K-Mac

[Zatman]

I think whats more worrying is the recent bullying allegations about K Mac. While not defending it I imagine most football club cultures were like that back 25-30 years ago. But if he is still employing the same methods today then that is very stupid on his part as the game has clearly moved on

[LakotaDakota]

50 minutes ago, Zatman said:

I think whats more worrying is the recent bullying allegations about K Mac. While not defending it I imagine most football club cultures were like that back 25-30 years ago. But if he is still employing the same methods today then that is very stupid on his part as the game has clearly moved on

But again this is one or two people out of hundreds that seem to have a problem. He may have changed completely but you can't make everyone happy all the time and suddenly kids have gone from being the best thing ever in their school/sunday teams to just being an average player in a bunch of 30 sometimes they simply can not accept that they are no longer the superstar they were and may actually have to work a bit harder than others if they want to make it.

If a few people out of hundreds don't like someone for whatever reason is that any reason to get rid of a coach that generally seems well regarded amongst a large selwction of players although may possibly be a bit shouty for some peoples liking from time to time?

[thabucks]

There is a clear difference to being shouty shouty & strict and mentally abusing young vulnerable minds through bullying.... It doesn’t matter that only a few of the hundreds of players he’s coached experienced alleged bullying there is no excuse for singling out young boys as is claimed .... It has to be said though you can’t ignore his record and achievements with 99%  of the players he’s coached but it doesn’t balance out if found guilty . 

I would question the timing of these new claims .... it does seem weird to randomly bring it up before Xmas just as he is qualifying as a lawyer so many years later.... why now ? 

[VILLAMARV]

6 hours ago, TRO said:

it didn't do me any harm.

[TheStagMan]

14 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

What a **** ridiculous comparison

It really isn't. But hey ho, you carry on, no need for allegations to be proven, hey.

[Stevo985]

9 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

It really isn't. But hey ho, you carry on, no need for allegations to be proven, hey.

You’re comparing repeated accusations of real world bullying with a few people calling Steve Bruce names on an internet message board.

If you can’t see how absurd that is then I can’t help you. 

[Lichfield Dean]

On 13/12/2018 at 23:32, OutByEaster? said:

I think he's undeniably an incredible coach of young footballers, there are huge numbers of players across the league that won't hear a bad word about him (Gabby's instagram this evening describes him as a "special man" and asks him to stay strong) there are large numbers of players who've worked with him who believe that his coaching style made them better and who appreciate him as a person as much as a coach. 

Within that, there has been more than one accusation of bullying, more than one player who said that working under him made them feel on the edge of depression, or at least that they weren't being treated fairly. There are tales of young men, far from their families, being screamed at and made to feel like their dream has become a nightmare.

There's a reasonable amount of agreement between the two groups on his coaching style - he's dictatorial, he brings "tough love", he's not neccessarily easy to work with. Some believe that made them better, some have gone on to admire him for it, some believe it was bullying, some hate him for it. It's certainly possible that all of them could be right. Young men need different things from the authority figures in their lives. 

Football clubs on the other hand need warriors who can stand up to the Holte End, to the Tilton, to the Gallowgate, to the South stand at Elland Road, it needs them tested - it's a cruel thing. We do that, we're complicit. The role of youth coaches is to both toughen and support those young men on that journey, to be both the iron fist and the comforting shoulder - it's a balance even at the best of times.

Now that balance is different to abuse, it's different to incidents where the wrong lines are crossed, where what's happening is more than tough, more than the questioning of character - these are things that need to be investigated, and investigated by people who understand the environment - what normal looks like at a football academy, what good looks like - what actually took place - I'm happy to let those investigations take place before I start laying into him on the evidence of a newspaper article.

 

 

The bolded sentence is the crux of this for me. You can't treat everyone the same because not everyone is the same. Some respond to a firm approach and need it to keep them in the right mindset, some need more encouragement and assistance. This is good management, and trying to force a particular viewpoint or mindest on someone that can't handle it can be very unfair on that individual. It isn't 'being weak' it is not being supported correctly.

I don't know the facts here of course, and will also await any investigation outcomes before making any assumptions that something like this is more or less the KMac situation.

[TheStagMan]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

You’re comparing repeated accusations of real world bullying with a few people calling Steve Bruce names on an internet message board.

If you can’t see how absurd that is then I can’t help you. 

Accusations.......

Yet that makes it OK to rip a persons character to shreds and makes him a rocket polisher. 

 

It's not me that needs help mate.

