Which team in Scottish Football has had the most fraud managers?

[Ludo*1]

1 hour ago, Gibby82 said:

Was Schuster not linked before Bonetti was appointed, when Jocky Scott was binned? Sure I remember it being in the paper a few days after we lost the last derby that season, 99/00 season?

Think you're right.

[jamamafegan]

45 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

It also helps having friends in the media 

He might have been a failure but someone like Cathro was never going to be given a fair chance because he wasn’t part of the old boys club

Similar with Ange, despite him having both domestic and international success you still have people like Chick Young in the media trying to push John Hughes for the Celtic job.

I refuse to believe Scottish football isn’t attractive to foreign coaches

If the Hibs job becomes available I think it would be pretty much a guarantee a lot of foreign coaches would be extremely interested, not just because of the club but also the opportunity to live in Edinburgh/Scotland

Totally agree with you, I've always thought that Hearts and Hibs are attractive jobs for a foreign manager because of that very reason. I think both clubs are selling themselves sort in that regard, you look at both teams past managers from the past 20 years or so and it's miserable reading.

Completely overlooked big Ange - he's a fine example of what a foreign guy can bring. He's signing all these guys from his side of the world, players who bring something different to the game here. For Celtic the strategy is working domestically and if Ange gets them performing better in Europe people will be singing his praises.

[Andy_K_97]

I can think of a few in my time. I started going to games at the tail end of the Totten era and that was followed by stability under firstly Williamson and then Jefferies. Things were still fine until Allan Johnston came along - he clearly was at a level above his capabilities, but he towers over Gary Locke. I've no idea how Locke kept us up at the tail end of 2014/15 as his signings were utter dross - that Killie team in 2015/16 is easily one of the worst I've ever seen, and it's telling that Locke's win %age was 25.58%. Along came Lee Clark who talked a good game, somehow lasted a year (with a 22.73% win ratio) and then left to join Bury, claiming that bigger and better things were on the horizon down in Greater Manchester. Well, I suppose if helping a club in dire financial straits quicken their eventual demise counts as bigger and better things, then I suppose he was right...

We then promote Lee McCulloch to manager from assistant, and things are dire as we lose 1-0 to Ayr at Somerset and look like a pub team in comparison to Ayr, who were up for it that night. After a dismal run and a defeat at home to Ross County where the fans are so resigned to relegation that they barely bother to boo the team off the park, McCulloch leaves with a 26.67% win ratio. Steve Clarke takes over and we have the best season and a half I think it's possible for any club outwith the old filth to have - and then we have the Angelo Alessio debacle. Personally, I'd have binned him after the Nomads catastrofuck, but he did stabilise things and give us a fair few clean sheets. Despite this, the football was as boring as you'll get and things obviously weren't right behind the scenes. Angelo left with a 36.36% win ratio, and I think Alex Dyer got lucky in a couple of ways regarding the circumstances of getting the job and then keeping it. The board should never have appointed him past his first 3 games in temporary charge with the performances, but they gave him until the end of the season and with the pandemic hitting he then had the opportunity to build the team in his own image. How I wish he hadn't. Had fans been allowed into stadiums in 2020/21 I think the board would have been forced into binning him around October/November instead of December, and that might have allowed someone else time to steady the ship. As it was, in came Tommy the dinosaur and down we went. Since then we've binned him and have ended up with McInnes. A good few underwhelming managers in that list, with a couple of absolute frauds thrown in for good measure too.

[Toby]

Since 2000, Morton’s managers have been as follows:

Ian McCall- hands tied by the board

Allan Evans- hands tied by the board

Ally Maxwell- hands tied by the board, but claimed he was owed money he wasn’t entitled to further down the line, and refused to play to take a young, error-prone goalkeeper out of the firing line before making a substitute appearance as an outfield player. Fraud.

Peter Cormack- arrived as we were coming out of administration so didn’t stand a chance.

Dave McPherson- useless. Fraud.

John McCormack- took us out of the Third Divison at the first attempt but you can’t overlook the 2003-04 collapse. Fraud.

