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historyman

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12 minutes ago, historyman said:

And people say I’m negative. When you can’t appreciate the best league finish since the 60’s I would say something is wrong. 
You ask what did it get us? Apart from your highest league finish in over half a century it gave the board a great base on which to take the club forward so if you want to point the finger it’s certainly not at SC  

 

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1 hour ago, historyman said:

And people say I’m negative. When you can’t appreciate the best league finish since the 60’s I would say something is wrong. 

I can see why people think you’re a negative person given your take on this. Imagine only taking joy from finishing third and dismissing our other achievements. Where I took joy from promotion, winning trophies, big wins over the old firm, youth players breaking through and blossoming in the first team, community engagement and a third place finish, you only take pleasure from third and dismiss the rest. You even appear to look down on people who take enjoyment from factors that aren’t quantifiable on a league table. 
 

Even in the midst of our rebuild when most fans have been impressed by the togetherness and team spirit of our squad, all we get from you is how it’s not like the good old days under SC and anyone who is happy with how things are  going is just guilty of accepting a slip in our standards. It doesn’t even cross your mind that so is bugging up third when we’re a team that has won the league. 
 

1 hour ago, historyman said:

What happened to the club after Clarke left isn’t his fault and I don’t agree that is part of a managers remit. That is the responsibility of the board. It’s difficult enough these days for managers to keep their jobs. 

I suppose you think a house collapsing due to poor foundations, after the builder has left the site, isn’t the builders fault either?

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You also have to remember where we before Clarke took over to gauge the level of his success. He took a team that was on the brink of relegation and had them in 3rd less than two seasons later. It showed what a good coach and manager could achieve in Scotland with a team of Kilmarnock's resources. He took a lot of players and improved them to the point that they gained international honours. Very few people would have been bold enough to predict what would have happened under Clarke. 

It is completely different under TW although I think there are some similarities in their personalities. We are in the second tier and rebuilding to get promoted. The challenge TW faces is the same as the one that Tommy Burns faced which is to get us promoted. 

I don't think it's fair to criticise Clarke for what happened after he left. He was here to improve the club from the position it was in when he took over. It was never going to be a long term project for him as he had his sights set on a larger job which he gained due to his success with us. 

If he had stayed I think we could have been potential cup winners under his tenure but it wasn't to be. 

Williamson won the cup but nearly got us relegated. Shiels won the cup and had us safe from relegation and brought youngsters into the team but still got sacked. 

It is very difficult to compare managers over a longer time frame as they are working under different constraints. Shiels did a very good job considering MJ was Chairman. Clarke did an excellent job under Bowie and TW is doing a good job so far.

If I had to rate the Managers that have worked under Bowie Clarke would be the best. It's early days for TW but he is doing a good job so far. Shiels would be the best manager under Johnston's tenure simply for the cup win. 

Edited by MarkyMark
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19 hours ago, Zorro said:

When I reminisce about Clarke’s era all I’m going to think about is a failure to capitalise, a failure to prepare for when he was gone, a failure to build a squad and a failure to develop any youth players. Third place doesn’t really do it for me. Nobody ever remembers who won the bronze medal at the Olympics. 
 

 

Jeez. Clarke was first team manager for 18 months and won over 50% of the matches he took charge for. I think we can reminisce about a few positives there.

If we judge managers solely on what happened in the 18 months after we left then Lee McCulloch is our greatest manager since Willie Waddell. 

Edited by Ayrshire Killie
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19 hours ago, Zorro said:

When I reminisce about Clarke’s era all I’m going to think about is a failure to capitalise, a failure to prepare for when he was gone, a failure to build a squad and a failure to develop any youth players. Third place doesn’t really do it for me. Nobody ever remembers who won the bronze medal at the Olympics. 
 

 

Read that back again Zorro. You can't possibly mean that. 

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There are elements of truth in what Zorro is saying but context is lacking. Sure, finishing third isn't the be-all-and-end-all but doing it with a squad that looked destined for relegation is very impressive. 

Under Clarke we made the decision to go all in on his methods. That meant predominantly ignoring young players and focusing the clubs energy solely on the first team squad. Given our record of producing young players its a pragmatic decision. The issue is that once Clarke left we had no idea how to carry it on.

