Cowdenbeath will need to get the better of a former Blue Brasilian to prevail in the Scottish Cup this weekend. The Central Park side travel to Newtown Park to face reigning East Region Champions Bo’ness and helping to plot their downfall is the Junior side’s Director of Football Allan McGonigal.
The workaholic, who as well as his work at Bo’ness, runs a number three Post offices in the Falkirk area as well as being the Reserve team manager at Hamilton Accies can count the Fife side as a former club and his season in blue was a colourful one in a colourful career.
McGonigal started playing football as a 9 year old with local side Gairdoch United, and he stayed there until he was 17 when he started training at Brockville and playing for a strong ICI Juvenile side.
“I scored a few goals for ICI,” said McGonigal, “Before getting a call up to play for Falkirk’s under-18 side as they were short of players. It ended up being a quite a bizarre experience as we got beat 6-0 and I was the only guy that was asked back.”
John Haggart recruited McGonigal to the Bairns and he was also managed by Alex Totten, Gregor Abel and Billy Lamont during what was initially an enjoyable time as he explained, “I played about 20 games for Falkirk and the highlight was scoring on my debut ironically against Hamilton. Andy Nicol got down the right wing and crossed over where I got in front of my marker to net. It was a bit of a training ground goal but for a local boy it felt brilliant.”
A serious injury cut short the frontman’s career at Brockville as he explained, “I picked up a really bad injury at St Johnstone’s old Muirton Park. I broke my arm so badly that I ended up with 11 metal pins in it which are still there now. I was in hospital up there for 11 days.”
“The clubs were great in looking after me but the Club Doctor recommended that I never played football again but I never listened to his advice.”
Looking for a route back into first team football McGonigal was asked to go out on loan to East Stirlingshire by former Falkirk colleague Jim Meechan, however what was meant to initially be a loan move became a permanent one with McGonigal saying, “There was a league ruling in place at that time about the number of loan players that were allowed at a club and that would have breached. It became a choice of a permanent move or not playing so I opted for a transfer.”
The move worked well with scouts alerted to McGonigal’s fine form in black and white as he explained, “Meadowbank came in for me, Kilmarnock and Cowdenbeath were also interested. Gordon Wylde, whose son of course now plays for Rangers, got a move to Killie and I thought I was in with a shout when I was asked to play in a bounce game for them.”
“Craig Brewster put paid to my hopes of a move as he knocked me out when we clashed hands in the game and that was that.”
Meadowbank manager Terry Christie stepped in and took McGonigal to the Capital and all went well initially with McGonigal saying, “I had a real purple patch at Meadowbank and scored two on my debut to get me off and running. I scored 3 against Accies in a game where only Grant Tierney and I turned up on time because the team-bus broke down. The other players arrived at 7.15pm and the game kicked off at half past and we lost a goal within a minute.”
“I think I scored just before half-time and we ended up winning 5-1. They got revenge all the same as they were promoted to the Premier Division and Meadowbank finished second.”
Despite the success at Douglas Park McGonigal was not a Thistle player for long saying, “I had a great playing relationship with John McGachie but my relationship with Terry was not so good. I one scored by chipping big Jim Gallacher of Clydebank from the half-way line but I never started the next week. Things like that annoyed me so I wanted away.”
McGonigal finally became a Cowdenbeath player as he said, “John Blackley took me there and I really had to go as he was phoning me every day and telling me this would be his fifth and last attempt to get me. I had just opened my first Newsagents and he was great with me as he knew that I had to put a lot of hours into it to make it pay. He was flexible with training and also that I could work on a Saturday morning and make my own way to games.”
“We had a great middle part of the season when everything clicked and we moved from the bottom of the table until the promotion fringes but our momentum halted when we were docked a couple of points for fielding Kevin Hoggan without proper international clearance. That kind of knocked us out of stride a wee bit.”
The highlight of the 14 game unbeaten run that transformed Cowdenbeath’s season was a 1-1 draw at Hampden, although it was not a highlight for anyone connected with the club.
McGonigal explained, “We played Queen’s Park in October and were losing 1-0 until Joe Reid scored a lot goal. That goal earned us a draw but more importantly it earned a couple a huge win on the Football Pools. Joe ended up getting more publicity than Rangers and Celtic players that week.”
The former frontman is proud of the role he played in a fledgling striker’s career during his time in Fife as he explained, “Roddy Grant was just a raw big lad when I was there and I would like to think that I was able to pass on a lot of experience onto him. He went on to have a great career at St Johnstone and I was really pleased to see how well he did there.”
Blackley left and John Brownlie came in and whilst the pair are friends now there was a fall out when the new manager looked to tighten up the flexible approach that his predecessor had.
“I now recognise that John Brownlie wanted to put his stamp on things but at the time I did not appreciate that I had to give up work-time to go to training and also had to catch the team bus. Gavin Murray came in and took me to East Fife mind you I soon had a disagreement with him over expenses I was due.”
