The Terrace Scottish Football Podcast

writes Craig Fowler

As we just missed the story by about two hours last time around we felt it was worth devoting some time with the written word to the news that Jim Jeffries will no longer continue as manager of Kilmarnock.  We did think about covering it next week but considering Jeffries’ track record by the time Wednesday rolls around he’ll probably have found a new club by then.  Basically the man has had about two months off in 27 years.

Jeffries’ arrival at Rugby Park began right around the time he was sacked after failing to keep Bradford competitive in the English First Division.  But the former Hearts manager still had to wait two months as a managerial merry-go round between Rangers, Hibs and Kilmarnock took place.  First Dick Advocaat was forced upstairs (i.e. as far away from the bench as possible) as his heavily underachieving Rangers side had all but conceded the title to Martin O’Neill’s Celtic in December 2001.  Rangers went to Edinburgh for their next manager as they plucked the highly promising Alex McLeish out of the Easter Road dugout.  At that point Hibs could have saved Jeffries the wait by hiring eventual boss Bobby Williamson straight away.  However, Williamson’s exit from Kilmarnock was delayed for a brief period as Hibs instead went down a more farcical path by hiring playing legend Frank Sauzee who lasted only 69 days after winning only one win in 15 games.  After plummeting from European contenders to relegation candidates in (once again) 69 days, Hibs came to their senses and went for a bit of stability by taking Williamson from Rugby Park that led to Jeffries’ hiring.

It’s incredible to imagine that eight years has passed since that day.  That’s because when listing the highlights of those eight years you are left with a piece of paper with ‘League Cup Runners-up’ written on it.  Even that invokes fairly bad memories as Jeffries was defeated by long time foes Hibs in a 5-1 hammering.  That isn’t to say that Jeffries didn’t do a good job.  Kilmarnock’s financial position was perilous enough as they, along with most other SPL clubs, heavily overspent at the turn of the century and things just went from bad to worse as the league went through two TV deal collapses in Jeffries’ reign.  That resulted in budget cutting year on year from 2000/2001 when the team’s 4^th place position ensured European football.  He may have failed to get Killie pies back on a continental platform but did manage to ensure security in the SPL year on year.  In that time he brought through the best Scottish goalscorer the SPL has seen in Kris Boyd and another Scottish international in Steven Naismith and done his best to wheel and deal in the transfer market as it became increasingly frustrating to keep things fresh enough to guarantee safety.  To his credit he managed three top six finishes in his seven full seasons and the seven points they finished ahead of Inverness last season was the lowest margin of safety they had in the SPL table by some distance.  Unfortunately for Jim that was last season and things haven’t shown much sign of improvement since 2006/2007 and with dwindling crowds and a debt around £9 million you don’t have to imagine to hard what the worst case scenario could be for a club like Killie should they go down.

There is little controversy here despite the Kevin Kyle/Michael Johnston feud that had emerged in the last two weeks.  Jeffries has accepted that things have gone stale, the club needs to ensure SPL safety to ensure safety for the club and that a new manager could provide a spark for the players. That’s the end of it all.  At a supporters meeting Killie fans may have applauded the decision to let him leave but when the dust has settled those same fans should have nothing but respect for a man who worked tirelessly for their club for almost eight long years.

Now bring on next week's show, I can't wait to start ripping into Jimmy Calderwood.  Oh Jimmy, I missed you big man.