Many said at the time that the Alessio appointment was an exciting gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. We needed to capatalise on being Scotland's third biggest side by backing the manager big. We failed Alessio with our delay in his appointment, the huge delay in giving him help in terms of transfers and a lack of money. That meant we had a manager who had vast experience in coaching and making players better but who wasn't able to bring the right personalities in to complement his talents. True that a lot of our players were on the way down but if we'd brought in four or five players that all bought into the managers style of coaching the unrest likely wouldn't have been so huge and debilitating. 

We then took the players side and the rest is history. Appointing Dyer permanently is a massive stain on Fowler and Bowie's copy book. 

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27 minutes ago, Bhamkillieken said:

how many times have you watched the 1997 and 2012 cup finals? I know in my house it comes out a few times a year, mainly with my old man after a couple of drinks.

as good as it was, i have never rewatched any of the clarke games. i was very happy when SSC was in charge, but it is about winning things.

Tbf I've watched some of those wins over Rangers multiple times too. 

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23 minutes ago, Bhamkillieken said:

how many times have you watched the 1997 and 2012 cup finals? I know in my house it comes out a few times a year, mainly with my old man after a couple of drinks.

as good as it was, i have never rewatched any of the clarke games. i was very happy when SSC was in charge, but it is about winning things.

Good point made but when clarke was in charge went to games believing we were going to win no matter who we played  even the old firm .He was the reason my kids are now avid killie fans and thats why the clarke years were important to me .My first game was when we got promoted against hamilton i was primary seven and was swaying to be a glory hunter like all my friends but my dad took me along ro that game and it changed my mindset .Without clarke at the helm and the joys we had with him even though limited success regarding cups etc my kids would not be near rugby park as it felt like a chore 

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On 9/22/2021 at 4:52 PM, Zorro said:

I had a great time while SC was boss but being able to tease rangers fans on a Monday because we’d beat them to finish behind them in the league, will always rank below teasing Celtic fans because we beat them to win the cup. 
 

In fact Bobby and Marko scoring to win at ibrox on our first game back there, Ally Mitchell stopping 10 in a row, our 2-0 win at Parkhead all rate higher than any single result under SC. 

22 months unbeaten at home they were before that slow motion BW winner. Marco the surprise of the day in midfield. 

Mitchel winner ended 10 in a row but as I said before we needed the points.

As much as TW era brought success I really liked the Alex Totten era that finished. We brought in top players and then with BW we kept doing it and had a damn good team. 

SC did nothing effectively as 3rd is a place in Europe and he left and we fell apart. He kind of had a short termism about the results that did not leave a lasting legacy. Did we get anyone on a long term contract to make some money or did all but Taylor leave for f**k all and him much less than we would have expected. 

People talk about fowler. Imagine we had the foresight to put JJ on a longer contract early. What about Findlay and O'Donnell the minute they showed they better long term than maybe anticipated. Clarke had no long term thinking. No one was coming in, no signings planned, no work done. We needed a fowler at least a year or more before he came in,

We can give clarke credit but him leaving left a vast gap in long term planning and recruitment. No Players lined up or options for the new manager presented. For all those who ask what Fowler does then look at what was not being done then. We were literally begging for signings but the manager had no options and no time to both train the players and look at new players. As much as anyone like AA, has connections, until they come in they do not start looking specifically. 

We are living in the short term planning of the SC era, especially if you take Dyer and player arrogance as consequences. 

Can someone please give Lee MCCulloch some credit. The best player signing window in years. SC did not do well with crap players, McCulloch brought in some quality but was not ready to deal with how frustrating management can be. 

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On 9/22/2021 at 8:38 PM, Thebigguy68 said:

Personal view on how folks get happiness watching killie. But for over 18 months under clarke, every second I believed in what he was doing and for the first time in my killie supporting career believed we had the best manager in the league and believed that anything was possible. All the teasing as a kid watching “s**te” as the old firm boys would say. Trawling the depths of the lowest league. It was worthwhile. We could give it back. That was the happiest I ever was and ever likely to be as a killie fan. We were the very best in Scotland for an extended period. Fantastic. 

Well said. First time ever in 50 yrs supporting Killie that I went to OF games confident of winning. Makes the fall from grace so much harder to accept.

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38 minutes ago, bgb02burns said:

Imagine we had the foresight to put JJ on a longer contract early. What about Findlay and O'Donnell the minute they showed they better long term than maybe anticipated.

Findlay signed a three-year contract in July 2018.

