The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Title quest drives Campbell on
“I want to take Arbroath as far as I can but I still have ambitions
Dick Campbell is someone who wears many “hats” – dedicated family man, charity fundraiser, successful businessman, renowned after-dinner speaker and keen golfer to name a few.
However, as a football manager, he will forever be inextricably linked with his famous bunnet – and he does not intend to hang it up any time soon.
The veteran Arbroath boss turns 65 in November and has a CV littered with promotions and titles but he is still fiercely ambitious and his appetite for the game has in no way diminished.
The Red Lichties just missed out on promotion in April for what would have been the second season running and Campbell is determined to go one step better next term.
However, he is keen to stress he is no oneman band and his dreams will only be realised with the help and backing of his backroom staff, twin brother Ian – known to one and all as Pink – and John Young.
Of course, until last week, there was another integral member of the coaching team – John Ritchie.
The incredibly-popular former goalie, coach and manager sadly passed away with Campbell admitting he had lost “one of my dearest friends”.
And he insists his success in management would not have been possible without the team behind him.
He said: “I cannot stress just how important my brother is to me.
“We are unique in that he is my twin brother. We think alike, we look alike and I work for him at Avenue Scotland.
“So we are not sitting here waiting on a fitba result worrying if we have a job or not.
“But we want to win another championship and that’s what motivates us.
“I couldn’t do the job without him. Ian, John Young and John Ritchie – before he passed, God bless him – they do everything. I don’t do a thing. I just do the team talk on a Saturday.
“I am 65 in November but I have no intentions of retiring.
“My wife Ann-Marie retired two years ago. She does a lot of voluntary work for old folk, things like that.
“I also do charity work building sensory gardens for dementia sufferers.
“It is something that is very dear to me because my mother had dementia. That keeps me busy but the biggest thing is the football.”
Campbell added: “I work for Ian during the day as the general manager of the recruitment company with 49 staff.
“My wife retired to spend more time with me but five days a week now she has the bairns.
“We have six grandchildren and if I retire, she will have me babysitting and I am not doing that – I like handing them back!
“I am a big golfer and my brother and I are members at Gleneagles. I take the customers there on a Friday and I play with my mates on a Wednesday.
“Who would have thought that a miner’s boys from Hill of Beath would ever be members at Gleneagles?
“So we are reasonably successful away from football but I will be well into my 70s before I am finished with the game.
“I want to take Arbroath as far as I can but I still have ambitions.
“Me and Pink were the first part-time management team to take a side up two years on the trot.
“If we had gone up last season, I probably would have been the first person in world history to do it with two teams.
“So there are personal goals there but you keep them to yourself.
“I have had 1,200 and odd games in the dugout which is getting close to a record that I think will never be achieved again.
“I was nine years at Dunfermline, three years at Partick and two minutes at Ross County so half my coaching career has been full-time.
“It annoys me when I see people writing that most of my success has been in the lower leagues.
“Is it harder to pick a team at Real Madrid than it is at Brechin? I don’t buy it at all.”
Campbell worked as assistant to Dunfermline boss Bert Paton at East End Park in the mid-90s and he admits the clear role he had then is mirrored now with him and his brother.
He said: “My apprenticeship under Bert Paton for nine years was the best I could have had.
“In all the years I was at Dunfermline, you can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of training sessions Bert took.
“I did all the coaching but I have never seen anyone at half-time as good as Bert yet.
“As a manager you have to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and the same with yourselves.
“At half-time you only have 10 minutes to do that and Bert was the best at it.
“Bert’s philosophy was that Dick takes the training and he would do all the talking at halftime because there was no-one better than him. “You identify these clear roles. “Pink is a very successful management consultant so talking to players is a doddle for him. Everything is meticulous with him and we are very well organised.
“We also have a great laugh. Some of the team talks are legendary.
“I lie in the bath on a Saturday morning and I pick a theme.
“What’s the theme today? Bugles and trumpets? The shape? Do I identify a strength of the opposition? But I get a theme and I stick to it.
“It is like my after-dinner – it is right off the top of my head.”
Campbell hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons back in January during a Scottish Cup tie with Ayr at Somerset Park.
He was incensed when referee Mike Roncone denied Arbroath what looked like a stonewall penalty with the manager striding onto the pitch to protest.
He was subsequently handed a seven-game touchline ban but he insists the whole incident showed just how much he still cares.
Campbell said: “The incident with Ayr United this year has been well documented. But I call it a natural enthusiasm for the game of football.
“I went on to the pitch because it was a penalty kick and the referee didn’t see it.
“The referee contacted me two or three days later to apologise and say it was a penalty.
“It was a stupid thing for me to do and I will never do it again. But it’s worth remembering that the winner of that tie got Rangers in the next round on the telly so it was worth a lot of money to Ayr United, well into six figures.
“It is only when you get home at night and you say to yourself, ‘Good grief, what were you doing?’.
“But that tells you that even at my age I kick every ball. My motivation has never been bigger than it is now.”
It seems “the bunnet” will be around for some time yet.
Emotional tribute to ‘dearest friend’ and ‘wonderful human being’
Dick Campbell paid an emotional tribute to John Ritchie who sadly passed away last week.
The pair had worked together on and off the pitch at Brechin as well as with Dunfermline and latterly at Arbroath.
Campbell admits he will miss Ritchie’s advice and expertise in the dressing-room but more importantly he has lost someone who was a dear friend to him.
Campbell said: “I first met John 43 years ago in 1975.
“He was a very professional guy. When we were players, there would be myself, my brother Ian, John and Ian Paterson who all travelled up to Brechin in the one car for years.
“John was a miner down the pit and he would come up early so we could get to training.
“Sometimes we would get to Brechin in terrible weather conditions to find that the Aberdeen and Dundee boys couldn’t get there but John always got us there from Fife.
“He was one of those boys, you could never get a night off because of him! But he was just so professional and enthusiastic.
“I learned a lot from him. He was meticulous in his preparation but equally hilarious in the dressing-room.
“As a person, he was a big, handsome devil. That used to annoy me and you could cut cheese with the crease on his trousers he was so immaculate.
“Football apart, I have lost one of my dearest friends.
“He used to say to me and Ian that we were the two brothers he never had.
“John was a part of my life that will never, ever be replaced.
“He was just a wonderful human being and had the respect of everybody in Scottish football.”