Jim McIntire on the Eve of Returning to Rugby Park as Pars Boss (Sept 9th 2011)... "This is my first time going back to Kilmarnock as a manager and I'm looking forward to it. I have a lot of happy memories, I had a great spell there. Any time I go back I'm warmly received.

"That group of players went on from nearly not staying in the league to winning the cup and being in Europe every year – maybe because I left not long after!

"But it was a great place to go and work, everyone got on well and the spirit was fantastic which is a huge part of any club.

"I think it's vital there aren't huge personalities who dominate the dressing room. In that Kilmarnock dressing room, you soon got brought down a peg or two if you got above yourself. And that's the way it should be."

**************************************************************************

From Reading's whipping boy to being voted most improved player Jim McIntyre has run the gamut in recent years.......

LOOKING at it now, it sounds like a revenge mission. Too many foreigners in the Scottish game? Imagine if the Scots themselves became the foreigners. Yet what happened at Reading under Tommy Burns is what you might call a Scottish failure story. It is a chapter of the club's history which is all but closed, except for one postscript. 

As the most expensive component of Burns' infamous package deal, a £420,000 signing from Kilmarnock among five Scots signed on transfer deadline day in April 1998, McIntyre was always viewed as overpriced and over here by the Reading support. As an honest professional, he told the truth when asked if he would score goals by admitting he wasn't a goalscorer. When they heard that, the fans refused to let it lie.

He has a good feeling about today, as if history is about to repeat itself. Four years ago, on the same day he celebrated his birthday, he lifted the Scottish Cup with Kilmarnock.Today,at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Jim McIntyre hopes to help Reading clinch promotion to the First Division.

There have been plenty of celebrations in the McIntyre household in recent days. His 29th birthday for a start, the birth of Kelly, his second child, and Reading's progression to the play-off finals.

Yet he still doesn't know what the future holds for him, win or lose against Walsall this afternoon.

He is out of contract in under three weeks. And Alan Pardew, the manager who once transfer-listedhim,willnot discuss his future until Reading know what division they will be playing in next season.

McIntyre doesn't sound concerned. For the first season in years he is enjoying his football. The fans who once booed him mercilessly recently voted him the most improved player in the team.

Life is good. And it could get a whole lot better if Reading can record a victory thisafternoon. McIntyre started in both legs of thesemi-final againstWigan, and he is hopeful of another starting role today.

Thisseason, free from injury and the pressures of the striking role, he has found his feet at the Madejski Stadium. It has been a long time coming.

'It has been great, because I have been able to put a consistent run of form together. It is so different from the first year-and-a-half, because they were blighted by injuries,' he explained.

They were blighted by something else too. Expectations -- unrealisedandunrealistic. When he arrived in March 1998, it was amid an influx of Scots recruited in a flurry of transfer activity by Tommy Burns.

'They expected me to be a 25 goals a season striker, and that has never been my game. Then my hamstring went, then my knee ligament, then my thigh. It was horrendous,' he recalled.

As the reign of Burns turned sour, his signings suffered the backlash: 'I got major stick. It got to the stage they booed every touch I made.

'It was hard to take, but how you handle it can make you a stronger person. It does mean you appreciate the good times a bit more when they come around.'

The good times have been worth waiting for this season. Pardew may have transfer-listed the Scot soon after taking over from the sacked Burns,but McIntyre's name was taken off the transfer list as he began to make his influence tell in a different position.

'I was determined to give it one more shot in the last year of my contract. I wanted to force my way back into the manager's plans, and I have done that.'

For the majority of the 33 league games he has played this season, he has been deployed on the left of midfield, providing support to the impressive strike force of Jamie Cureton and Martin Butler.

It is not a totally unfamiliar position, since he played as a winger when he was at Airdrie, but he reckons he has added a lot to his game since then.

'I have learned about the position, because I've much more responsibility to help out the defence the way the manager has us set out. But it suits my game,' he claimed.

He has contributed five goals from his wide position, including one against Walsall, today's opponents. He hopes the manager remembers that when he picks the team. He expects a hard game against the team which finished five points below them in the Second Division table, but Reading are confident.

'We should have really clinched automatic promotion, but we threw it away in the last few games,' he conceded.

McIntyre thinks they have the players to do it, especially in the shape of Martin Butler, who he senses has the ability to go all the way and play in the Premiership.

There could be a few familiar faces in the squad that travels to Cardiff, with goalkeeper Scott Howie and Tony Rougier among those who will be known to a Scottish audience. But McIntyre is one of the few survivors of the Burns era. He hopes to prolong his stay, since his family are settled.

'I'm sure there will be an offer on the table after the final, but you cannot rule anything out. Effectively, I'm a Bosman and open to offers.

'But that can all come later. It has been a blinding few weeks. And a win in the final would cap it all off.'

Of those now departed from Reading, McIntyre exempts from criticism Brebner, who admitted last week he regretted joining the club, and affords special mention to Andy McLaren. When the now Kilmarnock winger tested positive for drugs at Reading's training ground last year, McIntyre was alongside him, testing negative, and is delighted his former colleague has "put his problems behind him". In a different context, he has done much the same himself.

He still has Scottish connections. Last summer he holidayed with Mark Reilly, the Kilmarnock midfielder. He has kept his accent, too. "Have you heard the way they talk down here?" he laughed at mention of this. "They sound like yokels. There's a bit of a country twang." That country used to be Scotland within the Reading dressing room, but McIntyre is a lone voice now.

Jim went on to leave Reading after their 2000-01 Playoff failure, and Jim landed with Arabs for 2001-02, scoring only 5 goals!