Jim McInally- three attempts to get us out of the Second Division before being really found out in our first season up and getting bagged. Fraud.

Davie Irons- saved us in our first season, had a decent season after that and was shat on by his successor, manoeuvring his way into his job.

James Grady- little rat. Fraud.

Allan Moore- spent a lot of money, failed to take us up and then died on his arse when the budgets were cut. Not having him as a fraud though.

Kenny Shiels- the most humiliating relegation in our history and 10-2. Fraud of the highest order.

Jim Duffy- great guy. Stabilised the club and took us back up immediately. Won’t hear a bad word about him.

Raymond McKinnon- it worked out well in the end, because he took Falkirk down, but definite fraud.

Jonaton Johansson- eye bleeding football and a Z-list celebrity wife who had too much to say on Twitter when he came under criticism. Kept us up but threw a tantrum and resigned. Fraud.

David Hopkin- arsehole of a guy, who saw himself as bigger than the club. Everyone had such big hopes for him because he was a Morton fan, but we were well rid. Fraud.

Anton McElhone- not even a qualified manager but steadied the ship at a point we were in turmoil, when he didn’t even want the job. Good guy.

Gus MacPherson- kept us up, but the football was appalling and relegation was inevitable last season before he was canned. Fraud.

Dougie Imrie- has done a fantastic job.

I make that ten frauds this century from eighteen (Maxwell, McPherson, McCormack, McInally, Grady, Shiels, McKinnon, Johansson, Hopkin and MacPherson).

Three who didn’t stand a chance (McCall, Evans and Cormack), two who came up a bit short (Irons and Moore). One good guy (McElhone) and two successes (Duffy and Imrie so far).

A 55.56% hit rate for fraud managers this century’s quite some going.

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, Ludo*1 said:

Think you're right.

Apparently you turned down Raymond Domenech too, who won the World Cup with France 6 years later.

https://www.football.co.uk/news/the-forgotten-story-of-when-diego-maradona-signed-for/177804/

Edited January 3, 2023 by RandomGuy.

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, jamamafegan said:

Totally agree with you, I've always thought that Hearts and Hibs are attractive jobs for a foreign manager because of that very reason. I think both clubs are selling themselves sort in that regard, you look at both teams past managers from the past 20 years or so and it's miserable reading.

I’m not a Hearts fans but if your gripe is lack of foreign managers I’ve no idea why you’re bringing them into it.

Using your 20 year timeframe they’ve had 8 non-U.K. managers.

[Billy Jean King]

6 hours ago, ATLIS said:

I'd usually say it is but he refused to even return Fleetwood's call when they thought they could easily take him  From the sounds of it a few bigger clubs down south couldn't even get him to listen. 

I get the feeling it's not about money for him, and he's just appreciating getting to do a job with us. One of they very rare folk in football that couldn't care about money, lucky for us as we're a club with next to none  

He doesn't appear to care about money possibly because he has tons of it stashed away in some offshore tax haven ???

[Mark Connolly]

Our record since Jim McLean isn’t tremendous tbh.

His immediate replacement won the Scottish Cup, the only thing Jim hadn’t, but nearly got us relegated the same season, something which we achieved the year after. McNamara was probably the most successful in terms of results, until he decided he was better off selling the team and taking a cut of the cash. 

Levein, Houston and Tommy McLean were pretty good, but for each one of them you have a Laszlo, Brewster or Chisholm. And that fucking arsehole McCall.

[craigkillie]

On 02/01/2023 at 20:11, dregs 83 said:

Lee Johnson is the latest in a long line of Hibs managers who strikes me as an absolute charlatan. It got me thinking as to which Scottish club has had the most managers who turned out to be certified frauds in recent times (say since the turn of the century), as the Hibees hit rate seems to be pretty damn impressive.

We’ve had a fair few through the doors at Tannadice in recent years, but I still don’t think we top the tree. If I had to do a non scientific top five I would say

1. Hibs

2. Dundee

3. Rangers (old and new)

4. United

5. Joint Aberdeen and Killie

Skewed to show teams who have predominantly been in the premiership over the last 25 years(happy to be enlightened).

