A fine February for Cowdenbeath was recognised with manager Jimmy Nicholl picking up the SPFL Championship Manager of the Month.
The Blue Brazil defeated Raith Rovers and Dundee with a point also gained at Morton in the Fifer’s bid to secure Championship football next season. Nicholl started off his interview after getting the award by saying: “Thanks very much. It was a good February, and then we’ve dropped eight points out of nine in March, which is always the way when something happens like this!”
Asked what staying in the Championship would mean to the Central Park club Nicholl said: “I am here to relax, enjoy myself and receive this award! I don’t need anyone to tell me how important it is, because the chairman Donald Findlay tells me every single day.”
“No-one gets more upset about losing games of football than the chairman. It is not just playing Rangers and possibly Hearts next season, the whole face of our club could be changing in my opinion. It is just the way they are talking right now, something could happen at Cowdenbeath. And is a great opportunity for it to happen.”
There is pressure to stay in the Division both on and off the park with Nicholl saying: “You talk about the pressure in football, but I only feel the pressure of winning every week because of people behind the scenes. These are people who are paying players’ wages.”
“There are people at Cowdenbeath who have put thousands of pounds of their own money in and I am only hoping that we stay in the division, not only for the future of Cowdenbeath, but so that these people get their money back.”
“£10-15,000 has been raised for a manager’s fund, which is brilliant, considering the crowds we get. That has helped and that is another reason for my award. People put money into that fund and people behind the scenes have given us every assistance that meant I could get James Fowler in from the Premiership and I could also get Rory McKeown. Financially there is money going to their wages which I couldn’t do before, and probably Colin Cameron couldn’t do before.”
Nicholl took over at the end of November for the second time at Central Park after a parting of the ways with Cameron and he said: “There are good players at the club who had just lost their way, they just needed something sorting out. We are heading in the right direction – without heading anywhere in the table!”
“People say ‘you are still second bottom’ and I know that, and that bit has been more frustrating than anything. The strange thing was that Colin was winning all his home games and losing away, while I was winning all my away games and losing home games. We just have to balance it out.”
“When I first came in Alloa were up at Dundee and ended up getting a draw there. That is what happens in this league. I lost my first game then went to Dundee in the middle of December not expecting to get anything and we beat them. You go to Hamilton and you are 4 up after 15 minutes. People had gone from not expecting to get points, to being disappointed if we don’t win.”
One of those disappointed at not winning is Chairman Findlay with Nicholl saying: “Some chairmen leave you alone, and you get the odd phone call, but he is not like that. At the same time, he will phone you and make sure you are all right, if you get beaten. He is hands-on. He came in as a figurehead, to get the right people around him. He has got the financial side of things in order, but on the football side of things he is a real Cowdenbeath man, and really determined to keep this club in the Championship.”
“That is why he phoned me up, at Christmas, just when the window started, to say ‘there you go’. This is what I have been able to help you with. That changed my thinking overnight. I was looking at a certain type of player. Now I could go to Premiership clubs and talk about bringing someone in.”
Nicholl left Cowdenbeath after one season for a stint as assistant manager at Kilmarnock in the summer of 2011 before moving on to Hibs and he was asked if he was happy being the main man again.
He replied: “Yes, no doubt about that although sleepless nights do happen. It has happened to me already at Cowdenbeath because you just want to make sure you get things right. You only get to see boys on a Tuesday or Thursday night so you have to make sure that every night is right, that the team you pick is right. And you do have sleepless nights, no doubt about it.”
“What happened at Hibs happened and it was disappointing for Pat Fenlon to lose his job. Then I had to look at my own situation and it didn’t work out. I was fortunate, not in Colin losing his job, but fortunate that I got back in quickly. It is then you realise how much you have missed it.”
The Blue Brazil are seeing a different manager this time with Nicholl saying: “There’s more determination this time round because I was hoping to stay in the division the last time and we lost in the Play-Offs to Brechin. Then I left because Kenny Shiels got the Kilmarnock job and it was as if I just turned my back on them and walked away.”
“Donald told me to go and do what I had to do and gave “Mickey” a chance to do what he did — he did brilliantly to get them in this position. But there’s more determination on my own part this time around to make sure the players and the people involved in this club stay in the Championship.”
