Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

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Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Nov 12, 2018 1:37 pm

Ronnie MacDonald and his associates have been in charge of Accies for over 15 years now, and in that time have transformed the fortunes of the club.

Some of our fans are too young to remember what it was like before: bottom of the lowest league in Scottish senior football; identified in the press as "the worst team in Britain"; very nearly merged with Clyde; ridiculed by Jimmy Greaves on ITV's most-watched football programme; managed by 'celebrity' ex-Celtic & Rangers players, who accomplished nothing; dropping down the leagues; often embarrassingly beaten by minnows, including non-league teams in the cup; losing our ground and being homeless for 7 years; unable to pay players wages and very nearly going out of business; deducted 15 points for failing to fulfill a fixture and being relegated to the 4th tier. All this - and more - happened in my lifetime.

From joining the Scottish Football League in 1897 to the outbreak of World War 2, we did reasonably well, finishing our club record of 4th in the league in 1935, and reaching 2 Scottish Cup finals. But we were relegated in the first season after the war, and our post-war history was as described above. Painful. Only promoted to the top flight 4 times in 60 years, and being relegated straight back down each time.

There's a graph of our progress on the Hamilton Accies Wikipedia page.
Image

Compare and contrast Ronnie MacDonald's 15 full seasons in charge (2003/04-2017/18) with the previous 15 seasons (1988/89-2002/03).

Our average placing in the leagues rose from 20th to 13th.

We've spent 7 seasons in the top flight, compared to just 1 before.

Statistically, this is the greatest period of our history since the 1930s, and nobody in Scottish football is in any doubt who deserves the credit for it. It's causally attributable to the innovative approach of Ronnie MacDonald and co. I'll post again to spell out how innovative that has been.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Nov 12, 2018 2:27 pm

So what are the characteristics of this innovative approach?

Most football clubs are very badly run, treated as the plaything of local small businessmen, vanity projects, with little regard for the fans or "paying customers". They're mainly run on the same old business model, as they've always been, regardless of changes in society and advances in technology and systems over the decades. The price some football clubs pay for this myopia is they go out of business, and in a context where the SFL has lost Third Lanark, Clydebank, Gretna and East Stirlingshire (and yes, I know most of those clubs still exist, but not at senior level) and 11 senior Scottish football clubs have experienced insolvency events this century, it's amazing Accies have survived.

The features of this innovative approach, in my opinion, which have enabled us to not just survive but thrive, are as follows:

1. First and foremost, genuine commitment to, and investment in, youth football. The Accies Academy is the envy of most clubs in Scotland, yet few have managed to replicate it - basically because they won't give it the same attention and funding as we do at Accies. This broadens the club's base, develops our talent from within, provides an income stream from sale of players, and gives us a competitive edge.

2. Second, a values-based model, where the club looks after its own, promotes from within, and is a community that football people want to belong to. Including women and children. The much-vaunted attention to charities and the local community is a part, but just a small part, of this.

3. Third, fiscal prudency. No waste, not paying any daft transfer fees, and budgeting for affordable wages for all players and staff. This is what allowed us to bear the loss of last season's financial fraud, which would have destroyed lesser clubs.

4. Fourth, a long term view, where for example coaches know they'll get time to succeed, and won't be dumped because of a few bad results.

5. Fifth, openness to new ideas. Hence our artificial surfaces, mooting of an indoor facility, and various other initiatives that have been tried over the last 15 years - not all successful, but the point is to be open to them. Consulting fans, and acted on some of what they say, is part of this.

Not everything Ronnie's touched has turned to gold. In his first couple of seasons he hoped to attract more experienced players (remember the Scott Severin saga?) but the wage policy meant that never happened. Marketing has been poor, and our online presence is almost non-existent. Accies TV is a nice new initiative, with scope for further development, but which to be honest should have happened years ago. And nothing seems to attract bigger crowds, much as we would all like that to happen - the interest just doesn't seem to be there. But the balance sheet is overwhelmingly positive.

Other clubs should take a leaf out of Ronnie's book (but I'm quite glad they don't).
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby PrideOfLanarkshire » Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:04 pm

You'll struggle to find someone on here who doesn't believe Ronnie has done great for this club.

I much prefer him to Les Gray.

If the point of this post is to eventually highlight number 4 you should change the 'a few bad results' part.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:08 pm

PrideOfLanarkshire wrote:You'll struggle to find someone on here who doesn't believe Ronnie has done great for this club.

I much prefer him to Les Gray.

If the point of this post is to eventually highlight number 4 you should change the 'a few bad results' part.

I know what you mean. Gray's really not a very likeable character. But he has been part of the group who have brought success to the club.

This thread is not just about point 4 in the second post, but it does provide a context for it.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby YeOldeHamiltonian » Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:17 pm

The thing that dispels a lot of the aforementioned points is that it is many of the long standing fans who were there during the horrible years who are and have chucked it because of the bloody mindedness and stubbornness of retaining this clown and his laptop sidekick who have not improved the club one iota during their tenure and have led to these fans chucking it due to everything we have witnessed in this tenure.

When you lose these fans,then you have a big problem and we are the only club who continually lose fans despite surviving year on year in the top flight.

