‘Scottish football management is a saturated industry. There are only 42 teams and we’re all on a collision course, competing for slim pickings’
11 MONTHS AFTER LEAVING KELTY ON A HIGH, KEVIN THOMSON IS STILL WAITING TO GET BACK ON THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
KEVIN THOMSON is trying to steer clear of the F-word. No, not that one. Frustration is the word he’s trying to avoid. But it keeps creeping into our conversation about the managerial merry-go-round. ‘It almost feels as if you need to get sacked before anyone values you as a manager,’ says Thomson, who can boast a blemish-free single season in charge of Kelty Hearts, guiding them to a runaway League Two title win, then quitting the job. It seemed at the time as if it would be days rather than weeks before he was unveiled by a new employer but, more than ten months on, it still hasn’t happened.
The 38-year-old former Hibs, Rangers and Dundee midfielder is a combination of realistic and bemused. ‘It feels like, if you started further up the ladder and you’ve been sacked, you’re a more suitable candidate. It’s bizarre but that’s how it sometimes comes across. It’s a strange way of looking at things that you can fail several times and some people see that as gaining good experience.’
Thomson’s one and only season so far as a manager, with assistant Kevin McDonald alongside, could not have been further from failure. Kelty, newly installed in the SPFL as champions of the Lowland League, made light work of their first senior football challenge and clinched
There were certain people who thought we had a job lined up
back-to-back promotions with a title-winning margin which stretched to 21 points by the end of the season.
‘We won the league last March with five games to spare,’ says Thomson, ‘and lost only three games all season. We did an unbelievable job. We got to the fifth round of the Scottish Cup. We knocked out St Johnstone who had won both cups the season before.
‘You only have to look at Kelty this season (only relegation-threatened pair Clyde and Peterhead are below them in League One) to judge if the club has kicked on or not.
‘We just felt we warranted a wee bit more backing but the club have rightly got a budget in place and that wee bit extra wasn’t there. We felt we deserved a bit more to be able to add a bit of quality to the squad and to try to be competitive at the top end of the league above. When that wasn’t forthcoming, and with what we had collectively achieved, we reckoned it had run its course.
‘Budget wasn’t the only reason. There were other things behind the scenes. We had different ideas and we had our arguments. And when we weighed it all up we decided to part company. There were certain people who thought we had a job lined up in the background and we had been dishonest but anyone who genuinely knows me is well aware that’s the opposite way to how I work. There was nothing in the pipeline.’
It didn’t appear last summer that one of the management game’s bright young things would have needed anything lined up in advance. Thomson’s name was in the frame for every coaching job that popped up.
‘It’s actually not that good being linked with every single vacancy because it can look as if you just can’t get a job or you’re not getting offered anything. A lot of people forget that I was offered the Raith job before I left Kelty and knocked it back. My gut feeling was that, at that moment in time, it wasn’t the right thing for me. I thought, wrongly with the benefit of hindsight, there was going to be another offer.
‘At the time the Dundee job was available, the Dunfermline job was available and when jobs are up for grabs you have a wee look at what direction that club might be looking to see if your name might float their boat. Also the Falkirk job became available at one stage and you are always looking at everything that comes up.’
Thomson spoke to Dunfermline before James McPake was appointed as manager. He also had a conversation with Dundee technical director Gordon Strachan, a former gaffer when he played for Middlesbrough.
‘Kelty were moving into League One, Dundee were in the Championship so they were only a league apart. It wasn’t like Barcelona to Musselburgh Athletic. I was obviously an ex-player and knew the club quite well. If they had been looking for my kind of profile it could have been a good match.
‘But, when I spoke to Gordon, he made it clear a young coach wasn’t what they were after and the club were moving in a different direction. I’m not sure many people anticipated Gary Bowyer getting the job but I wish him all the best. It didn’t happen for me and you just have to move on and look for the next opportunity.’
Kilmarnock looked like they might be an opportunity. Battling to get out of the Championship last season, they sacked manager Tommy Wright halfway through the campaign.
‘Kilmarnock asked Kelty for permission to speak to me and I drove down to Rugby Park to meet James Fowler and the board. Ultimately I didn’t get offered the job, Del (Derek McInnes) did but I got good feedback which gave me confidence that I was doing the right thing.’
More recently, since quitting Kelty, Thomson was interviewed by Dundee United after the sacking of Jack Ross only seven games into this season.
‘I thought I was getting that job, to be honest, after I met the board. That was probably a sorer one than any of them, the Dundee United one. I was itching to get an opportunity and that one came up. A club that’s big on its academy and developing young players. It seemed like a good match. I felt like that was the big chance I was looking for.
‘When I met Tony (Asghar, former sporting director) we had a brilliant chat. I was really intrigued by how much homework he had done on my journey so far. He knew everything I had achieved off the back of his hand which was impressive. I know Liam (Fox), who ended up getting the job, really well. I played boys club with him and wanted to see him do well.
‘But then, when that job becomes available again a few months later, you’re not linked with it and you don’t get a chance to speak to the board again, when you feel you just missed out last time, I’m not sure how much more you can do.
‘It’s such a saturated industry, Scottish football management. There are only 42 teams. I’ve already won League Two and when you look above that level, there aren’t that many jobs available. And there are so many coaches wanting to move up the ladder plus the latest batch of players who have retired and want to stay in the game. We’re all on a collision course, competing for slim pickings.’
There’s no looking back for Thomson but he admits it was a gamble leaving a coaching job at Rangers, where he had progressed through the various age group sides to be ‘B’ team manager, and moving on to Kelty.
‘It was huge, massive. When you leave Rangers, you know you might never get the opportunity to go back. It was the same when I was a player. I got so much advice from people I respect about whether to take the Kelty job. I was unsure. So I took my time and decided that, if I ever wanted to get as far as I could, I had to prove that I could
build a team, get them to play my way and be successful. To give me a chance of going up the ladder.’
So far, he hasn’t been able to put his foot on that next rung of the ladder after that single, successful season which left his managerial record, unlike most others, blemish-free.
‘I suppose that’s another frustration even though I hate the word. It’s definitely a harder pill to swallow when you’ve been successful as a first-time manager, and I had a good playing career, so the profile’s not bad. It is frustrating when that next part doesn’t come. When you look at some of the jobs that have popped up recently, sometimes being in the right place at the right time is better than being successful. That’s the industry, really.
‘When managers aren’t doing well and they don’t get sacked or you don’t get that opportunity, it’s human nature to be frustrated. I’m not one of those people, though, who wants to see people fail. I want to see people do well. It’s the clubs, the boards, the chief executives, the sporting directors, the people who are investing money into the clubs who are having a big say on who they want. So your gripe’s not with the individual who is getting the opportunity.
‘Darren O’Dea (Celtic coach) gave me a good bit of advice when he reminded me that I chose to be in the house. I chose to be out of work. A lot of people don’t have that choice. They get sacked. But even though I thought it was brilliant advice, that next job hasn’t come.
‘I’m comfortable running my own academy and doing some media stuff but I never imagined going this long and probably to the end of the season without getting a job, which would be 12 months out of the game after doing what I’ve done. You can’t cry about it though. You just have to get on with it.’
Close but no cigar so far in Thomson’s search for the next step after Kelty. And we finish back where we started.
‘I hate using that word “frustrating”, even though here I am still sitting in the house. It’s good to have time on my hands to watch my boys Jackson (13) and Carson (10) playing their football and I’m running my academy.
‘Better to say I would be grateful for another opportunity.’