 

Discuss the accusations, fine, but a number of posts - yours included read as if the guy is guilty and laid right into him. You can't see how that is wrong????? My word. 

 

If and only if he is convicted of something, then go to town, but if you cannot see what is wrong with the various aggressive and insulting posts on here based on ACCUSATIONS from a small percentage of the people he has coached, then my word, you need to give your head a wobble. 

 

hypocrisy of the highest order from someone who laid into people for calling Bruce a dinosaur. 

[TRO]

23 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

He is accused of making life difficult for one person 25 years ago...

Hundreds/Thousands of players have been through the same system with him since then. A few will always hate hard work/tough, drill style physical training/being shouted at etc.

Even Farrelly himself said he made him a better footballer, surely that is the job of a football coach...

Sure if he was finding things incredibly difficult something should be done about it to try and help him and today it obviously would be but there are always going to be a few people in football & life in general that simply can not cope with things as well as others.

Sorry but if you can't cope with being shouted at on a training field then being a professional footballer probably isn't for you.

 

You can't apply todays standards/norms to the past. It was perfectly normal for kids to play with toys made with lead & painted with lead based paints at one point and adults/teachers to thrash the living shit out of you if you misbehaved. Obviously this isn't permitted today but it doesn't mean you can judge those that did it 30+ years ago as having done something wrong.

I can't comment on the specifics of this case, because I don't know enough detail.....But while I abhor Bullying in its true form, I am equally aware that cases are brought to light in all walks of life that are not Bullying at all, but are dressed up as bullying to prove a point.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, TheStagMan said:

Accusations.......

Yet that makes it OK to rip a persons character to shreds and makes him a rocket polisher. 

 

It's not me that needs help mate.

 

Discuss the accusations, fine, but a number of posts - yours included read as if the guy is guilty and laid right into him. You can't see how that is wrong????? My word. 

 

If and only if he is convicted of something, then go to town, but if you cannot see what is wrong with the various aggressive and insulting posts on here based on ACCUSATIONS from a small percentage of the people he has coached, then my word, you need to give your head a wobble. 

 

hypocrisy of the highest order from someone who laid into people for calling Bruce a dinosaur. 

If you can show me any of my posts that indicate KMac is guilty then I’ll own up and say you’re right. 

Ironically you’re accusing someone of doing something they haven’t done. 

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by Stevo985

[Dr_Pangloss]

There's a worrying trend with K-Mac in fairness, although I view Farrelly's particular account with an enormous amount of scepticism. 

[TheStagMan]

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

If you can show me any of my posts that indicate KMac is guilty then I’ll own up and say you’re right. 

Ironically you’re accusing someone of doing something they haven’t done. 

 

I went back and looked, fulky expecting to say "here, ra ra ra" and it was someone else. I apologise, it was not you, i thought it was and i was wrong.

[TrentVilla]

On 13/12/2018 at 19:44, avfc1982am said:

Quite correct. I think this latest allegation will see him slowly pushed out the door. The new owners wont want any bad publicity to overshadow the good work that has been done the last couple of months.

Quite. Surprised it’s taken this long...

[VillaChris]

Strange thing for me is he was actually found guilty of the last accusations (I actually thought he'd been cleared of it given he remained with us) and was then given a promotion (boss of under 23s and also got the Millwall game).

Pretty disappointed in how the old crew handled this.

[briny_ear]

On 15/12/2018 at 20:15, VillaChris said:

Strange thing for me is he was actually found guilty of the last accusations (I actually thought he'd been cleared of it given he remained with us) and was then given a promotion (boss of under 23s and also got the Millwall game).

Pretty disappointed in how the old crew handled this.

I think the club have some serious questions to answer over this. 

Not sure if the move to the under-23s was a promotion - maybe more moving him away from the area in which he had been found wanting. 

But that is a dubious response

One thing that interests me about this discussion is the often expressed view that K-Mac has been a great youth team coach.

I thought it was commonly agreed that our youth set up has been in serious decline since the 1990s and this failure was one key factor in the club’s decline overall.

Even talented products of the youth programme often have had to go to other clubs to achieve success (e.g. Albrighton).

Grealish of course is a welcome exception to this but in my view there are questions about the whole youth set up for at Ieast the past 10 years.

[OutByEaster?]

4 hours ago, briny_ear said:

I thought it was commonly agreed that our youth set up has been in serious decline since the 1990s and this failure was one key factor in the club’s decline overall.

That's an interesting perspective. I don't think it's the case and I'm wondering where the idea comes from.

