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Steve Clarke and Alex Dyer confirmed


Scouser2

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5 minutes ago, piffer said:

I watched the behind the screens vid again on a bigger screen rather than my phone. You get a far better impression of the respect people already have for him. When he’s doing introductions and meeting the young boys blowing up the balls you can see one of them looking at him and saying to himself “that’s f**king Steve Clarke”. He must be one of the most famous assistant managers and coaches of recent times in the UK and that’s before you get to his managerial record. 

His interview is very good. He makes a lot of statements that perhaps hadn’t crossed a lot of people’s minds. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into the assistant managers role and what qualities he needs to have as well. Yes he’s worked with him before but it’s certainly not an old pals act

I noticed that too, the 2nd lad he shakes hands with is totally star struck......

Edited by C4mmy31
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Good stuff from Scott and Chris, real shame about the lighting in the interview but the behind the scenes thing was top notch. Tough to put the music you want to these things while avoiding shelling out cash for them! Chris also shot one for the website as KFCSA chief David Sneddon put a few questions to the new gaffer so when we get that we'll stick it up on our YouTube channel and share it on here.

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45 minutes ago, baz said:

Good stuff from Scott and Chris, real shame about the lighting in the interview but the behind the scenes thing was top notch. Tough to put the music you want to these things while avoiding shelling out cash for them! Chris also shot one for the website as KFCSA chief David Sneddon put a few questions to the new gaffer so when we get that we'll stick it up on our YouTube channel and share it on here.

Spoke to Scott on Twitter about the lighting, he said he will make sure it doesn't happen going forward. Told him that the quality and quantity of the media output has been great.

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I think another well done to the board is required. These videos don’t just happen, someone has asked for these. Think this is first class and exactly what we need in order to get people back through the gates. 

As many have said this looks like a long term plan and judging by the interview the board have a long term plan also, so be patient as miracles don’t happen over night. 

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9 hours ago, Jimmy Superscot said:

Where do I put all my pencils...?

Loved that!

"Pencils? It's 2017 - who uses pencils?!"

Clarke looks like a lost boy on his first day at a new school, wondering why there isn't a bank of computer screens on his desk like he's probably used to! 

 

 

Edited by skygod
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I think he wants to prove a few people wrong, like Jeremy Peace, former owner of WBA, and Reading.

 

Here's the transcript of his comments on Sky Sports' Goals on Sunday in April 2016. He was questioned by Rob Shephard.

Shepard: It was back in December that you left (Reading), just a month earlier there were reports that you were close to taking the Fulham job - It looks quite confusing from the outside, maybe you can clear it up.

Clarke: “It was confusing from the inside.”

Shephard: What happened?

Clarke: “Not a lot really. At the time the job had become quite difficult, the team was going through a bad patch.

“I got permission from Reading to speak to Fulham, who had approached Reading, I spoke to Fulham and decided that I wanted to stay at Reading.

“That was the gist of it, nothing untoward, there was no big drama. I chose to stay at Reading and three games later they kicked me out the door.

“So, obviously with hindsight if I could live that week again I would do things a bit differently."

Shephard: Would you have moved to Fulham?

Clarke: "If I’d have known that Reading had it in their mind that they were going to get rid of me. That would be the one disappointment for me, when I spoke to Fulham and went back to Reading, they assured me they’d be happy for me to stay.

“Three games later I was out the door, and one of those games was a win. One was a defeat away from home, a difficult game at Nottingham Forest and then we lost an injury time goal to lose a home game against QPR and suddenly I was back on my holidays.

“It was a strange time. I’ll learn from the experiences as you always try and do.”

“It was quite a difficult job, Reading. It was a job that came about very quickly. I was literally lying on the beach in the Caribbean, I got a phone call and it was like ‘if you want the job it’s yours but you have to be back in the country tomorrow’, so I rushed back.

“I was out the game for a year and I was looking forward to getting back in, I didn’t really do enough due diligence on the actual club."

Shephard: Because you didn't have enough time?

Clarke: "I didn’t have enough time, I had to make a spur of the moment decision and I made it.

“When I got in there it was quite a difficult situation, the club had frittered their money away under the Russian owner, he'd left and the club had been sold to a Thai consortium which had enough money to buy the club but didn’t really have enough to put into the club, to develop it.