In my entire time watching Killie, I can only think of three managers who could fall into the "fraud" category, which are Locke, Alessio and Dyer. We've had other managers who haven't done well for us, but I wouldn't call them frauds, it just hasn't worked out for them.

[PSJ.84]

2 hours ago, Toby said:

 

James Grady- little rat. 

 

True

[hk blues]

On 03/01/2023 at 04:11, dregs 83 said:

Lee Johnson is the latest in a long line of Hibs managers who strikes me as an absolute charlatan. It got me thinking as to which Scottish club has had the most managers who turned out to be certified frauds in recent times (say since the turn of the century), as the Hibees hit rate seems to be pretty damn impressive.

We’ve had a fair few through the doors at Tannadice in recent years, but I still don’t think we top the tree. If I had to do a non scientific top five I would say

1. Hibs

2. Dundee

3. Rangers (old and new)

4. United

5. Joint Aberdeen and Killie

Skewed to show teams who have predominantly been in the premiership over the last 25 years(happy to be enlightened).

This guy alone should have Utd top of your tree -

[The Wrong Car]

18 hours ago, TAFKAC said:

Impressively, this also misses out John Murphy. He replaced David Hay at the end of the 2008/09 season but was then replaced by Bollan. Fairly certain, he didn't even manage a game...

I might be wrong but did he not take charge of a cup game against Albion Rovers and had the Italian physio as assistant? It might have been the game that Ewan Moyes scored an absolute peach of an own goal

[Durnford]

On 03/01/2023 at 08:51, ATLIS said:

We've had a good rollercoaster:

2003, we appoint British football's first Brazilian coach, a guy that coached Ronaldo and Ronaldinho the Brazil youth teams. He resigns after 9 games. Remarkably David Hay takes over that side and wins the League Cup, and promptly leaves the club at the end of his contract. 

Allan Preston steps in and is sacked with a 22% win rate and 7 defeats in a row. Richard Gough takes over and we stay up by way of Hassan Kachloul somehow. Gough then resigns.

Surely we've learned our lesson right? Nope. Paul Lambert takes over as player manager, a guy that's played with Celtic, Borussia Dortmund and a Champions League winner. He never intended to play for us, yet makes 7 appearances in his 32 game spell. 15.63% win rate. One of the all time worst top flight showings by any club in Scotland. 

Relegation should give us some stability and a base to build from... right? From 2006-2009 7 different people had taken charge of first team affairs in one way or another at Livingston. Roughly one every 5 months or so. 

Batshit Italian time. If it wasn't bad enough that we had spun the managerial carousel into hyperdrive, we had some Italian spice in the mix too. A group of Italians who come in making grand claims about Livingston as Scotland's third force. They install their own man, Roberto Landi who gets the sack after losing 2-1 to East Stirlingshire in the Scottish Cup after 5 months. He leaves with a 55% win rate and a manager of the month trophy for August.  In the middle of this we go into financial turmoil, decide it's funny not to pay our bills. Get our power cut off, Massone calls for the fans to raise funds. £149.50 is raised towards the £32,000 bill. 

Landi's replacement? Paul Hegarty, who is sacked without even being told. Literally locked out the stadium by Massone. The official line was that he was 'suspended' by the club. Massone perhaps ahead of his time claims it would've been best to take the club 'to the wall' and restart as the same club but with zero debts.

In a face saving quote he says "No, the debts would have to be paid, especially in a small working community" - how admirable(?). Oh wait, he also says this " The truth is that there are other plans. Livingston will have to remain a small club and the stadium will become a big shopping centre.". He somehow manages to also come out with this "I had decided to say nothing until today mainly for respect towards the Livingston supporters who loved me and who are still the vast majority."

With the Italians gone you'd think maybe, just maybe there'd be some stability? Finally? Well, we've been demoted to the third tier (again ahead of our time apparently) and get back to back promotions/titles under Gary Bollan. 2012 beckons and he's sacked. From 2012-2014 we send the carousel back into hyperdrive and see 6 managers take the first team within a two year spell. 

