. The ability to identify players of substance remains its cornerstone. A capacity to coach, organise and impart tactical knowledge to one’s charges is also non-negotiable.
Beyond that, the element which separates the wheat from the chaff is emotional intelligence.
If you don’t know what buttons to push in people, all the coaching badges in the world won’t save you.
The X-factor which has convinced Hibernian to employ Jack Ross as their next manager can be said to be one part innate, one part gained through varied life experiences over 43 years.
Appointed as successor to Paul Heckingbottom after being sacked by Sunderland last month, Ross will check in at Easter Road with many questions still to answer and much yet to prove.
Such scenarios have punctuated his life. What has set him apart from the crowd, however, is his capacity to evolve, survive and eventually thrive.
Released by Dundee as a teenager, an early exposure to the game’s chill winds saw him decant at local club Camelon Juniors while studying for an MA in economics at Heriot-Watt University.
‘One regret I have is I wasn’t mentally stronger when I was younger,’ he once stated.
‘I didn’t develop a mental toughness until my early twenties, which enabled me to get back to senior football from the Juniors. I lacked belief in my own abilities.’
A foothold back in the senior game with Clyde was scarcely life-changing but at least gave him a corner in the shop window.
Hartlepool, then managed by the late Neale Cooper, liked what they saw but Ross, by then 28, never settled and returned to sign for Falkirk.
Three years with the Bairns and two at St Mirren, all spent in the top flight, elevated Ross from journeyman status. He won a B cap for Scotland under George Burley in 2009 but full honours never materialised.
The dream he had worked so hard to become reality ended abruptly.
A troublesome knee restricted him to three appearances for Hamilton and ensured he never once featured for Dunfermline.
By then, though, his wider talents as an intelligent, empathetic individual were being recognised. Chairman of PFA Scotland, his exposure to all manner of problems footballers encounter proved grist to his mill.
‘I started with a role in sports betting,’ he recalled. ‘Then I branched out to communications and mental health. Players have the same insecurities and anxieties as everyone else.’
Ross’s reputation as a people’s person grew at that juncture through an unlikely detour.
Seeing football as a conduit to convey positive morals for use in wider life, he wrote a number of children’s books, including Alfie the Adventurous Winger and Calum The Courageous Keeper.
Explaining his motivation at the time, he said: ‘The thrust is that the players bring these attributes off the pitch and into school with them.
‘They solve different types of problems at school by using the attributes they use at football.’
Those who worked with Ross around this time recall him exhibiting an interest in coaching and management but concern if the door would open for him.
‘I spoke to someone I respect and he asked me the “love-football or in-love-with-it” question,’ he said.
‘It’s an important distinction because they’re two very different things. I told him I was at my happiest when I’m fully involved in the game. If you merely love it, you would resent the way this job dominates your life.’
Assisting Alan Adamson then Ian Murray at Dumbarton — with a brief spell as caretaker in between — was all the encouragement he needed.
The offer of a full-time coaching post with Hearts drew a line under Ross’s days as a union rep/ children’s author with Alloa, earning him his first job in management a year later.
From the start, he knew what would mark him out as a success or otherwise.
‘Management’s about getting the best out of people,’ he said. ‘If they see you’re interested in them, they respond.’
Ross’s ability to ensure the whole was greater than the sum of its parts was soon enjoying a wider audience.
Despite his League One side eventually going down 2-0 to
Celtic in a League Cup tie in September 2016, Brendan Rodgers said he caused more problems than any other opponent at Celtic Park that season.
St Mirren, at that point plummeting towards the third tier, needed no further encouragement and appointed Ross as manager the following month.
By the January, he had done little to arrest the decline. A 3-0 home defeat by Queen of the South left Saints seven points adrift.
But the enduring image of a day, one that would also represent the turning point, was the manager talking man-to-man with an irate fan in the stand at full-time.
‘I did it in a calm manner that, hopefully, was sensible enough and I think both he and those around him appreciated that,’ explained Ross.
Rarely did he and his St Mirren side look back thereafter. A team bolstered by ten mid-season signings finished the campaign in seventh place, with their momentum taking them to the title a year later.
Having played a starring role in a real-life fairytale, the only questions surrounding Ross’s departure was to where and when. Within a fortnight, Sunderland was the answer.
Handed the biggest budget in England’s third tier, the fact the Black Cats’ promotion aspirations were only extinguished late in the play-off final by Charlton at Wembley mattered little.
Sixth in the table when he was sacked last month, the fear among the owners was they wouldn’t get that far this time around.
Although he was the club’s 12th manager in ten years and boasted the best win rate of any in the modern era with 51 per cent, he failed to do what was asked.
‘The structure of the club was never where I wanted it to be, although that’s not to say I’m right,’ he said after his sacking.
‘This hurts. Do I cry about it? Am I going to fold? No, but it bothers me a lot.’
You sense that repairing the reputational damage he has suffered is just one of a multitude of motivations as he gets down to work.
For both Ross and Hibernian, the next chapter promises to be compelling.