“And they wanted promotion to the Premier League. When you add all that together, it was quite a difficult job.

“We did a lot of work in the summer, brought in a lot of players, a lot of key players from the previous regime left because they got better contract offers elsewhere, so I think when you make so many changes you need a bit of time for that team to gel and come together.

“We had some good moments. It was interesting I was looking at the top of the Championship - you look at those teams at the top now.

"Middlesbrough we beat, Burnley we beat and Brighton we drew with - that's the top three now. So at that stage the team was good.

“We went off the boil a little bit. I lost three key players - Stephen Quinn, Aaron Tshibola and Hal Robson-Kanu at the same time. They were three key players for the team and we lost a little bit of shape.

“That meant we had a tricky spell, but I'm sure given time to manage the other side of it that everything would have been OK.

“The team hasn’t done fantastic since I left, it’s not as if I wasn’t getting the best out the team, because they haven’t shot up the table.

“They’ve actually not picked up that many points since Brian (McDermott, who was sacked in May 2016) took over, but I can understand for Brian that it’s a difficult job because when you look above you - everyone says when you get a job you should manage upwards - and managing upwards at that club was quite difficult."

 

 

 

Edited by skygod
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SC seems to have a good attitude and reminds me of another Ayrshire boy, the greatest football manger of all time IMO. He came out with a few crackers like:

'[The fans are] there to remind our lads who they're playing for, and to remind the opposition who they're playing against.'

'The directors are just there to sign the cheques'

'Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week.'

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I don't envy him . The negativity that suffused this place has been replaced with unbridled euphoria. I'm astounded and delighted that we've managed to attract someone of his calibre and pedigree . 

But the new management team will need time , patience and resources. We are still second bottom,with tough fixtures coming up , I wouldn't be surprised if we are still in soapy bubble come Christmas . 

However, for the first time in years , I'm looking forward to a Killie game . Get rid of that pitch and I'll be in heaven . 

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11 minutes ago, diamond_geezer said:

I don't envy him . The negativity that suffused this place has been replaced with unbridled euphoria. I'm astounded and delighted that we've managed to attract someone of his calibre and pedigree . 

But the new management team will need time , patience and resources. We are still second bottom,with tough fixtures coming up , I wouldn't be surprised if we are still in soapy bubble come Christmas . 

However, for the first time in years , I'm looking forward to a Killie game . Get rid of that pitch and I'll be in heaven . 

My feelings exactly. 

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“Kilmarnock have a good tradition of bringing younger boys through from their academy. If the pathway is there and we get the talent coming through, I’ve got no worries about playing a young boy as opposed to a senior player.”

Despite spending the last 30 years in England, Clarke knows all about Kilmarnock and admitted there have been indirect approaches before.

His wife Karen is from the area, older brother Paul spent 13 years a a player at the club and younger brother Michael is an avid fan.

Clarke said: “There have been conversations in the past but those conversations didn’t take me as far down the road as this one got.

“There have been similar roundabout approaches. I don’t need direct approaches because I have friends and family in this area and somebody always knows somebody who’ll ask ‘Would Stevie be interested in coming back up?’.

“It was always ‘no not at this time’ and it was always ‘not at this particular time’. So this time was slightly different – it ticked a lot of boxes for me.

New Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke is unveiled with directors Billy Bowie and John Kiltie
New Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke is unveiled with directors Billy Bowie and John Kiltie (Image: SNS Group)

“The crowds were really good when my brother Paul played here in the mid-70s to early-80s. I’ve been here with about 18,000 people I’m sure for Old Firm games.

“At that time though this was a much more prosperous area. You still had the mines and it’s changed a lot since then.

“Paul still comes up and he keeps an eye on the club, although my younger brother Michael is probably a more avid fan than Paul. He goes to almost every home game.

“The home matches of late have been below 4,000, so you’re saying; ‘can we get 5000?’. The only way you’ll get them is by winning matches and entertaining them.

“It was quite humbling to sit amongst so many people chanting your name at Firhill on Saturday - all I did was say hello to the players and wish them luck.

“The fact so many fans were there tells you there is maybe a little bit of excitement around the appoiintment.

