Owen Coyle enjoyed two minutes of celebration with his Queen’s Park players in the aftermath of their sensational Championship play-off victory at Airdrie’s Excelsior Stadium last month. Then walked out of the dressing room to let them enjoy the moment.
He knew what was coming down the track for some of the squad who had finished fourth in League One, yet still managed to beat Dunfermline from the division above and an Airdrie side who had ended 21 points in front of Queen’s. Even as the players sprayed their champagne, Coyle knew that for players such as captain Michael Doyle plus stalwarts Peter Grant, Bob McHugh, Grant Gillespie and Jai Quitongo, there would be no place for them in the next stage of the Spiders’ journey from amateur to professional to back-to-back promotions, which now see them in the second tier.
The aim is to keep climbing and become an established Premiership outfit. That’s why vastly experienced Coyle was lured from a title-winning stint in India and the 55-year-old, who managed Bolton as well as Burnley in the Premier League for three years, knew from the start tough decisions had to be taken.
“It was very difficult,” he told Record Sport as he looked out over the club’s new training facility at Lochinch in Glasgow’s Pollok Park. “The human side of it comes in. That day we beat Airdrie, the players were in the dressing room celebrating like mad and I only stayed inside with them for a minute or so before I came out. Leeann and Marijn were just going in and I told them I wanted to let the boys enjoy themselves.
“The truth of the matter is, although I was delighted to have won promotion, I knew a lot of those boys weren’t going to be with me next season and I didn’t want to be two-faced about it. Those boys did brilliantly to achieve what we did but if you stand still, you don’t progress.
“It was really tough to have that conversation with the likes of Peter, who had come back from a really bad injury and probably played his best four games of the season in those play-off games. If it were on personal attributes and how much I liked those boys, every one of them would have had a new contract. But given our budget, if I’d kept them, there was no way for me to put my own stamp on the squad by bringing in my own players.”
Leeann and Marijn, to whom he referred, are Dempster, the chief executive, and Beuker, the director of football brought in from AZ Alkmaar with a massive reputation for developing youth players.
The Dutchman’s task is to create the best academy in the country for Queen’s Park. That might seem a big ask but, being backed by Lord Willie Haughey’s financial muscle and business acumen, the Lesser Hampden side aren’t messing about.
Coyle’s task, though, is to keep the first team moving and having freed up space in the squad, he’s already brought in Jason Naismith, Dom Thomas and Grant Savoury, with plans for four first-team ready players to follow. One of those is a defender with caps to his name, whom he reckons will arrive when a visa is granted in the middle of next month.
Coyle’s also had talks with two high-profile internationals in this country and while he doesn’t expect to sign them, he’s adamant he’ll still add genuine quality to his ranks. He said: “The Championship is really tough. Everybody will have aspirations of being in that top four and Dundee will have aspirations of winning the league given the size of the club and the fact they’ve just come down.
“But we are not going up there to sit on our hands. We are going into that division to be competitive and good players will help me to achieve that.
“We’ve added one or two already and I’m looking to add another four, what I’d call, core players that I see as bona fide starters on top of the ones I’ve already got in. I’m speaking to a few just now and some of them are really good players, so they’d need to take a drop in salary to come here.
“But I’d hope they’d buy into what we’re trying to do here. As much as we are trying to win and move through the leagues, the biggest thing in our vision is to have a world-class academy that will allow more of the kids we develop to make it through to our first team.
“We know we are in a tough environment with a lot of big clubs in and around Glasgow but that doesn’t change the idea. We have ambitions to get into the Premiership. That’s going to be a huge challenge and we have to put building blocks in place.
“But the aim right now is to be really competitive in the Championship and we’ll see where that leads us. It has to be done in a structured environment. We can’t just throw money at the first team because in the long term that’s not sustainable.”
Which is where he and Beuker align. Coyle said: “I’ve always been a manager who’ll put a youngster in if he is good enough. I played Jack Wilshere in the Premier League when he was 17 and on loan with us at Bolton. Jay Rodriguez as well at Burnley. I’ve got no fear of playing them.
“Marijn did fantastic at AZ Alkmaar, based on young talent coming through. He has got a big, big job putting our academy in place but I will always bounce stuff off him.
“Although we both know that whatever decisions are taken about the first team, I make that decision. He’s there to help me get whatever I need, so that works really well. He’s innovative, has great ideas and there’s no doubt he’ll do really well for us.”
Other than a year at Ross County in 2017, Coyle has spent the last decade-and-a-half working in England, the US and India. He said: “I’ve two grandchildren who are three and five. My wife Kerry and I felt it was right we should be here to watch them growing up.”