A spell from John Hughes, a P&B all time favourite in these threads calls to us. Recently sacked from Hibs, he seems like a decent enough candidate. He talks about building long term. Tells a fan if he doesn't like his football then to go shopping with their wife on Saturdays from now on. The football incidentally was eye-bleeding. He leaves for Hartlepool after 9 months. 

Gareth Evans, sacked after 3 months. Richie Burke, gone after 7. Even John McGlynn survives only just over a year.

Player manager Mark Burchill seems to just about get by, we have a great escape season and win the Challenge Cup which was decent. Sacked after a year with us hanging about the bottom end of the table. 

Uninspiringly he's replaced by his assistant, David Hopkin who promptly takes us down following an all-time disasterclass playoff performance where we lose to Stranraer 5-2 in the first leg. All but done right? No. An 89th minute goal and a 94th minute goal see us draw the tie level. To then collapse and lose two goals and get emptied down to League 1. The main stand is filled with abuse towards the team and Hopkin, Hopkin is told to never show his face at the club again by some fans  

Fans are raging at the fact that he's then appointed manager on a full time basis. We then go on a fairy-tale romp to win League 1 and then shitfest our way to winning the playoffs. Right. Eventually stability, right? Naw. Hopkin decides his work here is done and just fucks off with no job in place. 

Step forward the 4-4-Kenny Formation. Kenny Miller ladies and gentlemen. A very odd period for us where it looks as though we're destined to go down. The interview process came down to 2 candidates, Kenny Miller and Gary Holt. We went with Kenny Miller due to his ability to be a player as well as a manager, we then ask him about 3 months in to stop playing, and he says no. So we just end up going back to Holt....?

We eventually do get our stability (so far) under Martindale who replaces Holt at least. As of a few days ago Martindale has become one of only 4 Livi managers to manage a spell containing 4 different years. Ray Stewart 97-00, Jim Leishman 00-03, Gary Bollan 09-12, Martindale 20-23

A greenie just for saving me a sh#t load of typing - now back to therapy 

[Stylish Kid]

Hmm so thinking back to the Romanov Era.... 

 

Again my point about someone else being a front for picking the team stands, but....

 

Rix - over-promoted coach.... Plus the optics/issues of a previous conviction....

Malofeev - actually got a mention in Jonathan Wilson's excellent ""inverting the pyramid" as being an innovator in maybe the 70s? I'm assuming from his CV at Dynamo Minsk. But by the early 00s he looked like the Soviet-era relic that he was

Steven Frail - A coach promoted. Team matched his name

Honourable mention - Rima the physio with her magic stick 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[VincentGuerin]

Disagree with a lot of people's definition of 'fraud'. Seems a lot of folk just applying it to any manager who is/was shite or did a bad job at their club.

I think there has to be an element of mis-placed hype around a coach for him to be a fraud.

For me, the clear modern Scottish winner is Alex McLeish. The luckiest manager of all time.

-----At this point I get carried away with my hatred of this man's spawny-as-f**k career, skip to end for TL;DR------------

A good first season at Motherwell, finishing second in the league. But this has to be contextualised by the absolutely bizarre situation in Scotland at that time of Celtic playing at Hampden and coming out of the episode where the club nearly died. Dundee United got themselves relegated, while Aberdeen got themselves into a relegation play-off, and Hearts only stayed up on the last day of the season. Of course finishing second with Motherwell is good, but it comes with heavy caveats. It was a weird season in a weird time, and their 54 points would not have been enough to even qualify for Europe for the rest of the century, never mind finish second.

Then he went to Hibs where they had the money to skoosh the First Division and come back up to the SPL with the likes of Suazee and Latapy. They chucked some cash around and there was a lot of hype. But, ultimately, they finished third with fewer points than Levein's Hearts side managed. They also got to a cup final and got pummeled by Celtic, like loads of other teams.

Then onto Rangers, where his cup runneth over with jammyness.

Firstly, the cup double in 2002. Winning the Scottish Cup, fair enough. But that League Cup was won due to the Konterman thunderbolt in the semi against Celtic. Completely out-of-character for the player, and in a game Rangers were hugely second-best. They played a Scottish Cup semi and a League Cup final against lower-league opponents.

