THERE was an outpouring of sympathy for Stuart Kettlewell throughout Scottish football last month when the Motherwell manager revealed he was standing down at Fir Park because of the toll that fan abuse was starting to take on his family.
The flak which those who occupy dugouts around the country are subjected to by their own supporters on a weekly basis, though, has not abated any since.
If anything, it has intensified.
There was a furious backlash to the shock Scottish Gas Scottish Cup defeat which Rangers suffered at the hands of Queen’s Park at Ibrox on Sunday afternoon.
Philippe Clement had to be escorted out of his stadium by security staff following the embarrassing 1-0 loss and videos of the vile slurs which were aimed in his direction as he walked to his car have gone viral online.
The day before it had been his Hamilton counterpart John Rankin who had been targeted by his side’s fans as the Championship club were knocked out of the competition by their Premiership rivals St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park after conceding a goal with three minutes remaining.
A small group in the away end unfurled banners which read: “Three years of failure – Rankin out!”
For Gerry Strain, the Hamilton director of football, it was a further indication of the intense pressure which managers are under in the modern game and an illustration of the difficult, often toxic, working conditions they are forced to endure in this social media age.
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“It definitely seems to be more widespread than before,” he said. “It's not a unique Hamilton problem. Neil Lennon had it when he was at Celtic. Fans broke Covid orders to go and throw missiles at the team buses. Giovanni van Bronckhorst had it at Rangers, so did Michael Beale and Clement is getting it now as well.”
Strain can, after a run of four defeats which has left Hamilton in second bottom spot in the second tier table and facing a fight for their survival, fully understand the frustrations of their ultra passionate followers.
However, he respectfully disagrees with the assertion that Rankin has presided over “three years of failure” and stressed the New Douglas Park club would, despite the unhappiness that exists in certain quarters, be standing by a man who has achieved much during his time in charge.
“John has got a 44.5 per cent win rate, he's won the Challenge Cup up and he got us promotion to the Championship at the first time of asking,” he said. “On our day, we look, although we’ve yet to take points from Livingston, Ayr and Falkirk, as though we can beat any team in the league. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have John.
“Thankfully, our board and football management team are very much aligned and work with a mutual trust of each other. We also have to bring strong and continued financial stability to Hamilton by creating new and innovative revenue streams which have never existed before. What we're trying to do is achieve small percentages of growth week on week, month on month.
“Then we have to get back to the Scottish Premiership. The only way we believe that we can do that is by having strong foundations, a commitment to our vision and John being here on a long-term basis. So he's not going anywhere.”
Those who agitate for change are often unaware of the bigger picture. Addressing Hamilton’s current dip in form and the fan unrest which has arisen because of it, Strain indicated that there have been issues behind the scenes which have impacted on the side on the pitch.
“There's two trains of thought on how Hamilton would do in the Championship this season,” he said. “My own personal ambitions and expectations weren't exactly aligned with the reality we face.
“We have had to walk away from six permanent transfers, five in the summer and one in January as we cannot at this stage compete with some of the money being spent or being offered from by clubs in our league with significantly higher fan bases and larger commercial incomes.
“At present, our CAS Elite Academy, which is a unique and precious entity for our supporters, directors and our brand, costs in the region of £600,000 to £700,000 a year to run. We need to have stringent budgets in place when it comes to our first team expenditure, to support this youth project and the infrastructure that it demands.
“Having said that, I genuinely thought we had assembled a squad that could get us in the play-offs, to give a good fist of things and maybe secure back-to-back promotions.
“But things happen within a football club, which are sometimes outwith your control, that you have to address as the season goes on. One of them was moving the captain (Scott Martin) out of the club on deadline day.
“There was a perception around that. You don't know what you're doing, you're getting rid of your captain. It certainly wasn’t a popular decision amongst sections of our supporters.
“But you don't transfer your captain, someone who had played 197 matches for the club and been a tremendous servant, on deadline day for no reason or without having fully considered every angle, the pros and the cons, as well as the inevitable backlash that’s likely to follow.
