Peterhead pay price of loyalty to Neale Cooper

Published on Friday 25 March 2011 18:00

Being loyal can prove an expensive business. The only surprise attached to Peterhead's dismissal of their manager Neale Cooper earlier this week is that the parting of ways hadn't arrived sooner.

A year ago, the club chairman Rodger Morrison publicly bemoaned a lack of return for decent investment in the Peterhead playing staff. At that stage, Peterhead were toiling to make an end- of-season play-off place; today, they are firmly rooted to the bottom of Division Two. Regression hadn't cost Cooper his job, until recent days.

Morrison is now willing to admit that he and his fellow board members may have waited too long in triggering a management change. Loyalty to Cooper was a factor, but so, too, was a lucrative contract which was initially on a two-year, rolling basis as protection in case the manager was courted by bigger clubs, and worth in excess of 40,000 a year. With that in mind, an agreement over settlement was never likely to come swiftly.

Peterhead are far from alone in that position, with other clubs in Scotland's lower leagues unable to make the management change they would perhaps like, simply on account of compensation payments. With revenues dropping, there is a clear prohibitive element to contracts signed even two years ago now being ended.

"The biggest frustration is that with the budget we have, we should be looking at the play-offs at least," said Morrison yesterday. "And, listen, Neale knew that. He knew that was why he was under pressure."

That budget hadn't been altered from last season. One subtle change, which in an unwanted way has saved Peterhead money, saw win bonuses dramatically increased to the level where they could double the weekly wage of some players.

Peterhead have watched Cowdenbeath progress to Division One and cope admirably with, the north east club would legitimately argue, no better a wider set-up than is in place at Balmoor. Peterhead's stadium itself is a vast improvement on Central Park.

Debate has also raged about the choice of Cooper's successor. Bobby Mann, an experienced player who has his eyes on a career in management, took charge of Peterhead for the midweek draw against Stenhousemuir.

It is to John Sheran, though, that the club has turned; with the former Montrose and Cove Rangers manager himself admitting an element of surprise at taking a call from Morrison. Fortmartine United of the Highland League are believed to have heavily courted Sheran, before themselves opting for another former Peterhead manager in Steve Paterson.

"I'll not say we haven't had a few queries about the appointment," the chairman admitted. "Obviously Neale Cooper was a big name. My first appointment, Iain Stewart, did very well here despite things maybe coming to a bitter end."Iain was local, we needed someone in and around the club. He was passionate and had a good work ethic. This is the same reason again; we have tried a big name and it didn't work out. I'm not saying it wouldn't again, but John has a real desire for this post."

In hailing Sheran's arrival, Peterhead will let supporters in free to his first home match, against Airdrie United next Saturday. The first 200, indeed, will receive free pies in a move sponsored by Aberdeen and Peterhead businesses.

"John has a lot of contacts in terms of bringing through younger players, he has kept very up to date with the First and Second Divisions and is a successful businessman in his own right," Morrison said. "I know there is a criticism that he didn't do so well at Montrose but we were in the same league at that time. I know he didn't have much to work with there."

For Peterhead, the worst case scenario is relegation, and a rare setback for the side who left the Highland League before the start of the 2000/2001 season. Starting with today's crucial visit to Alloa, Peterhead desperately need a run of victories in order to claw themselves out of an ominous position.

"To be honest, the gulf in revenue between the First and Second Division is not what it once was," Morrison added. "And there has never been much of a gulf between the second and the third. But we don't want to find that out."