We won the youth cup in 2002 and put through what was probably our strongest batch of youth players I can remember in the mid 2000's when a team with Hogg, Bannan, Albrighton et al were for a period the best in the country. I think there was a decline in the early part of this decade, and over the last three years there was a crisis where we almost lost our top grade academy status due to funding issues, but in general the youth set up has been one part of the club we could take pride in - and last years cup win suggests it's still on a good footing.

[wilko154]

5 hours ago, briny_ear said:

I thought it was commonly agreed that our youth set up has been in serious decline since the 1990s and this failure was one key factor in the club’s decline overall.

Even talented products of the youth programme often have had to go to other clubs to achieve success (e.g. Albrighton).

Grealish of course is a welcome exception to this but in my view there are questions about the whole youth set up for at Ieast the past 10 years.

Completely disagree, as @OutByEaster? said above we won the youth cup in 2002, we've won the Hong Kong 7's multiple times, won the PL Cup last season and lost in the playoff final.

It's a credit to the coaches and management of the youth teams that we now have so many players on the verge of breaking into the first team, the fact they haven't yet played much is more to do with the management of the first team and the players available and bought during the recent seasons limiting the youth.

We currently have Dominic Revan, Jake Doyle-Hayes, Jack Grealish, Calum O'Hare, Rushian Hepburn-Murphy and Keinan Davis in and around the first team all brought through from the youth setup. That's a fantastic output!

[briny_ear]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

That's an interesting perspective. I don't think it's the case and I'm wondering where the idea comes from.

We won the youth cup in 2002 and put through what was probably our strongest batch of youth players I can remember in the mid 2000's when a team with Hogg, Bannan, Albrighton et al were for a period the best in the country. I think there was a decline in the early part of this decade, and over the last three years there was a crisis where we almost lost our top grade academy status due to funding issues, but in general the youth set up has been one part of the club we could take pride in - and last years cup win suggests it's still on a good footing.

It comes from the failure of many of these youth players to establish themselves in the first team squad. I don’t see the point of having a youth programme if it doesn’t supply a decent flow of players to the first team squad.

You may say it is more the failure of the senior set-up but there has to be a question about how well the youth programme prepared these players for the step up.

[lapal_fan]

I think the last few pages have been pretty interesting, reading all the differing viewpoints on the matter. 

I think it all boils down to one thing, personally - and that's we're all animals, and you can't apply one rule, or line of thinking to all of us. 

For me?  I've always needed a kick up the arse, whatever I do.  If I feel challenged and motivated, I'll get myself to the end of most tasks.  But my God, I can be complacent if I don't see a reason or a natural urge to do what I'm meant to do.  A screaming match every now and again probably does get the best out of me, for some reason.  I'm terrible at arguing "in the moment", I'm way better at thinking and acting retrospectively, and that can bring problems and frustrations, but it is what it is. 

But I have learned (slowly!) that you can't use the same methods of discipline on everyone.  There are some people you can talk to like shit, there are some you have to be careful with.  No two people are the same, and, as a coach/teacher/manager etc - it's up to them to figure the best way to get the best out of staff/players/students. 

From reading the Gareth Farrelly stuff, it seems like KMAC grew frustrated with Gareth's comebacks?  Maybe Gareth was a difficult person to coach, maybe he constantly questioned the methods or maybe he didn't pick up the work as fast as others?  Maybe he undermined KMAC's authority and the only way KMAC felt he could keep that authority was to have a public slanging match?  

There are so many scenario's as to why Gareth feels this way, but others obviously don't.  

We need to take the situation seriously, but before any of us judge or make accusations on past history, we need to know the facts - which we probably never will publicly. 

Either way, it's not nice for Gareth to be made to feel this way, and KMAC obviously didn't handle him well enough, regardless of whether he did, or did not with others. 

We'll see. 

[VillaChris]

Between 2006-2010 we produced Cahill, Davis, Hogg, Fonz, Wiemann, Albrighton, Daniel Johnson, Gabby, Bannan, Gardner brothers and probably some more obvious ones I've forgotten. Two premier league winners in there and while a fair few of those haven't fulfill their potential all bar the Fonz continue to play in one of the top two divisions in English football and many of those have caps for their country.

I've said for a long time with our youths is we simply don't send them on loan at the right times for their development compared to many other clubs. Guys like O'Hare and Hepburn-Murphy have been hyped up for 2-3 seasons and yet we still don't know if they're any good. Why we didn't loan out O'Hare to league 1 in January is totally beyond me. If he'd gone to a team there and done well he'd have come back ready to get some minutes in our team.