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.
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.