The inept, hapless way a number of Championship clubs have gone about their business these last 12 months goes some way to explaining why they are there in the first place.
Sure, they are strapped for cash in the lower divisions, stretched to the limit and therefore more prone than most to human error, but last season’s catalogue of boardroom bungling takes a bit of beating.
It got off to an inauspicious start when Raith Rovers decided after one match to get rid of the manager, Ian Murray, who had taken them to the Premiership playoff final the previous season.
Pretty soon, Dunfermline were matching them for incompetence – not necessarily with the sacking of James McPake but with the appointment of a young successor, Michael Tidser, who lasted only 59 days.
Then there was Queen’s Park, who dismissed Callum Davidson a month after his team had beaten Rangers at Ibrox. On and off the pitch, the club went into freefall, losing their main financial backer, as well as any semblance of the ambition they had shown since turning professional.
Nor did it stop there. As the summer approached, an ‘administrative error’ led FIFA to ban Morton from registering players. And Hamilton were relegated amid a row over stadium ownership, which means that they and Clyde are ready to effectively swap grounds.
Brian Graham rejected a chance to become the permanent manager of Partick Thistle
New Douglas Park will host tenants Clyde next season as Hamilton plan a move to Broadwood
Ross County boss Don Cowie has kept his job despite their relegation from the Premiership
Last week, Partick Thistle continued the theme by contriving to lose the manager who had guided them so skilfully to the playoff semi-final in his capacity as interim boss.
Having been captain, top scorer, women’s manager and now successful first-team caretaker, Brian Graham was steeped in the Firhill club, but somehow they couldn’t sell him the job.
Graham said no, which doesn’t just mean that Thistle have lost a promising manager. They have, in all probability, lost a striker who was rattling in the goals and still has a year of his contract to run.
It is not exactly a flying start for Ian Baraclough, who came in as sporting director in April. In the end, Thistle (who also spoke to Morton’s Dougie Imrie) settled for Mark Wilson, who had been alongside Graham during that temporary period.
All in all, they don’t sound like a club with their ducks in a row, ready to go one better this season than they did last. The impression is that they and too many others in the Championship don’t have the wherewithal off the pitch to fulfil their potential.
At least Dunfermline seem to have emerged from their mid-season brain freeze, and indeed the apathy of recent years, by welcoming new owners who have made Neil Lennon a permanent appointment and promised to give him the backing he needs.
Assuming the US analytics firm who took over in January do not repeat the mistakes made in their first transfer window – a handful of data-based project signings did for Tidser – there is no reason why the Fife club cannot become promotion challengers under Lennon.
If they do, they will have two or three obvious rivals to contend with, all of whom have a plan that involves joined-up thinking, a vision from top to bottom and a decent transfer budget into the bargain.
Ayr United are among them. Their manager, Scott Brown, seemed to cast doubt on his future after their playoff defeat by Thistle, but he is still there, as are the people upstairs who are getting so much right at Somerset Park.
So, too, will St Johnstone and Ross County be among the contenders, if only because they have just come out of the Premiership. They have got a lot wrong in recent years, and have paid the price with relegation, but they have a clear idea of what they want to be and how they want do it.
In an attempt to rebuild themselves on and off the pitch, St Johnstone appointed Simo Valakari last October and are to be commended for standing by him. It might not work, but he is central to a project that will be given every chance.
So, too, have County kept faith in Don Cowie, despite his team’s catastrophic end to the season, which culminated in a playoff defeat by Livingston. As ever, club owner Roy MacGregor will provide the funds needed to turn it around.
Reports suggest that MacGregor is intending to recruit former County and Inverness manager John Robertson as an assistant manager. The idea is to provide Cowie with an experienced sounding board, as Jim Duffy will for Sean Crighton at Queen’s Park.
Rather than get rid of the manager, the thinking in both cases is to give him the best chance of succeeding. It makes perfect sense in a division not known in recent years for its rational thinking. Who knows, maybe it will catch on.