O’Donnell was under contract to 2020. After he left, he revealed that he had decided in January 2019 that he was leaving at the end of his contract.

Taylor had two years left on his contract when he was transferred.

Jones signed a contract extension after his first season (2016-17) and made it clear he wouldn’t be signing another extension after we turned down a firm offer from Rangers in 2018.

 

 

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2 hours ago, skygod said:

Findlay signed a three-year contract in July 2018.

O’Donnell was under contract to 2020. After he left, he revealed that he had decided in January 2019 that he was leaving at the end of his contract.

Taylor had two years left on his contract when he was transferred.

Jones signed a contract extension after his first season (2016-17) and made it clear he wouldn’t be signing another extension after we turned down a firm offer from Rangers in 2018.

 

 

Yeah but you got to tie them to more money on longer deals before other teams look. We been so short sighted with contracts over that period. 1 year is never enough. 
 

january 2019 is one year too late to be offering if you want him. Pretty sure how aspirations were not Motherwell. 

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16 hours ago, MarkyMark said:

You also have to remember where we before Clarke took over to gauge the level of his success. He took a team that was on the brink of relegation and had them in 3rd less than two seasons later. It showed what a good coach and manager could achieve in Scotland with a team of Kilmarnock's resources. He took a lot of players and improved them to the point that they gained international honours. Very few people would have been bold enough to predict what would have happened under Clarke. 

It is completely different under TW although I think there are some similarities in their personalities. We are in the second tier and rebuilding to get promoted. The challenge TW faces is the same as the one that Tommy Burns faced which is to get us promoted. 

I don't think it's fair to criticise Clarke for what happened after he left. He was here to improve the club from the position it was in when he took over. It was never going to be a long term project for him as he had his sights set on a larger job which he gained due to his success with us. 

If he had stayed I think we could have been potential cup winners under his tenure but it wasn't to be. 

Williamson won the cup but nearly got us relegated. Shiels won the cup and had us safe from relegation and brought youngsters into the team but still got sacked. 

It is very difficult to compare managers over a longer time frame as they are working under different constraints. Shiels did a very good job considering MJ was Chairman. Clarke did an excellent job under Bowie and TW is doing a good job so far.

If I had to rate the Managers that have worked under Bowie Clarke would be the best. It's early days for TW but he is doing a good job so far. Shiels would be the best manager under Johnston's tenure simply for the cup win. 

Well said.

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7 hours ago, bgb02burns said:

Yeah but you got to tie them to more money on longer deals before other teams look. We been so short sighted with contracts over that period. 1 year is never enough. 

There are fundamentals of our situation which you don’t seem to grasp.

1. Players will not sign long-term contracts because they want to retain the the option of leaving as free agents.

2. The club isn’t able to offer them enough money for them to give up this option.

3. Even if the club could offer enough money to persuade players to sign long-term contracts, we don’t want to commit our long-term future.

The players you wanted signed up on (relatively) lucrative long-term contracts could now have been performing in the Championship.

4. No other clubs in our position are handing out (relatively) lucrative long-term contracts.

There is not enough money in the Scottish game for clubs in our range to over-commit in their wage budgets beyond the short-term future. 

It’s easy after the event to say that we should have tied down X, Y and Z on long-term, (relatively) lucrative contracts. At the time though, how many other players would you have urged the club to give such contracts to? Brophy? Thomas? Kiltie?

However much we might like to hope that we are going to produce a great player who is signed on a long enough contract for us to get £5m or so for him, it’s not going to happen.

We will always sell for relative buttons because of where we are in the footballing hierarchy. The club which signs our player for £1m is the one which might cash in by selling on to a really big club.

Others and I have been critical of the club about its inability to tie down assets on longer term contracts but they rightly point out that it takes two to tango.

If the player won’t sign there is little you can do about it. And a player who can see bigger clubs queueing up for his signature is unlikely to resign.

There aren’t many Naismiths about...and even he probably wouldn’t have resigned if he knew how hard MJ was going to negotiate his transfer fee!

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18 hours ago, Cill Mheàrnaig said:

There are elements of truth in what Zorro is saying but context is lacking. Sure, finishing third isn't the be-all-and-end-all but doing it with a squad that looked destined for relegation is very impressive. 

Under Clarke we made the decision to go all in on his methods. That meant predominantly ignoring young players and focusing the clubs energy solely on the first team squad. Given our record of producing young players its a pragmatic decision. The issue is that once Clarke left we had no idea how to carry it on.

