Jump to content

 

 

Authorities have given Hearts boss “impossible task”


Recommended Posts

ALEX SMITH believes Scotland’s football authorities are failing both Hearts and their manager, Gary Locke, by denying them a chance to rebuild.

 

Chairman of the Managers and Coaches Association, Smith stressed Locke is in an impossible position at Tynecastle and is suffering by enduring such pressure so early in his managerial career.

 

Hearts’ descent into administration last June triggered an immediate SPFL registration embargo and a 15-point deduction for the new league season. That left Locke effectively with hands tied and mouth gagged.

 

Experienced players had left on freedom of contract and the manager, having only been appointed in March, found himself with a squad full of under-21 players to fight against relegation. Locke will be unable to replenish his squad during the January transfer window as Hearts will still be in administration well into next year. They are currently 14 points adrift at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership.

 

Smith feels the punishments meted out to Hearts have gone on too long and are having a detrimental effect on Locke’s early days in management.

 

He blames previous directors and disgraced former owner Vladimir Romanov for the club’s demise. Now 73, Smith admitted that, throughout his time in football, he couldn’t recall a manager in a more harrowing position than Locke.

 

“I’ve never known a manager to be in a more difficult situation,” he told the Evening News. “Here we have a young manager in the first few months of his career, managing a club like Hearts, but not able to bring in players. Then there’s the 15-point deduction. I just think it’s ridiculous.

 

“It’s ridiculous that we’re making a top club like Hearts suffer like this because of the poor management of other people. They did things in a way that was running that club towards a multiple crash.

 

“The authorities are making it worse with the sanctions and denying Hearts the right to try and get out of this trouble. They did it with Rangers, another massive club. They didn’t just take action against them, they almost slit their throat. We need these two clubs and we need them in our top league. We don’t need them in the lower leagues.”

 

Locke has pledged to fight on in the hope that Hearts can reel in teams such as Ross County and Kilmarnock at the bottom of the table and avoid relegation. Time is not on their side. Many feel one positive from slipping into the Championship would be the breathing space accorded the Riccarton youth academy graduates to develop as footballers. Smith points out that life in the second tier is likely to be fraught with just as many problems.

 

“Gary would be entitled to expect the chance to take Hearts back up if they did end up relegated, but football nowadays doesn’t always work like that, does it? Hearts could go down into the Championship. Rangers and Dunfermline could come up [from League One].

 

“Then you might have three out of the four chasing promotion this season possibly still there. It’s going to be some league. The pressure next year would be exactly the same, only the sympathy vote won’t be there. It will be expectation levels there instead. Either way, it’s going to be difficult.”

 

Smith called Locke to offer a pep talk in the wake of Hearts’ 7-0 Scottish Cup defeat by Celtic earlier this month. He will do the same again before Hearts head to Parkhead on league business this weekend. “I feel for him. If he’s feeling like a chat he just has to phone any of the more experienced managers in the game and he’ll get any amount of their time,” explained Smith.

 

“I’ll give him another call this week sometime. He really just has to keep going. It will only take winning a couple of games and he will see an opportunity to turn things round. He can’t lose sight of the fact Hearts are a massive club with a massive support. If there is any sign of a revival, Gary will have everybody 100 per cent behind him.

 

“That’s not always the case when you have to please 15,000 people at your home games. One or two people will just see the jerseys on the field, regardless of who is in them, and assume that because they’re Hearts, they should automatically be winning games.

 

“The majority of Hearts supporters know the situation. The young kids are good players, all they need is that wee glimmer of a chance. If they come onto a run and start getting points, the fans will be right behind them. A lot of people now go to games, sit down and expect to be entertained. Gary will have the siege support and he’ll realise he has to harness that.

 

“There’s no doubt we’re getting a false impression of what he can do at the moment. He can’t bring in players. He’s just to get on working with the young players he has. They’re all very talented, but if things start going the wrong way, it affects them all as a group. You need a few stabilisers in the team to steady them.

