Ian McCall
Manager Profile

Biography

It would be fair to say that Ian McCall is the most unpopular manager in Clydebank's history and this despite achieving some success during his spell in charge. On the surface this would seem a strange state of affairs, but it does bear further scrutiny.

Ian McCall was always a bit of a marmite character as a player, but he had earned a big money move to Rangers from Dunfermline. He never really made it at Rangers and spent the rest of his career flitting between clubs at the lower end of the Premier League or Top end of the first.

He was not without controversy as a player so it seemed an odd choice when he was appointed manager of Clydebank in 1997. The club had recently been taken over by Dr John Hall and associates. All sorts of promises were made to supporters and signings of established names seemed to bear this out.

However, before long the real motives of the new owners came to light, and that was to relocate the club to Dublin and play in the Scottish League. Once the supporters discovered this they were apoplectic. It forced the club to admit what they were up to and Ian McCall was used as the front man for this at the press conference. He would never be forgiven for this and the relationship between manager/club and the supporters completely broke down.

The supporters staged a number of protests including a pitch invasion at Forfar, a walk out, cheering the opposition in a home game against East Fife after the club forced the supporters to stand behind the goal away from the directors box, amongst other stunts.

The supporters had affected the team as they led the table in February but only won twice in the next eleven matches once the news broke. The team needed a big win at Brechin on the last day of the season to be promoted, and we had the spectacle of the fans not wanting this to happen. The Bankies went on to win 6-1 and were duly promoted. It was the oddest thing feeling deflated after winning promotion as it seemed to only fuel Hall's desire to relocate the club and success only meant they would be more encouraged to push on with their plans.

As the folly of the Dublin plan began to unravel and subsequent attempts to relocate the club to anywhere that would listen came to nothing Hall started to lose interest in doing anything other than keep the club on life support.

From a footballing perspective, Ian McCall did a good job to keep the Bankies in the First Division after promotion finishing in a credible seventh position. However, there was no way this could be sustained,and with the club moving to Greenock to groundshare at Cappielow the crowds got even worse and the next season was a disaster from a playing point of view.

By the time January came the Bankies had not won any of their 21 matches, and Ian McCall took the opportunity to take the Morton job when the vacancy arose. McCall has gone on to manage eight clubs in Scottish football in total with varying degrees of sucesss.