CLYDE have appointed the former Rangers defender, Graham Roberts, as their new manager. The 45-year-old replaces Billy Reid, who quit the club last month for Hamilton, and he brings his former Old firm adversary, Joe Miller, with him as his assistant.
Roberts, who began his career with Tottenham Hotspur, has won non-league titles as a manager south of the border and will leave his sports academy in Marbella to take up the position. He will have his hands full in repeating the success of predecessor Reid, who led the club to third place in this season's first division on a shoestring budget.
A recent series of cutbacks saw the majority of the playing staff rejecting part-time deals and the club had just three signed players for next year.
Roberts admitted that the emphasis will be on bringing through youngsters.
"We'll have a young team, 20- to 21-year-olds. I like to see young players with enthusiasm and a winning mentality. I've been in management for 14 years and I do know how to treat players. Everybody will be treated the same. If you're honest with players when you pick them and when you drop them and tell them to their face, then they're happy with that. This club have been very unlucky in the past three years and hopefully we can take them to where they should be."
The ranks of signed players have swollen to four with Roberts confirming that Miller, 37, will be registered.
"Joe won't play every week, he'll be used in case we get a lot of injuries, " said Roberts. "First things first, Joe will be assistant manager and coach. His knowledge of the game is fantastic, it's probably better than mine.
"Joe's a quiet lad and puts his arm around people, whereas I'm a fiery person. We're a good mixture. I'd trust him with my life."
Len McGuire, Clyde's finance director, admitted Roberts quickly emerged as the outstanding candidate. He said:
"He's got that wee bit extra sparkle, that wee bit extra enthusiasm and I think the fans will love him. Him and Joe have a lot of contacts and if Joe Bloggs comes and asks you to sign then Graham Roberts and Joe Miller ask you then you might think a wee bit more."
Their first game in charge will be against Motherwell in July, closely followed by Manchester United's visit to Broadwood on July 16.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article