 

“That’s why guys like Ryan Stevenson and Jamie Hamill are so important. They’ve been lumbered with this responsibility, which even for them is massive. They have to take on the responsibility of going out and winning games of football. How do you do that?

 

“There is a great art to winning games. The first thing is you don’t lose bad goals, so you need a strong back line and a good goalkeeper. If you do lose a goal, you keep the ball till you get an opportunity to get back into the game.

 

“The key is not to lose a second, so your defence and goalkeeper need to keep you in the game when you’re under pressure.”

 

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/football/hearts/authorities-have-given-hearts-boss-impossible-task-1-3237607

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was against the article until he balanced it by saying the same treatment was done against Rangers. At first I thought it was only going 1 way that Hearts had been hard done by but not Gers, but fair play to Alex Smith, he then hit the nail on the head - Although he used the words 'they slit our throat' while we have all said 'kicked while we are down'.....both relevant though.

 

Looking at the possible scenario next season of Rangers, Hearts, Dundee, Falkirk and Dunfermline possibly being in the same league further proves the point then Longmuir should have been far stronger when Regan and Doncaster came knocking for the takeover. Longmuir and the SFL already had the trump card in Rangers and if they had stayed stronger and not given into a takeover (embarrassingly named a merger) then the SFL would have had far better set up next season and could have then made the game better. As such now, clowns like Doncaster will get their wish and practically have an SPL2 next season and a better league because of others downfalls......

Link to post
Share on other sites

Gribz, I don't know if you can blame Longmuir. He and Ballantyne were dead set against a merger with the SPL. They were undercut by greedy chairmen like Les Gray of Hamilton and Turbull Hutton of Raith Rovers. They led the revolt and along with the bulk of SFL1 & 2 agreed to accept Liewell's thirty pieces of silver.They wanted scraps from the TV and Sponsor's deals to keep full time football at their clubs. How smart was that? I guess with no sponsor and teams in the former SPL struggling, we'll find out.

 

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/hamilton/222469-hamilton-academical-chairman-disappointed-by-sfl-chief-longmuir/

Link to post
Share on other sites

Gribz, I don't know if you can blame Longmuir. He and Ballantyne were dead set against a merger with the SPL. They were undercut by greedy chairmen like Les Gray of Hamilton and Turbull Hutton of Raith Rovers. They led the revolt and along with the bulk of SFL1 & 2 agreed to accept Liewell's thirty pieces of silver.They wanted scraps from the TV and Sponsor's deals to keep full time football at their clubs. How smart was that? I guess with no sponsor and teams in the former SPL struggling, we'll find out.

 

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/hamilton/222469-hamilton-academical-chairman-disappointed-by-sfl-chief-longmuir/

 

I see what you are saying and yes likes of Les Gray was clearly trying to jump ship but it was in writing that they had to give 3 years notice so SFL should have stood ground IMO. With a bit of luck Hamilton get promoted this season so we don't have to visit them twice next season and they miss out on the Hearts games also. They could then be relegated the season after and pass on the way down as we return to the top league.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I see what you are saying and yes likes of Les Gray was clearly trying to jump ship but it was in writing that they had to give 3 years notice so SFL should have stood ground IMO. With a bit of luck Hamilton get promoted this season so we don't have to visit them twice next season and they miss out on the Hearts games also. They could then be relegated the season after and pass on the way down as we return to the top league.

 

Forgot about that bit, but the SPFL probably had fat Rod write a new rule to bypass that stipulation.

Link to post
Share on other sites

From what I recall, there was a lot of media spin about the 3 year rule not being clear cut and being designed for different circumstances. The spin was that it was open to legal challenge, and there was a threat expressed by the bigger wee Clubs.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You know if you read this report it looks like a lot of stuff got missed in the indecent haste to merge.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/deal-merge-spl-sfl-finally-2005261

 

By Dailyrecord.co.uk

Deal to merge SPL and SFL finally clinched after marathon meeting at Hampden

28 Jun 2013 07:40

TALKS between the two bodies dragged on for 15 hours following a series of disagreements and breaks for legal arguments but finally the SPFL will come into being next season.