The Owner has said "the club don't need fans" has he not, which explains ignoring the vast majority of Accies fans who want a long overdue change.


Yes,the youth set up is great but that needs to be alongside a decent first team set up which as our regular humpings show is not the case.

Fans are there-witness the under 19's and we miss out on so many "easy hits"to generate interest;giving out vouchers to those at the fireworks display for example.


I started watching Accies 41 years ago as a mid table First Division side and we always had around 2500 fans-even when we first came back to Hamilton with that dreadful team- and that is now less than half that in the top league.


All the first team problems are easily remedied which is why folk are voting with their feet.Only a change of Manager,a long winning run or playing half the youths instead of the lower English league dross will remedy this.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Stevie Clarke » Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:48 pm

We didn't always have around 2500 fans. First day of the season attendances I remember, roughly, 1400 odd v Berwick (9-1), around 1,300 v Airdrie a few years later. We could bet great crowds for the bigger games, not just the away supports either but I remember an early home game in 85/86, our first league winning season, before the goals started to flow, we played Brechin and I think the crowd was 862!
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Bomber Harris » Mon Nov 12, 2018 6:22 pm

CANNING OUT
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Nov 12, 2018 6:31 pm

Stevie Clarke wrote:We didn't always have around 2500 fans. First day of the season attendances I remember, roughly, 1400 odd v Berwick (9-1), around 1,300 v Airdrie a few years later. We could bet great crowds for the bigger games, not just the away supports either but I remember an early home game in 85/86, our first league winning season, before the goals started to flow, we played Brechin and I think the crowd was 862!

Yes, rose-tinted specs from YOH, I think.

I've been going for about the same length of time - 40 years+ - and these numbers look right to me.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:14 pm

Bomber Harris wrote:CANNING OUT

Like a stopped clock, this repetitive demand will eventually be correct.

But not now. Why should we remove - at great expense and disruption - a coach who is keeping us in the top flight, and risk a replacement who could easily be worse, perhaps much worse?

Let's see where we stand after this season. If we can get behind the team and the coach, maybe we can improve and get more wins as the season progresses. Then maybe we can start looking upwards.

I suspect Martin Canning will not be the coach to take us up a level. But maybe that can't be done on our resources, by anyone - maybe even Alex Neil couldn't have sustained it for a full season or longer. However, if/when the time comes for Accies to part company with Martin, I hope it can be done respectfully, by mutual consent.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby Tumbleweed.. » Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:34 pm

I think I would struggle to find any fan, even the most critical amongst us, who doesn't agree that Ronnie MacDonald has done well for the club. And if you get him, you have to have Les Gray to do his dirty work. So if the point of the thread is that they have done better for us than some previous boards, that's probably inarguable. And some of the points raised in the original post are valid.

BUT.

The club are clearly in the position just now that the income from surviving in the top league allows them to run the club and not care about how many fans we have. As a club which has historically had less supporters than most clubs in the top two leagues, where arguing over a thousand or so makes a difference, we would not expect to have a full stadium every week, or to take five hundred to away games even. However, the crowd figures are at a low point and away attendances have fallen to a pitiful amount. So what are supporters to do?

Do we just eat our chips and like it, just accept that what we are seeing every week is often poor, occasionally unacceptable, sometimes horrific, sometimes fine and sometimes even good enough for a win? Just ignore the evidence of our own eyes and go along with the Emperors new clothes outlook that we have been in the top league for 5 seasons and therefore everything is wonderful?

Do we think the rubbishy bits equalise the good bits and just carry on regardless?

Or do we try to make a bit of noise that things aren't as rosy as they are being made out to be and try to identify what could be done instead? Maybe even be roused to shout about it at games or on here?

My opinion is quite clearly that we need to change manager as the product on the park is simply not good enough for me. If Canning was able to change this and make us challenge and compete every week - which he has admitted himself on a number of occasions we have not done recently - and even look as if we are improving, then I would have no grounds to think that way and I for one would be satisfied. I don't think we would hear a cheep about removing him from his post.

But we arent seeing that and quite clearly some people are unhappy about it. Others, just as clearly, are happy to go with the flow and trumpet successes without actually looking at what is going to happen when, with or without Canning, we get relegated and the whole house of cards - built on doing nothing to work out why fans are staying away in this 'golden age' (spare me) - is knocked down within a season or two.

Yes, things are better than the homeless years. No sherbert Sherlock. Are they as good as some are suggesting? No.
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Re: Ronnie MacDonald's tenure

Postby smc4761 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:08 pm

I can remember going to see Accies in mid 70's and crowds then were around 1800 or so, even away support while not great was at least 200+ for most games. Now if we are lucky, we get crowds of 1000 home fans and away games 100 if we are lucky. Why would anyone pay hard earned cash to go and watch the dross on the park

Fans are becoming disillusioned with Canning. The product on the park is dreadful, manager does not inspire confidence at all and before we go on the park, most weeks, we are all already beaten. No fight, no tactics no hope.

If we get humped by Celtic and that looks likely, with Christmas coming up crowds are going to dwindle even more
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