Kris Doolan always dreamed of one day managing Partick Thistle – but even he didn’t expect to be handed the reins at Firhill quite so early in his coaching career.
The Jags legend was appointed as Ian McCall’s successor on an interim basis after the now-former Thistle manager was relieved of his duties in the aftermath of Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to Rangers in the Scottish Cup.
Doolan himself only returned to Firhill at the tail end of last month as he joined the club’s youth coaching set-up but will today take charge of the first team as they head to Somerset Park, looking to maintain their push for the play-offs.
“It’s been a bit hectic but unfortunately that’s the way football seems to be,” Doolan said of his first week in charge. “It always seems to be 100 miles an hour. Ayr United is the only focus for us. We have to get ready for that game because it’s a massive game – every game in the Championship is the same.
“The players are very professional about their manner and the way they go about things. They are a credit to themselves and to the club with the way they have approached things because it has been tough.
“The players have been amazing: the full group but the senior players especially. They have pulled together and at the end of the day football is about players. To me, it’s about what is best for the club and people pay their money to come and see the players. That’s football.
“So it was important to me that the players get everything because at the end of the day we are just here to make sure they have what they need to be at their best on Saturday. That’s what we have tried to do.
“We have tried to prepare them as best we can for what’s coming at Ayr United. The players have taken a lot of ownership as well and hopefully they feel fully prepared coming into the game.”
Doolan and the Thistle players will be adopting something akin to tunnel vision until the end of the campaign, the 36-year-old says. He has received no long-term assurances from the board – nor does he want any.
“I wouldn’t entertain it,” Doolan replied when asked if he had discussed taking on the role on a permanent basis. “Right now there is too much at stake in terms of the Ayr United game. My focus has just been on settling things down as quickly as we could and thankfully the players are as professional as they are, which is great.
“They are a credit to the club and now everyone has to pull together because it’s not an easy situation, not at all. But I think this is the type of club that has been through tough things and has come together stronger.
“Right now I would just look to the Ayr United game. I’ve looked at it each day at a time and that is the way it will be – not even a game at a time, a day at a time.”
It was McCall that brought Doolan to Thistle all those years ago after the striker had caught the eye whilst playing for Auchinleck Talbot in the Juniors, and the new interim Thistle boss insists his relationship with his mentor hasn’t been damaged by recent events - adding that the pair shared a phone call on Monday.
“To me, he has been a mentor for my full career almost,” Doolan added. “It’s the same with Alan Archibald and Neil Scally [McCall’s assistants who were also sacked], they have all made an impact on my career.
“To be on the phone the next day, it just shows the type of person he is. The respect I have for him has no limits to be honest. We are gutted he’s away. It was the mark of the man that he was on the phone. Our relationship is as strong as it has always been and I love the guy to bits.
“What we spoke about will remain between myself and the gaffer, as I call him always – he demands that respect! It’s a conversation that the two of us had and it is nice that your relationship is as strong as that. You don’t always see that in football but he had a big impact on me and continues to have an impact on me as a person as well.”
Doolan certainly faces a tricky run of fixtures as he takes his first steps into management. All three of his first three games will be played away from home and with the Jags sitting a point outside the play-off positions, it’s fair to say he is preparing for something of a baptism of fire.
“It is,” Doolan concurred. “I’ve been flung in at the deep end but we are not a big club in terms of staff. It kind of falls to who’s next. I understand that’s how it works. But this is the club that I couldn’t not help.
“I have helped every time I have been here. My focus is the club I love as well. The same as Ian McCall, Archie – these are guys who love the football club and always have. So for me, it’s important that’s carried on in terms of not allowing it to spiral. But from my point of view the Ayr game is my priority.”
Those Jags supporters who make the journey to Ayr this afternoon will do so in the knowledge that they will experience a novelty. With no management experience to his name, no one can say for certain how the team will line up or what ‘Dools-ball’ looks like. The man himself – who will have a full complement of players to choose from with the exception of Brian Graham, who is serving a suspension – says it will be a case of evolution, not revolution.
“You can’t come in here and make too many changes, radical changes, I don’t think that’s the way to do it,” he reasoned. “I just think you’re holding the fort, you’re just making sure that players are prepared. We’re ready, we’re lucky we have a full squad [apart from Graham], which is brilliant.
“People are back from injury, there has been a good week of training, they have worked really hard and really well and we feel as if they are preparing well, so ultimately we’re looking forward to the game. And that’s how I feel, as do the players. They just want to get out on the pitch, they just want to be on the pitch, that’s what football players want to do
“This isn’t about me, this is about them. And I think we’ll get that performance, that level of enthusiasm, that energy and hopefully if we can maintain that, anything can happen.”
