Gary Locke has been appointed as the permanent manager of Kilmarnock.
Locke, who played for the club for seven years, making over 110 appearances, rejoined Kilmarnock in the summer as Allan Johnston's assistant and acted as interim manager following Johnston's departure.
He has won two, drawn four and lost one match since taking over from Johnston, meaning Kilmarnock are still in contention for a top six spot in the SPL.
Locke said "I am absolutely delighted, it's a great opportunity for me and for the club. I would like to say a huge thank you to the players as it was up to them to help me get the job and they have done just that, I'm over the moon!
"Over the last seven to eight weeks our fans support has made such a difference, I am looking forward to stepping out here tomorrow as Manager of the club.
"Without Allan Johnston's encouragement and the backing of the board I would not be in this position today, I am grateful for all their support.
"Now things have been confirmed I will be looking to put some plans in place. I would really like to bring sports science to the club, that is a key factor for me to help make us more competitive.
"We need to be producing young players, I am aware that's what our fans would like to see. If we can make our young players quicker and stronger that will be beneficial to the club as a whole".
Chairman Jim Mann added: "I am delighted we have been able to secure Gary on a permanent basis for the next three years. Over the last few weeks almost every player has come up to me and told me we need to appoint him as manager- I think that is a great testament to his man management skills and the energy he has brought to training since taking over. This added to our recent results on the park put Gary in a very strong position.
"I was also conscious when hiring that we needed a long term plan, we needed someone who was capable of helping us develop our very own style of football 'the Killie Way' and ensuring that it filtered down the club. After spending some considerable time with Gary over the last few months I have no doubt he is the person to do this. We all wish him the best of luck going forward"
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article