Talks went on for 15 hours at the national stadium

A NEW Scottish Professional Football League was finally ratified by Scotland's 42 senior clubs in the early hours of this morning.

An agreement was reached on a merger of the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League after a long day and night of protracted talks at Hampden which spanned around 15 hours. The new set-up will see the current 12-10-10-10 structure remain, under one organisation, with the introduction of play-offs and a new financial redistribution model.

Discussions began with an SFL board meeting at 8.30am and talks with the SPL were still going 13 hours later following four different adjournments to hear legal arguments.

Disagreement was the order of the day and at one point a request was made for a final decision on the merger of both bodies to be deferred for a week. But that request was denied by the SPL and a deal was thrashed out last night after darkness fell on the National Stadium.

The new board will comprise of Eric Riley (Celtic), Steven Thompson ( Dun. Utd. ), Duncan Fraser Aberdeen ), Les Gray (Hamilton ), Mike Mulraney ( Alloa ) and Bill Darroch ( Stenhousemuir).

Emerging after the meeting, Hibernian chairman and former SPL board member Rod Petrie said: "It's been a difficult day for a lot of people, there has been a lot to consider, but everybody has approached it in a positive and professional manner.

"I think it's right that everybody took their time and made sure that we got the fine detail correct. Here we are in agreement and all the clubs can go forward in a positive vein now.

"People have had strong opinions and they are right to have strong opinions to do what they think is right for their club and we now have 42 clubs who have agreed on a way forward and that's got to be a positive stance for Scottish football.

"From a supporters' point of view, they probably don't see a lot of change but from the management of the game and the way that we organise ourselves, it will streamline the way things are done and hopefully we can all get behind some new initiates for the game going forward to help things on the pitch."

Rangers were associate members of the SFL but are now full members of the new organisation with full voting rights.

Interim chief executive Craig Mather said: "We have always been active and we continue on that road and be humble. It's been interesting but we've got there. I'm very happy."

 

Earlier in the day the uncertainty over passing the resolution was, as Annan chairman Henry McClelland had told Record Sport, due to the feeling that due diligence had not been able to be properly carried out on the SPL’s finances. The chairman emerged from one break in talks and said: “The fans must think this looks like a shambles, and they’d be right. It is a shambles.”

 

The SFL board expressed their concerns when they refused to pass Resolution Three at their first meeting of the day and asked the SPL chairman Ralph Topping to join them for consultation. Topping, Record Sport understands, told the SFL member clubs they had to take the SPL on trust.

But there was a lack of unanimity over whether that was possible.

Another meeting after a break for lunch was abruptly ended when the SPL finally agreed to make a full disclosure of their finances. They had originally been requested by the SFL’s auditors to provide that information last month, but had declined to do so. Lawyers acting for both sides then stepped up their efforts to accelerate a decision on the way forward.

Delegates were asked to return at four o’clock, only to adjourn yet again after a short meeting and agree to meet up once more three hours later.

The coming and going prompted one delegate, who asked to remain anonymous, to remark that it wasn’t so much the dawn of a new era as a new error.

Delegates from the far-flung parts of the country then started to make hotel reservations as it became clear they were in for the long haul if business was to be concluded on the same day that talks started. The 7pm gathering had hardly got under way when club representatives returned to the foyer at Hampden having been asked to give lawyers more time for negotiation.

It was abundantly clear by then that the joining together of the SFL and the SPL wasn’t being carried out in a harmonious mood. It showed all the signs of being a marriage of inconvenience.

And if the product of their alliance was the announcement of a new league being born then it was equally obvious that it had been a difficult labour.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.