Then 2002-03. Peak spawniness. Rangers get emptied out of Europe at the first hurdle by Czech giants Viktoria Zizkov, in what seems like a disaster. But it turns into the best thing to ever happen to Eck's career, as Rangers go on to win the title by a goal from a clearly-superior Celtic team, against whom they have a losing record, but who spent the season going all over Europe playing UEFA Cup games against good teams while Rangers were at home with their feet up. Anyone who ever trots out the 'the best team always wins the league' line does not recall this season.

But it gets better than that for Eck! Hartson pulls his injury-time penalty wide in the League Cup final and it's another jammy trophy win for McLeish and a pretty easy Scottish Cup run sees them complete the most ill-deserved treble of all time.

2003-04 things balance out a bit with Eck's Sticky Buns losing to Celtic five times, finishing miles off it in the league, and getting thoroughly emptied in both cup and Europe. But, wait, he's found his magic lamp in time for 2004-05!

After again making a c**t of Europe, Eck might be coming under pressure. But his spawniness holds with the title race coming to the wire. Rangers are given an inexplicable two points at Tynecastle as Hugh Dallas fails to give Hearts the most obvious penalty of all time before the infamous Andy Davis incident wins it, giving Rangers two points that ultimately see them over the line after Celtic manage to lose two goals in the last minute of the season (while Rangers play out an Austria v West Germany-style walking-pace 1-0 win over Hibs, whom the result also suits). But it doesn't matter how jammy they are, Eck has now won two leagues. It's incredible!

Then in 2005-06, despite coming third in a two-horse race, Eck salvages his Rangers reputation by somehow getting out of a Champions League group (becoming the first Scottish side to do so) with ONE win in six games. If the lad fell off a skyscraper, he'd land on the back of a lorry carrying mattresses.

Then of course onto the Scotland job, where Smith had left the team on a bit of a roll and he just had to keep things going.

This then leaves Eck with the status of wise old man and the ability to go down to England and get jobs at Villa, Birmingham, etc. But the truth is that he's the fucking jammiest manager to ever walk the face of the planet. At every turn things have been in his favour and the achievements he's had have usually been exaggerated or come with caveats.

TL;DR - A fucking fraud whose entire managerial career is built on being jammy and/or over-rated.

Edited January 4, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[Stylish Kid]

6 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

 

Then onto Rangers, where his cup runneth over with jammyness.

 

Great post. Worth it just for this

I like your approach to it. I have at least one other in mind who I'll post about later...

[lennyzer0]

1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

Disagree with a lot of people's definition of 'fraud'. Seems a lot of folk just applying it to any manager who is/was shite or did a bad job at their club.

I think there has to be an element of mis-placed hype around a coach for him to be a fraud.

For me, the clear modern Scottish winner is Alex McLeish. The luckiest manager of all time.

-----At this point I get carried away with my hatred of this man's spawny-as-f**k career, skip to end for TL;DR------------

A good first season at Motherwell, finishing second in the league. But this has to be contextualised by the absolutely bizarre situation in Scotland at that time of Celtic playing at Hampden and coming out of the episode where the club nearly died. Dundee United got themselves relegated, while Aberdeen got themselves into a relegation play-off, and Hearts only stayed up on the last day of the season. Of course finishing second with Motherwell is good, but it comes with heavy caveats. It was a weird season in a weird time.

Then he went to Hibs where they had the money to skoosh the First Division and come back up to the SPL with the likes of Suazee and Latapy. They chucked some cash around and there was a lot of hype. But, ultimately, they finished third with fewer points than Levein's Hearts side managed. They also got to a cup final and got pummeled by Celtic, like loads of other teams.

Then onto Rangers, where his cup runneth over with jammyness.

Firstly, the cup double in 2002. Winning the Scottish Cup, fair enough. But that League Cup was won due to the Konterman thunderbolt in the semi against Celtic. Completely out-of-character for the player, and in a game Rangers were hugely second-best. They played a Scottish Cup semi and a League Cup final against lower-league opponents.

