RAY McKinnon won the Irn-Bru Second Division manager of the month award for November but the true measure of his success has been Brechin City's rise up the league table.
The Glebe Park side had failed to pick up a point in five matches before the 42-year-old took charge.
After just one of those – a 3-1 defeat by Arbroath – McKinnon decided that shoring up a porous defence would be the focus of his attention.
His success in doing so – he signed defender Graham Hay last month, a player he worked with as manager at junior side Lochee United – brought about a change in fortune which has taken his side all the way to the play-off places.
McKinnon, who left Lochee in 2009 to take up a position as technical development officer at the SFA, before embarking on his first senior coaching role at Brechin, said: "I was just doing my coaching badges and was enjoying what I was doing. It has been an incredible turnaround [here]. We worked a lot on the defensive side of the game."
Chris Tait
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