Congratulations to James McPake who has been named Glen’s Championship Manager of the Month for March 2024. James led his side to four league wins from the six fixtures in March. Dunfermline now sit fifth in the cinch Championship and have 41 points from 31 matches.
He joked that his kids enjoy playing with them! “I think they’ve got three or four each now, but they’ve maybe been wondering why none have been brought home this season!”
James won three Manager of the Month awards last season in League One adding to the one he picked up in March 2021 while in the Championship with Dundee. He was quick to praise and thank his management team and playing squad:-
“Look, awards are good and personal awards are good, but without the fantastic staff I’ve got working beside me or the players then I wouldn’t be sitting talking about it.”
James agreed that the success in March has to some extent coincided with his squad recovering from injuries and duly getting stronger.
“The biggest thing is when you watch training with that big group and almost all your players training then you enjoy it. That’s no disrespect to the other ones but it was tough on them when they were having to train every day and then play every Saturday carrying knocks. You couldn’t give them certain games off or nurse them through certain things.
“Good players make training easy as a coach. When you watch training like that you maybe get a wee bit annoyed and wish you’d had that squad for longer this season. I enjoy training and I enjoy watching good players in training, and over the last period we’ve certainly had that. The players enjoy it because the standard of the training has gone up and it just gives you the chance to work on a lot more and do a lot more in the sessions.”
From mid December to late February his side went on a run of nine games without a win which generated frustrations expressed on social media and even at games. James revealed that experience has taught him how to deal with such adversity.
“I had it (criticism) often enough at Dundee as well, and came away with a few manager of the month awards and a manager of the year award and promotion to the Premiership.
“I still class myself as a young, inexperienced manager. I’m not even 40 yet. I’m better at blanking it out now. As a player, I went through a phase at the start of social media where I couldn’t blank it out because it was new but I’ve learned and done a lot of work on myself to get away from it. I don’t want to criticise and make it look like I don’t care what people are thinking and saying. Of course, they’re fans of the football club and they’re all entitled to their opinion.
“Add into that, the fans from the other club who sing the songs about getting sacked in the morning. I think I’ve had that at every ground. It’s fine, it’s water off a duck’s back, if I’m honest. I got plenty of stick when I was a player as well. When your nine and ten -year-old start telling me I should be getting sacked, that’s when I’ll start getting worried. They’ve not said that yet! They still want to come to the games.
“I believe I’ve learned a lot from my time at Dundee in that respect, from bad runs and half-decent runs – and bad runs are always a lot worse than what good runs are good. When it’s a bad run it’s an absolute disaster and when it’s a good run it’s expected. Regardless of what kind of run you’re on you need to keep your head on what you’re doing and keep working hard.
“I must admit and I’m sure the board will not mind me saying it, I genuinely didn’t feel under any pressure at all here. Now, had we had this full squad and we had gone nine games without a win then, I can’t say, but it could have been different. I don’t know but the board understand football and they see what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to build a football club, in terms of a way of playing and producing our own players and when you strip it back, the last time we were in this league, we got relegated. That was the main thing, come in to this league, don’t get relegated, get to 40 points. The first aim was to get to 40 points, we’re on 41, and now it’s how quickly can we add to that as well?”
James added that the unwavering support of the Dunfermline Athletic board, in particular from Thomas Meggle, David Cook and Nick Teller has also been a huge help to him and his assistant Dave Mackay.
“From the conversations I had with the board, from my take on it, at no point did me and Dave feel like we had to win the next game or we were going to lose our job or anything like that. We were very well supported and very well backed, in terms of that support coming from Thomas, from David, from Nick and the rest of the board, all of them, and the conversations with them.
“You just had to look at the injuries we had and you could see why there was a bit of a struggle. That’s not taking anything away from two games in particular where injuries are no excuse. Against Morton and Queen’s Park at home, those days we could never even look at using injuries as an excuse. It certainly helped me going forward and taught me a lot in saying I would never come out and use injuries as an excuse.
“I wasn’t trying to kid anyone on. I just genuinely didn’t want to use injuries as an excuse. It’s only now you get them all back and you see the standard going up in training and you think, ‘wow, it did have a real affect’. What I hadn’t thought about was using the same players day-in, day-out and asking them to play week-in, week-out, even when they’re carrying niggles. That wasn’t easy and we didn’t have enough young lads who were ready.
“Andrew Tod is one who has proven he can handle it but he was out. Taylor Sutherland has proved he can handle coming on and he will eventually be a first-team player at this club week in week out, I’m sure. It’s now when you watch training that you think, ‘that did have a big impact’. There’s still a lot of work to do. As you saw on Saturday in the second-half, even with a strong team, we can still be hopeless at times.”
James stresses that even in fifth place Dunfermline that not totally clear of the relegation zone and play-offs at the wrong end of the table:-
“We’re still at risk, as is every team outside Partick, Dundee United and Raith. Every team outside those three will still have an eye on what’s happening with Inverness and the teams round about that. Arbroath look like they’re running out of games but you never know in this league, mad things can happen. They won three in a row earlier in the season and it will need something like that again.”
