I KNOW how Martin Canning must have felt the other night when Celtic were scoring goal after goal against his Hamilton team and didn’t look like stopping. About a month after Jim McIntyre and I were appointed at Ross County we welcomed Ronny Deila and his side to our place and by half-time we were 4-0 down. And it was four going on eight.
It was a horrible feeling as you begin to wonder just how many they are going to get. In the end they scored just one more against us in the second half but it was a sore one for all of us. Celtic can do that to teams when they are in the mood as we saw on Tuesday night. It’s a scenario every manager of a smaller club dreads.
Our chairman, Roy McGregor, though, was really good about it. He just told us to try to forget about it, that Celtic could do that to teams sometimes, and just move on to the next game. We really appreciated his backing at that point as we were just in the door and this felt like an early setback. But Roy gave us his support and eventually we started to turn things around.
I saw that Les Gray, the Hamilton chairman, came out to publicly back Martin and that will be a source of relief to him, too. After the Annan defeat in the Scottish Cup this was the last thing he needed but it looks like he will be getting the chance to try to turn things round.
Hamilton have a tricky game against an in-form Hearts team today but they really need to show a positive reaction to such a heavy loss. It’s a double whammy for them, coming so soon after the Annan game and there’s obviously added pressure with them close to the relegation play-off spot. Just a month or so ago they were above us in the table in fourth or fifth so you can understand why some of their fans are getting a bit frustrated with the way it has been going in recent weeks.
Martin needs his players to rally round him and give him a performance. As a manager you just have to keep believing in what you’re doing. If you start saying, “well, I’ll change because the players aren’t following this or that”, then that’s when you start to lose your way. Even in the face of a bad result you just have to stick by your principles and hope it will eventually turn in your favour.
Around the time of that Celtic defeat we were drawing games or only losing narrowly so we felt we weren’t far away from getting it right. Accies need to try to erase the Celtic game from their minds and prove they have the mettle to turn it around.
The first starting point is to get the players working hard for you again. As a manager you have to prove that the squad is still behind you. Even if Accies go out today and lose, say, 2-1, then the chairman and the directors will at least see that the players put in a shift for the manager. That’s the starting point for them.
Even if you can’t get a positive result right away, they have to show they care, that they’re digging in and are willing to battle for you. Hamilton have no right to beat this Hearts team just now but they have to show they can at least make it difficult for them.
IT seems barely a matchday goes by now without flares being thrown by supporters at one game or another. They were at it the other night at the Scottish Cup game between Forfar and Linlithgow Rose that I was at – before it was abandoned – and that was on the back of other incidents at Stranraer and Dundee United.
Our fans have done it, too, in our Scottish Cup tie against Dunfermline at East End Park and that was disappointing. It’s getting out of hand and we really need to address it. I can’t understand the logic of people wanting to do that, especially when they know it damages the game and the reputation of their club.
You wouldn’t continue behaving like that in society in general if you were repeatedly told to stop, but some football fans seem intent on still doing it. That to me is crazy. We need to weed out the troublemakers but I’m not convinced facial recognition software is the answer right now. Talk of £4 million seems a lot of money, even if there is some government support. That shouldn’t be the priority right now. We should be able to stamp this out ourselves within the game without needing to go down that road just yet.
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