What on earth went wrong? Caley Thistle fan Davie Balfour breaks down John Hughes' Inverness exit
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Former Caley Jags Together chairman Davie Balfour gives his thoughts on where it went wrong for John Hughes at Caley Thistle and where the new manager needs to get it right.
FOOTBALL.
The perennial soap opera that causes Scottish manhood to seethe and bicker and Scottish womanhood to wonder what on earth it’s all about.
At local level it has all been about Yogi this week, as Inverness hurtle from a thumping win to secure seventh place in the top flight to beginning the search for a new manager.
The reactions have ranged from “never liked him anyway” to “we’ll miss him badly”.
The club, and the (now ex) manager have kept quiet about the reasons and the media take has been all Joni Mitchell – “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. What on earth went wrong?
David Raven – Unceremoniously ditching a fans’ favourite and moving possibly the best young centre back in the division to cover the vacancy seemed odd, especially when no explanation was forthcoming to cast light on why.
If the press got no answers to the question, how could the fans?
The style – Falkirk (when managed by Yogi) were described as “Barcelona who cannot score goals”.
We were in danger of going the same way. Give Yogi his due, the skill levels of this team have ratcheted up in his time here, but he never explained his need to stick to his style at all costs. Like all things rigid, when stressed it broke.
Commitment – Highlanders love a bit of it. There is even a verse in the national anthem devoted to dealing with it and Yogi could not. There was always a lingering doubt after the Dundee United saga, and it was around then that frustration bubbled up.
Communication – Difficult one this but Yogi is far from the daft laddie he is portrayed as in some quarters.
This is generally good until he tries to be too clever and cannot deal with the reaction.
In my view he did not deliberately try to rile people – he just could not see the shades of grey that the world operates in. Black and white it is not.
Relationships – There are some rules. If you fight with your boss (in this case the board) there is only one winner.
If you want change you pick your battles, win hearts and minds, build your case until people come on side or do not. That can be either easy or difficult. But it is incomparably better than dumping your dirty linen in the front garden for the neighbours to giggle at.
Someone who was as good a communicator as, say, Terry Butcher, might have got somewhere with it. Yogi could not. The club – I don’t think Yogi got it. I don’t think some fans get it. I don’t sometimes!
It is run by people of genuine principle who shun the limelight, put in the hard graft and seek little reward other than seeing the club move forward.
Bigger clubs of the kind Yogi wanted Inverness to be, do not work like that. Some might say it holds us back but is that bad? It makes us Highland. It makes us who we are and the board seem very aware of that. Challenge them as aggressively as Yogi appeared to and the only wonder is how it took this long.
The next appointment needs to be someone who understands how these things work.
He (or she) needs to be steeped in the club. It says a lot that David Raven and Owain Fon Williams have put pen to paper, and hopefully more will follow.
The players will not unlearn what they learned from Yogi and he is due thanks for that.
The glimpses at Partick and against Dundee hint at something formidable from Caley Thistle that might just be in the making.
Just get your season ticket or turn up on matchday and back the team. That’s the way forward.