Many said at the time that the Alessio appointment was an exciting gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. We needed to capatalise on being Scotland's third biggest side by backing the manager big. We failed Alessio with our delay in his appointment, the huge delay in giving him help in terms of transfers and a lack of money. That meant we had a manager who had vast experience in coaching and making players better but who wasn't able to bring the right personalities in to complement his talents. True that a lot of our players were on the way down but if we'd brought in four or five players that all bought into the managers style of coaching the unrest likely wouldn't have been so huge and debilitating. 

We then took the players side and the rest is history. Appointing Dyer permanently is a massive stain on Fowler and Bowie's copy book. 

Great post. I love a bit of context, so here’s some of the stuff you left out. We brought in a man with extensive managerial and coaching experience at the top level in England, to take on the managerial “giants” of Murty, Lennon, Cathro et al. We didn’t get rid of McCulloch because we thought he’d assembled a bad squad, the consensus was that the squad was underperforming under him. Talking about underperforming- Aberdeen went from averaging around 75 points a season to just 67 to finish level with us on points. 
 

Since we’ve returned to the premier ten different clubs have finished third. Some of them have done it multiple times. Some of them have done it on smaller budgets and average crowds. Some of them had played in the lower leagues much more recently than we had. Most of them did it while still bringing through youth players. Each club had its own unique story, but we seem to be the only ones bigging up third place as being a golden era. It seems a bit small time and short sighted to me. 

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1 hour ago, skygod said:

There are fundamentals of our situation which you don’t seem to grasp.

1. Players will not sign long-term contracts because they want to retain the the option of leaving as free agents.

2. The club isn’t able to offer them enough money for them to give up this option.

3. Even if the club could offer enough money to persuade players to sign long-term contracts, we don’t want to commit our long-term future.

The players you wanted signed up on (relatively) lucrative long-term contracts could now have been performing in the Championship.

4. No other clubs in our position are handing out (relatively) lucrative long-term contracts.

There is not enough money in the Scottish game for clubs in our range to over-commit in their wage budgets beyond the short-term future. 

It’s easy after the event to say that we should have tied down X, Y and Z on long-term, (relatively) lucrative contracts. At the time though, how many other players would you have urged the club to give such contracts to? Brophy? Thomas? Kiltie?

However much we might like to hope that we are going to produce a great player who is signed on a long enough contract for us to get £5m or so for him, it’s not going to happen.

We will always sell for relative buttons because of where we are in the footballing hierarchy. The club which signs our player for £1m is the one which might cash in by selling on to a really big club.

Others and I have been critical of the club about its inability to tie down assets on longer term contracts but they rightly point out that it takes two to tango.

If the player won’t sign there is little you can do about it. And a player who can see bigger clubs queueing up for his signature is unlikely to resign.

There aren’t many Naismiths about...and even he probably wouldn’t have resigned if he knew how hard MJ was going to negotiate his transfer fee!

You forgot who’s going to commit their long term future when the manager won’t. Why would the next Naismith start his career with us if the manager won’t give them a chance?

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5 hours ago, Zorro said:

You forgot who’s going to commit their long term future when the manager won’t. Why would the next Naismith start his career with us if the manager won’t give them a chance?

I am glad you think I am clueless skygod but the point was the management structure had no short term planning, never mind medium to long term. 

Not just blaming Clarke, but his long term legacy has us relegated. As much as anyone values what he did that is quite simply a fact. 

I also thought we had the best squad of players I had seen in a long term when he took over and he just did what McCulloch could not.

Sc did great in charge, for a very short term. Neither him nor anyone at the club prepared for the future and we have never recovered. 


 

 

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23 minutes ago, bgb02burns said:

I am glad you think I am clueless skygod but the point was the management structure had no short term planning, never mind medium to long term. 

Not just blaming Clarke, but his long term legacy has us relegated. As much as anyone values what he did that is quite simply a fact. 

I also thought we had the best squad of players I had seen in a long term when he took over and he just did what McCulloch could not.

Sc did great in charge, for a very short term. Neither him nor anyone at the club prepared for the future and we have never recovered. 


 

 

To think I got excited when I saw had a reply. I thought someone was going to highlight some further context or explain why our third place was so much better than all the other third places. Disappointed now tbh. 

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