“It will mean so much to them. I feel I owe them a bit, there’s no doubt about that.”
Nicholl expanded on his determination saying: “When you ask ‘how can you be more determined?’ I’d like to think I was determined the first time but I know what I’m like now with players. I won’t have any wasting my time. There’s a job to be done and they have to get it done.”
“If they’re not getting a job done, I’m in a position to replace them. That’s why I was allowed to build a squad. I have 22 players. So that’s the position I’m in with players now.”
Nicholl added: “If you’re not up for the fight, you’re out. I can’t afford to mess about. I don’t have time to mess about and wait, wait, wait for players to find consistency. They all understand that and that’s where I got a reaction and things started.”
The funding made available in January has helped with Nicholl saying “When James Fowler and Darren Brownlie came in it created competition for places. I felt it and I could see it happening in training and on Saturdays. The competition and the quality that has come into the place have helped everybody.”
Nicholl was asked if it would be a case of manager or nothing now and he said: “You can’t envisage anything, can you? If I don’t do the job here I could be out again in the summer and my calling card will be out again. Then anybody who wants me can have me, it’s as simple as that.”
“However I never look any further than the job I’m doing. People talk about lack of ambition but it’s not. I’m only ambitious for the club I’m working for at that particular time. I don’t think anything beyond this year.”
Staying up is crucial and it could affect more than Nicholl as he advised: “They don’t tell me too much about the club but I know from the way they’re talking, saying we have to stay here. What I have to guard against is that the future of the club is going to be horrific if we don’t stay up.”
“I’ve got kids in during the day. I have 13 or 14 young pros and players. That might go belly up and that’s no use to me. When was I first here it was a gradual build-up, getting six YTS, then six pros, then 12, then 18 and building a squad.”
“I’m saying to the chairman that if we stay in this division we have to go the next step because instead of the first team being two or three full-timers and eight or nine part-timers, I want to go the opposite way.”
Nicholl said: “I want eight or nine of the first team to be full-time with good young pros and the other three or four good, solid part-time players, like the set-up at Raith Rovers. That is what is driving me on because I know it’s going to happen. I’m saying to the players, if we don’t stay in this Championship it might all go.”
“There could be livelihoods at stake. I’ve really got the bit between my teeth because I don’t want to lose what I’ve got during the day. There are good young pros that might be in the first team in a year. That could just go to the wall and that’s what I’m trying to guard against.”
As well as protecting the future there will be great focus on the Championship next season and Nicholl wants players who have been Blue Brazil stalwarts to enjoy the ride.
“John Armstrong and Kenny Adamson and all the boys who’ve been there for a long, long time could be going and playing at Ibrox and Tynecastle. If I was them, I’d have that in the back of my head every single week.”
“They’ve been here long enough, had good times and bad times but they haven’t been to those places playing. That would drive me on as a player, it really would. You have to have that drive. For anyone who doesn’t, its goodnight but they are showing they have it.”
How is that being shown Nicholl was asked and he said: “Up until the Dumbarton game they were showing consistency. In my second game, we beat Dundee away and the players are all kissing the face of each other in the dressing room, the music’s on loud.”
“Brilliant, but I said ‘come back to me at the end of January when you’ve shown for another four, five, six games consistency of performances and points on the board. Come back to me then’”.
“And they did that. But it doesn’t look like it from the outside as we have not moved and face a difficult away game with Queen of the South now.”
If Hearts go down Nicholl was asked who would be his favourites for the title and he said: “It will be difficult league for anyone to win, we know that. It depends on Hearts’ situation financially. Will it be a load of young kids or a blend of kids and experienced, good players?”
“But to be honest I don’t think that far ahead. I just think about our boys — stay in the Championship and go to these places. I would enjoy taking the team at these grounds, but taking certain players to these places is what I want.”
“They’ve been at Cowdenbeath for a long time and are dedicated, part-time players. I would give them a chance to play there. I wouldn’t ask them to keep us in the Championship and then say goodnight.”
Nicholl finished by saying: “There’s no way I would be letting these boys achieve what they did and then say goodnight. I did at Raith when I gave the players a chance to try and stay the SPL but we got relegated however I wasn’t going to deny them that opportunity.”
“This time I want to give some of them, if not most of them, the chance to play at Ibrox and possibly Tynecastle.”
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