Does the softly-softly coaching approach work?

Two parallel universes appear to have collided when Hamilton Accies and John McCormack got together.

Last week 'Cowboy' as he's known in the game, won his claim for wrongful dismissal against the Accies, having been sacked for allegedly bullying young players and sexually harassing a female colleague.

The case according to the judge appeared to represent a clear clash of football cultures, but it will not be a unique instance in the game.


Throughout football from the pro game to the amateurs there are still strong remnants of a macho mentality which has yet to be rooted out.

Commenting on claims of Mr McCormack's alleged "boorishly aggressive, foul-mouthed, ill-mannered" behaviour during a pre-season friendly in Oban, Lord Woolman said: "I have no hesitation in accepting that the coaching style of Mr McCormack did involve a great deal of aggressive shouting and swearing."

But he added it was the first time he was in charge of a Hamilton side and it was "simply a clash of styles".

Scottish football still has coaches at every level who use what is described as industrial language with their players.

But this is a post-industrial age.

The factories and mines which gave rise to coarse language and behaviour have disappeared.

What may have been acceptable in the days of the Clyde shipyards or Dundee jute mills will no longer wash.

The screaming, bug eyed, foul mouthed ranting accepted at some clubs, would be completely unacceptable in a lawyers office or a even a building site.

A boy I went to school with was once welded into a confined space in the old Robb Caledon boat yard in Dundee, after his cocky swagger got up the noses of time served tradesmen.

They kept him there with just enough air to breathe until he'd learned his lesson.

He didn't though, and immediately banjoed the foreman on his release.

The world has moved on from those days: everywhere, except some parts of football that is.

Apart from the bleeding obvious that screaming and bawling at people is not the best way to improve their performance, it is the kind of behaviour which should sit awkwardly in football.

Reared on tales of working class heroes like Shankly, Busby and Stein, a generation of Scots bought into the notion that our football represented socialist type values associated with its' working class roots.

But concepts of dignity, fraternity and solidarity are nowhere to be seen in the behaviour of some coaches.

Coaches and managers are in unique positions of power, with the ability to make or break livelihoods.

The situation is even more acute when dealing with youngsters.

The good coaches and managers, and there are plenty, have adapted to a changing world and mastered the softer skills required to deal with the intense and immediate passions of the game.

Tempers will always flare, but that is no excuse for abuse of power.

Football, like life, has it's own evolutionary process.

The game has always changed and adapted with the times.

From lightweight kit and boots to better protection for goalkeepers and ball players, accommodations have been made to ensure football reflects modernity.

Coaching and management cannot be immune from that evolutionary change.

Darwin, may not have been much of a striker, but his lesson that we evolve or die applies to football too.

The good coaches learned that and adapted long ago, those who didn't face extinction.

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