Then 2002-03. Peak spawniness. Rangers get emptied out of Europe at the first hurdle by Czech giants Viktoria Zizkov, in what seems like a disaster. But it turns into the best thing to ever happen to Eck's career, as Rangers go on to win the title by a goal from a clearly-superior Celtic team, against whom they have a losing record, but who spent the season going all over Europe playing UEFA Cup games against good teams while Rangers were at home with their feet up. Anyone who ever trots out the 'the best team always wins the league' line does not recall this season.

But it gets better than that for Eck! Hartson pulls his injury-time penalty wide in the League Cup final and it's another jammy trophy win for McLeish and a pretty easy Scottish Cup run sees them complete the most ill-deserved treble of all time.

2003-04 things balance out a bit with Eck's Sticky Buns losing to Celtic five times, finishing miles off it in the league, and getting thoroughly emptied in both cup and Europe. But, wait, he's found his magic lamp in time for 2004-05!

After again making a c**t of Europe, Eck might be coming under pressure. But his spawniness holds with the title race coming to the wire. Rangers are given an inexplicable two points at Tynecastle as Hugh Dallas fails to give Hearts the most obvious penalty of all time before the infamous Andy Davis incident wins it, giving Rangers two points that ultimately see them over the line after Celtic manage to lose two goals in the last minute of the season. But it doesn't matter how jammy they are, Eck has now won two leagues. It's incredible!

Then in 2005-06, despite coming third in a two-horse race, Eck salvages his Rangers reputation by somehow getting out of a Champions League group (becoming the first Scottish side to do so) with ONE win in six games. If the lad fell off a skyscraper, he'd land on the back of a lorry carrying mattresses.

Then of course onto the Scotland job, where Smith had left the team on a bit of a roll and he just had to keep things going.

This then leaves Eck with the status of wise old man and the ability to go down to England and get jobs at Villa, Birmingham, etc. But the truth is that he's the fucking jammiest manager to ever walk the face of the planet. At every turn things have been in his favour and the achievements he's had have usually been exaggerated or come with caveats.

TL;DR - A fucking fraud whose entire managerial career is built on being jammy and/or over-rated.

Most accurate post in the history of P&B.

[craigkillie]

On 03/01/2023 at 09:09, jamamafegan said:

It's a Scottish football problem. There is a giant manager merry-go-round consisting of failed managers and old dinosaurs that the majority of clubs look to every time they need a new manager. It's truly tragic. I think Scottish football needs more foreign managers. I don't believe for a second there aren't foreign managers out there that wouldn't want to ply their trade here. No more dinosaurs and English league jobbers. If anything it might make our league football more interesting and technical instead of playing horrific hoofball.

Looking through the list of the current top flight managers, I'm not sure any of them could be considered in either of those categories. Liam Fox failed at Cowdenbeath, I suppose, but his hiring by United was more about the work he'd done at that club as a coach since then, he was an appointment from within.

[sting]

On 02/01/2023 at 20:59, Staggie_93 said:

Ones that spring to mind in my time following County are Willie McStay and Owen Coyle who were absolute charlatans, and the current manager has also fell into that category.

You could add Scott Leitch to that

 

[McGlovin']

5 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

A good first season at Motherwell, finishing second in the league. But this has to be contextualised by the absolutely bizarre situation in Scotland at that time of Celtic playing at Hampden and coming out of the episode where the club nearly died. Dundee United got themselves relegated, while Aberdeen got themselves into a relegation play-off, and Hearts only stayed up on the last day of the season. Of course finishing second with Motherwell is good, but it comes with heavy caveats. It was a weird season in a weird time, and their 54 points would not have been enough to even qualify for Europe for the rest of the century, never mind finish second.

You won't get many Motherwell disagreeing with that assessment. It's worth pointing out that McLeish inherited an excellent Tommy McLean side which he quite quickly managed to ruin while spending a barrow-load of cash in the process. When he left for Hibs most Well fans were relieved/delighted that this charlatan was away.