“My only task now is to make sure I don’t disappoint them and I can promise them I’ll do everything in my power to try and help them get a successful team on the pitch.”

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Steve Clarke has not been involved in Scottish football since he signed for Chelsea from St Mirren 30 years ago but he hardly needed to be given a guided tour of Rugby Park when he met the media for the first time as Kilmarnock’s manager yesterday.

His earliest memories are of travelling from his home in nearby Saltcoats to watch brother Paul, seven years his senior, turn out for Killie in the 1970s. He would go on to make almost 400 league appearances for the club. Another brother, Michael, regularly attends home games.

It would have been easy, then, for Clarke to have come in kissing the badge and talking about returning to his homeland and his first love. To his credit, he did not, instead revealing that he had rejected the opportunity to take charge of the club on several previous occasions, that he only accepted this time because he felt the need to work again after a year out of the game following his dismissal as Aston Villa’s assistant manager (along with the boss, Roberto Di Matteo) 12 months ago.

He also explained that he now regards England as his home and announced that he would be returning there as soon as his time with Kilmarnock comes to an end.

None of which is to say that he is either desperate or unambitious, merely unusually honest. He also feels he has a point to prove after feeling that he was treated unjustly in his two previous managerial posts.

In 2012-13, his first season with West Bromwich Albion, he took the Midlands club to eighth place, their best top-tier finish since 1981. Yet he was sacked midway through the following season, in spite of beating Manchester United at Old Trafford for the first time in 35 years three months earlier.

“I still don’t feel I got the credit I deserved there,” he said. “I’m not a bitter person but I felt it ended too quickly and that was disappointing, especially since it’s so difficult for a Brit to get a manager’s job in that division. But we shook hands and moved on, new chapter.

”His other experience with his hand on the tiller, at Reading, also ended prematurely. Appointed in December, 2014, he guided them to their first FA Cup semi-final for 88 years only to be dismissed after a year, with his team ninth in the table: they would finish in 17th place. Clarke is driven by a determination to prove he can be a successful boss in his own right (he has served as No 2 to luminaries such as Ruud Gullit, Jose Mourinho, Gianfranco Zola and Kenny Dalglish, and alongside Brendan Rodgers when they were youth coaches). His CV suggests he should not have had to wait so long for offers to come in but he believes that he is one of the more fortunate members of his profession.

“There’s a select group of managers who’ll always be employed,” he said. “Roy Hodgson, Tony Pulis, big Sam Allardyce… they’ll always get jobs. But there are hell of a lot of other managers who get one chance and never get another one. There are even more who get two chances and never get another. I feel quite fortunate to have a third opportunity.

”Clarke has committed himself to Kilmarnock until 2020 but he could have been in the hot seat long before now.

“There have been similar roundabout approaches,” he said. “I don’t need direct approaches because I have friends and family in this area and somebody always knows somebody who’ll ask: ‘Would Stevie be interested in coming back up?’ It was always ‘No, not at the moment’. This time was slightly different – it ticked a lot of boxes for me. “Coming back to Scotland didn’t play a part; definitely not. My brothers and sisters are still here, my dad’s still here. Karen, my wife’s from Kilmarnock. Her mum and sister and brother are still here. My family are down south. I’ve grown-up children who are living with their partners down south, I’ve a grandson now.

“Our family are there. When this job finishes I’ll be going back down south because that’s home to me.

”Kilmarnock moved off the foot of the table by beating Partick Thistle 2-0 at Firhill on Saturday. Clarke was present on a watching brief.

“It was quite humbling to sit amongst so many people chanting your name – all I did was say hello to the players and wish them luck,” he said.

“The fact so many fans were there tells you there is maybe a little bit of excitement around the appointment. My task now is to make sure I don’t disappoint them and I can promise them I’ll do everything in my power to get a successful team on the pitch.”

(Ewing Grahame, The Scotsman)

 

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There was a plum in the first row of the presser who asked a lot of questions before calling the new boss "Steve McLaren", twice. Steve laughed and said "Is that the Standard up here?" to which Trust Chairman Jim T replied "Naw, that's the Standard over there" and pointed to Davie Wren.

It was funny at the time, maybe you had to be there! I'm not going to mention who called him "Paul". 9_9

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