In the second of the Spotlight series, Morton manager Dougie Imrie reflects on reaching the milestone of two years at the Cappielow club.
After a slow start to the season, the Ton are unbeaten in eight games. Since June, Imrie has been juggling his full-time role with Morton with completing his UEFA Pro-Licence with the Scottish FA Coach Education department.
The Pro-Licence group have enjoyed study trips to Romania and London, while they also spent a couple of days at Hampden Park in December, attending the Viaplay Cup Final.
Life in Scottish football is generally a rollercoaster, and it's fair to say my time Morton has been no different. But after passing the two-year mark for my time in charge, I have to say I've absolutely loved my time in Greenock so far.
To learn that I'm the eighth longest-serving manager in Scotland is a surprise, but also a reflection on how football works. If results aren't going your way, as a manager, there's always a risk you can be removed and someone else brought in.
To that end, I’ve got to give a lot of thanks to my club. The owners stood by me earlier in the season when it wasn’t going the way we all wanted. We had a lot of injuries but we’ve now hopefully turned that corner. We’re eight games undefeated and coming off a fantastic win away to Dundee United.
In truth, I was never sure that I wanted to be a coach. When I was playing, it wasn't something I was too bothered about, but I was asked to go and help out with one of the youth teams at Hamilton and my time on the pitch with the kids really stuck with me.
A chance to be first-team coach at the club followed when I hung up my boots, and I learned a lot about the difference between youth and adult football, before I spent a fantastic six month at Livingston with David Martindale and Marvin Bartley. That was a great experience. Davie’s a fantastic coach and manager and I can understand why he’s kept Livingston in the Premiership for so long.
When the chance came up at Morton, I was told a lot of different things. Some told me I was fine where I was and didn't need to take the gamble, but I decided to make the jump and I've loved the two years since.
As a manager, the first thing I always look for is hard work. I love my team to be hard-working. Give everything for the badge and don’t leave anything out there. If you can get everyone doing that, you’re onto a winner and certainly my Morton team are based on the way I played the game. Give your all, be hard-working and don't leave any stone unturned in your quest for three points.
I have to give a lot of credit to my coaching team around me. I came in blind in terms of not bringing my own coaches but those who were in there have been first-class. I’m fairly young as a manager and I would tell anyone new to a job – take someone experienced with you because I’ve been so fortunate to have Andy Millen with me. He’s been a godsend for myself. He’s been a coach for so long and we work very well together. I think that’s been a real help in the success we’ve had so far.
When I went in, the team was at the bottom of the table and I had to galvanise them. At the time, I had to find a solution to pick up points. I went to a back three with two strikers up front, to try and solidify and stop conceding goals but also to give us more of a threat at the top end of the pitch. As the season went on and we got safer, we started to tinker with the team and be a bit more expansive. Last season, to go and finish fifth and just miss out on the play-offs was brilliant. We flew under the radar and that’s what we’re doing now. We started the season poorly but once we managed to get players back, the team has been free-flowing again and that’s down to sticking together.
It has been a huge learning curve for me and the UEFA Pro-Licence has been no different. I wasn’t the best at school, so going back into that environment and doing a lot of presentations and coursework, it’s been beneficial for me. To be fair I’m not too bad on the computer now since I’ve gone into management, as you’re doing presentations every week so I’m getting a lot better at them now.
I’ve really enjoyed the course. It’s been a good eye-opener in terms of the people that we have been able to access and get an insight into their footballing careers. The likes of Ange Postecoglou, David Moyes, Robbie Neilson, Jack Ross, Tony Docherty and, more recently, Callum Davidson and Mixu Paatalainen. We got different insights from all of them which I have found fascinating.
The candidates on the course are of a high calibre and there's great people on it. Going to Romania for the Under-21 Euros in the summer was great and the trip to London was fantastic. The two hours with Ange in particular were fascinating. He was cool and calm in the way he spoke about how he presented himself for the jobs at Celtic and Spurs. It’s good to see that he didn’t feel pressure taking those jobs, as he had belief in his philosophy and how he plays the game.
I came up against against him in the Scottish Cup with Morton and since then, he’s gone to Tottenham, and nothing has really changed in terms of his style and the type of player he is looking for. That was my highlight of the course so far.
The work can be tough to juggle at times and when we came back from London we had eight or nine different assignments to do. Juggling that with all the work I have to do as a manager, it can be challenging but it’s really useful as well because when I’ve been going through the assignments or listening to people, ideas have come into my head that I’ve then tried at Morton.
The Pro-Licence puts a lot of emphasis on parts of the job away from the pitch which has been extremely useful, as things like media management and recruitment have been elements I have had to learn on the job during the past two years. It's been challenging but I've learned so much about working the budgets, dealing with the potential signings and handling the press. This season we’ve brought in Dale Pryde-MacDonald as General Manager at Morton and that’s taken a bit of the burden off me which has made a big difference.
We're in a good position just now as a club but - like last year - we're happy flying under the radar. Obviously we don't want to be anywhere near the bottom, we want to stay with the pack and, with a good January and February, who knows where we can end up. We know we let ourselves down in the early parts of the season but we’ve been undefeated since the start of December and we want to continue that. If we could get to the play-offs then that would be great but we’ve got ourselves into a position where we can challenge. It was looking bleak but the boys have done fantastically well and it’s all about kicking on now.
