McCormack keeps damages from Hamilton

FORMER Hamilton Accies assistant manager John McCormack, who was sacked after he stripped in front of a young female physiotherapist and made offensive remarks about her, has won an appeal to keep £31,251 in damages.

“Cowboy” McCormack was sacked by Hamilton after two months in his post in 2008, and the club cited several incidents including his reducing youth players to tears and his behaviour towards the physiotherapist.

However, a judge ruled last year that the complaints levelled against McCormack had not justified his summary dismissal by the club, and Lord Woolman awarded damages.

Hamilton appealed the ruling but yesterday Lord Emslie, sitting with Lords Eassie and Mackay, held at the Court of Session in Edinburgh that the judgment should stand.

Before the final of a pre-season tournament, McCormack gave a team talk in the dressing room, attended by Jillian Galloway, 21, a part-time trainee physiotherapist. He said he could tell by the physio’s nipples that “even Jillian is excited”. After the game, McCormack entered the dressing room with Miss Galloway and told the players: “Get your tackle out, lads, Jillian’s coming to see who’s got the biggest t*****.” McCormack undressed in front of her and returned after a shower to dress.

Lord Emslie said: “Summary dismissal has to be regarded as an exceptional remedy calling for substantial justification. There was evidence which, in [Lord Woolman’s] view, clearly established a number of separate acts of misconduct… [he] concluded the club had no legitimate basis for taking the exceptional course of summary dismissal. At the very least, in our view, it was open to him to decide the case as he did. We can well understand and sympathise with the reasoning which led him to sustain [McCormack’s] claim of wrongful dismissal.”