THIS HAS BEEN a mixed week for Fitba here in God's County. Delight at the return to home turf of one of our own, Wee Billy Dodds, who has joined Kilmarnock as Assistant to new Manager Neil McCann, but despair at the passing, aged 88, of the Legend that was Willie Knox – arguably the greatest Manager in the History of Junior Football, a level of the Beautiful Game which we hold dear here in Ayrshire.
Willie was a Schoolboy Internationalist, going on to play for several clubs, nost-notably Raith Rovers and Barrow, where he was praised for his attitude by no less a figure than Sir Matt Busby. However, if he never really hit the heights as a player, once he turned to coaching and managing, he found his true forte.
It is one of Scottish Fitba's great myths that Talbot could barely win a corner before Knox arrived in 1977. The terrible days of constant defeat were already behind them and Jamesie Kirkland had already started to turn things around, when he was replaced by Knox, but, the new gaffer definitely took the team to a new level and with on-field success came off field improvements and over his 16-year tenure in the Beechwood Park hot seat, Knox saw the club grow massively in stature.
The trophies began to arrive, in all, Knox guided Talbot to no less than 43 league and cup successes during his managerial tenure. The initial break-through came in the West of Scotland Cup, which took up near-permanent residence in the Beechwood clubhouse; however, the big one, the Holy Grail, The Scottish Junior Cup proved elusive, until that great Hampden afternoon, in 1986, when Talbot put the mighty Pollok to the swordL: raging back from two goals down to bring the magnificent trophy back to Auchinleck for the first time since 1949.
If you've won a trophy, the best thing to do is defend it, which Talbot duly did, beating Kilbirnie at Rugby Park, to make it two in a row. History now beckoned and a third straight final, against Petershill offered Knox and his squad immortality – they would not spurn the opportunity, making it a Threepeat and history.
A couple of fallow seasons in the Scottish followed, but, in 1991 at Brockville,
Talbot were again dominant, seeing off Newtongrange Star, before a fifth win in seven years, perhaps the most-satisfying, since it was over near-neighbours Glenafton Athletic, further enhanced the legend of Willie Knox.
Fitba folklore tells us all managerial reigns end in failure and after some internal politicking in the committee room, Knox left Talbot, He had later spells in-charge at Cumnock and Irvine Meadow, but the magic wasn't there.
Willie Knox recruited good players to the club, he managed them brilliantly and if he wasn't a great tactician, he was up there in the Ferguson/Shankly class as a man manager and motivator; getting extra out of comparatively ordinary players, while at the same time having one or two in his dressing room who were, in Junior Football terms, exceptional. He demanded excellence and success and he got it.
In retirement from management, he was always a welcome guest at Talbot games, while he took great enjoyment from his involvement with his grandson's boys club team in Kilmarnock. He also played his part in the Ayrshire Football Memories Club, particularly on the afternoon when he wound-up the great Eric Caldow to unprecedented levels of anger, by reminding him of a game in the 1950s in which Knox's Raith Rovers had stuck five goals on Rangers. I don't think Eric ever fully believed Willie about that one.
In 1989 he was awarded the BEM – British Empire Medal – to mark his managerial successes and I know for a fact, the new High Heid Yins of the Scottish Football Hall of Fame are intent on getting Willie Knox into that august body just as soon as they can.
Scottish Junior Football has lost a Giant.
IF IT IS well done thou good and faithful servant of the game. When it comes to Knoxie, it's Good Luck to another Ayrshire Footballing Great, with Billy Dodds' appointment as Assistant Manager of Kilmarnock.
Neil McCann of course has the big job at Rugby Park, but he will lean heavily on his old club mate in the remainder of the season. Killie have got themselves into a major pickle and it will take eerything McCann and Dodds can bring to the job to get them away from the basement fo the league.
I wish the pair well.