McGonigal added, “I was like that. If something did not suit me or I did not think I was being treated correctly I would walk away from it.”
The striker took a sabbatical from football before East Fife prompted him to return by making him angry at demanding a £5,000 transfer fee when Junior side Linlithgow enquired about his services.
“I was ready to chuck the game but that really got my back up and I was determined to play again. Eventually a transfer fee of £1,000 was paid and I went on to score 90 goals in 2 seasons there. I then moved on to Camelon and scored over 150 goals and won 2 League Championships as well as a Scottish Cup.”
McGonigal was playing for George Fairley at Camelon, however he was tempted to join his brother Brian, who he knew from his Linlithgow days to become his assistant manager at Stenhousemuir.
The duo left Ochilview after a dispute with the club’s Directors before guiding Bo’ness to a Junior Cup semi-final place. They were then asked to save Dumbarton from relegation in March 2003 with 6 games left despite the Sons sitting 4 points behind Stranraer and having played a game more.
They did it with McGonigal saying, “We won four of our games and drew the other 2 to finish in sixth place and that achievement felt as good as winning the Scottish Junior Cup.”
The following season saw only 6 points gained in the first 10 games, however Fairley and McGonigal’s side emerged as promotion challengers as Morton let a great position slip.
McGonigal said, “We went on a great run with Gordon Herd and Paul Ronald coming in to act as catalysts. Gordon is now playing at Linlithgow and Paul is the manager at Bo’ness so football is definitely a small world.”
“Morton had been miles ahead but by the end Airdrie won the league and we almost pipped Hamilton to promotion.”
The duo left the Rock midway through the next season and repeated their survival trick late in the season with Forfar before leaving shortly afterwards with McGonigal saying, “Forfar was just too far travelling wise. They were and still are a great club full of decent people like David McGregor. The travelling ruined it for us and we decided to end it and I went back to managing at the Juniors with Sauchie.”
“I left them to go back to Camelon but they were top of the league when I left. Camelon won a few local Cups but we also gave players like JC Hutchison, Andy Shirra, Michael Daly and Jim Lister a platform for a senior career.”
The success at a Junior level enticed McGonigal to try his luck back in the senior game at Berwick Rangers, although he was not able to bring his golden touch to Shielfield.
“It was the wrong club at the wrong time. There was an old Board, who had recruited me, wanting to leave and a new Board wanting to come in. There were 3 players signed and another 12 had been offered terms. If they had accepted the terms the entire budget would have been used up and we would only have had 15 players.”
“I thought I was flogging a dead horse and when the Chairman Robert Wilson left I did as well.”
McGonigal took a break before recharging his batteries by helping Fairley at former club Linlithgow before Bo’ness got in touch asking him to come on board as manager again.”
“I turned them down twice and then their Secretary Robert Sneddon, who is a lovely guy, popped into one of my Post Offices unannounced for a chat. They were facing relegation but Robert asked me to come and meet the rest of the committee face to face to talk things through.”
Needless to say McGonigal was tempted back in and success followed as he said, “They stayed up and we won the league for the first time in over 40 seasons in my first year here. In the last game we beat Linlithgow Rose to win it which was great for the club.”
Just when things were settling down life took another twist for McGonigal who said, “I had known the Hamilton Chairman Ronnie MacDonald for a long time and he had been a great support to me during the Berwick days, indeed the weekend I left he gave me two tickets for a Hamilton against Celtic game to get me out of the house.”
MacDonald spoke of a position at New Douglas Park, however McGonigal could not walk away from Bo’ness so he accepted the position as Director of Football with firstly Willie Newbigging and then Ronald installed as manager.
“I owed Bo’ness something so I suppose a win-win situation was created. Last season at Hamilton we had an under-19 side that has produced 10 players for the first team so far this season and Bo’ness won the league again.”
“I remember Les Gray, the vice-chairman at Hamilton telling me when I started that the boys I think are good on first impression will not be the ones that will be starring in 6 months. He anticipated the development of some of the players really well. Gary Fraser is the latest one on the conveyer belt and he now has a couple of first team games under his belt.”
McGonigal added, “The Academy Director Frankie McAvoy deserves great credit for Gary as he was not a regular in the Youth Team until Frankie suggested moving him to the centre of midfield. He has real potential.”
With his Bo’ness hat back on McGonigal previewed the Cowdenbeath game by saying, “We have a great support and I reckon we could have a couple of thousand fans here for the game. There should be a great atmosphere and there is no pressure on us to do well. They are doing fantastically well and having won six out six at home in the league we have to be happy to have them at our place.”
“I know a few of their players from the Juniors like Joe Mbu and Lewis Coult who were both good players at that level and Greg Stewart I know because he played in the Falkirk area for a while.”
By a happy co-incidence McGonigal able to run his eye over some of the players who may feature for Colin Cameron’s first team this weekend as Hamilton reserves defeated Cowdenbeath’s second string in midweek with McGonigal saying, “I will feed back a couple of things that may be useful to Paul so it was a good night in a few ways.”
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