“It was an important transition, however. It was vital that it was done correctly and professionally to enable Scott to move and achieve security for himself and his family and also to allow Hamilton to continue to build towards the next stages of our development in alignment with our vision and plan.”
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The current custodians of the venerable South Lanarkshire institution – 1874 Holdings Ltd, who are headed by chief executive Seref Zengin, took over in 2023 - always anticipated the 2024/25 campaign would have its challenging moments when they won promotion via the play-offs.
But they are working to improve the club off the park as well as on it and regard retaining Rankin as integral to their ambitious plans.
“Before the new owners took over, you couldn't buy Accies merchandise in the shops, there was no club shop, the supporters never really got a say in terms of what they’d like to see us provide, have on sale or platforms they’d like us to tap into what happened,” said Strain.
“Compare and contrast that to what the new owner has done. He's established a decent club shop with some unique Accies memorabilia and sportswear via his KURT sportswear brand, who sponsor Accies.
“He's put a lot of first team kit in, he's put a large range of quality training kit in and he’s established an online store which so far has shipped Accies memorabilia and club products to many different continents across the globe. People can now easily purchase Accies merchandise. But it's taking time to make all these necessary changes.
“Ultimately, upon acquiring the stadium from its current owners we want to try and build a hotel at the stadium opposite the main stand. The occupancy rate in hotels in Hamilton is 98 per cent. There are not a lot of hotels in the area, but you've got tremendous road links to the M74 and the M8 and rail links as well. So we feel there's a strong business case for a hotel to be built.
“That will involve accommodation, football, tours of the Scottish Football Museum. We’ll be mixing a cultural experience of Scotland, Scottish football and education at the same time as taking the opportunity to assess a whole new bank of playing talent.
“Essentially, it's a proper international football experience. We'll be the first club in Scotland to roll this out in this fashion. Bit by bit, a proper, professional, sustainable environment that will grow with us as the club is being built.”
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Strain continued: “In some respects, John came in at the worst possible time back in June 2022. The club had not long been relegated, there was no real feel-good factor and the squad he inherited was largely loan players and academy players. Several key experienced players were suffering significant long-term injuries.
“After another relegation, the new owner came in, assessed the situation and started to lay down his vision for the club from grassroots to the first team, for on-field and off-field growth.
“This was the first time that John started to have autonomy over player training schedules and personnel appointments within the football department. He actually started to decide who came into his dressing room and who had to leave. We arguably have a better squad now than we did have when he first joined the club
“This was only 19 months ago. Since then we’ve been promoted. In some areas, the progress has been slow, maybe even painful at times, but things in the football department have always progressed steadily. There’s been absolutely no regression.
“We've got somebody in John who came in for a relative pittance of a wage initially, something which has now been rectified, and he has devoted himself to the club and the job and he’s done so with total professionalism and integrity. He's given the club everything.
“John is absolutely crucial to what we’re doing and where we need to get to. I'm the director of football or sporting director, but the manager is the leader in my department. Within the football corridors, it’s his voice, his decisions, his structure, his tactics and it's his players.
“He has to have the final say on everything football before it gets to me to sign off because it's his blueprint, aligned to our combined vision. We need to provide the tools to take it there. It's my job to oversee that and empower him so he can go and do the best he can.”
The job that Rankin is doing at Hamilton might not be to the liking of the New Douglas Park boo boys at this particular moment in time – but Strain revealed that a former England manager, a former Scotland manager and several former Premier League managers have given his work a high-profile seal of approval.
“My sanity check is speaking to people all over the country and often Europe,” he said. “I'm currently doing my Masters degree in Sports Directorship through VSI Executive Education between Manchester and Wembley.
“Last week I was in a room with some really high-profile football figures at one of the seminars. These guys are speaking formally about the strong characteristics of my manager.
“So I'm getting reassurance from people outwith Scotland about both what he's doing and how he's doing it. I've got the privilege of having an external appraisal from people who don't necessarily know John but who look at his work and are impressed. As I say, we consider ourselves fortunate to have him and he’s not going anywhere.”
