Stevie Crawford

[rosythpar]

Courier reporting that Liam Fox is targeting Crawford to be his assistant manager at Dundee United.

[Piracy]

2 hours ago, rosythpar said:

Courier reporting that Liam Fox is targeting Crawford to be his assistant manager at Dundee United.

Good luck to Stevie. 

[GG Riva]

4 hours ago, rosythpar said:

Courier reporting that Liam Fox is targeting Crawford to be his assistant manager at Dundee United.

I think Stevie would be an excellent No 2. Maybe too nice a guy to be a successful manager in his own right. And I don't mean that as an insult. The top managers tend to have a ruthless streak.

[SanguinePar]

Good luck to him. I still think it's shameful the way he was hounded out by some of our support.

I'd have liked him to have stayed on to build on what he'd done already - and not just because his departure led to Grant and Hughes, the end of Ross McArthur's tenure and our relegation.

[Digs]

16 hours ago, GG Riva said:

I think Stevie would be an excellent No 2. Maybe too nice a guy to be a successful manager in his own right. And I don't mean that as an insult. The top managers tend to have a ruthless streak.

Folk say that a lot about Stevie, but it's not true. He commands respect in his dressing room and isn't scared to say what he thinks. I played with him for a short time at over 35's and he definitely wasn't meek or too nice, although he definitely was a good guy. 

A good example of this comes from a friend of mine from a few years ago when Stevie was manager. His son played with mine, and was in Fife Elite for years, at the same time as Matty Todd. During a reserve game where they got pumped, Robbie Muirhead was being less than helpful or complimentary towards some of the young guys, as if he was above playing that level and wasn;t doing as he was asked by the coaching staff. He was taken off and gave his opinion towards the bench as he did so.

At the end of the game, Stevie was watching and came into the dressing room and told everyone to leave their stuff and be quiet. First thing he said was, in front of everyone, "You, you ever speak to my staff or anyone else at this club like that again, and you'll be straight out the door" but with a few more industrial words used. Funnily enough, he didn't last that long, and it was him who brought Muirhead in.

Stevie is not a soft touch.

Good luck if he does go. I do think some guys are better suited to being a number two. I always preferred it in the ammies and juniors, I had no interest in being the manager. Gordon Forrest at Hearts is great example. Brilliant coach, and has been a fantastic number two to Stevie Leighton at Kelty, all the way through to where he is now with Robbie Neilson at Hearts, sitting 3rd in the league. Again, he has never had any interest in being a manager in his own right.

[Number Eleven]

Stevie Crawford is a Pars legend. No one else in the club’s history has been a Scotland regular over a couple of seasons as he was and his partnership with Craig Brewster was fantastic.

Sadly he didn’t seem to be appreciated as manager, even though his last season in charge was as successful as anything achieved since winning promotion to the top league in 2011. He looked haunted in his last few weeks in charge and I wish him every success whether that is as manager at East Fife or assistant at Dundee Utd.

[Digs]

Now confirmed as Assistant Head Coach. Good luck Craw

[Al k]

Crawford will always be a Dunfermline legend and there's no doubt he's a great guy and coach.

The thing for me is he had more money than any recent manager to spend on players, never won a Scottish cup game, abysmal away record, got into the playoffs by the scruff of our necks in two full seasons after being miles ahead, lost more games than won and no midfield when he left. 

Hasn't cut it at East Fife again after dropping a league, there's already a few EF happy he's gone and they've managed to get a payment for him. 

Footballs all about opinions and that's my take. It was a sad end for a guy that gave us some great memories as a player and there were great moments as a manager.

For the st mirrens and hearts, there was always a Edinburgh city, Brechin and 4/5 game losing streak.

[Number Eleven]

I’m not going to make an argument that Stevie Crawford is a great manager as I don’t think the evidence supports that. But consider the Pars managers since administration; Jim Jefferies, John Potter, Alan Johnston, Peter Grant and John Hughes. His success is clearly better that average on that measure. 
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t demand high standards but we also need to be grounded in reality.

I also need to be convinced that SC spent the most money. I’m thinking of AJ in 2018-19 and even Peter Grant. Even if he did, he also brought in the most with Kevin Nisbet.

[parsforlife]

1 hour ago, Number Eleven said:

I’m not going to make an argument that Stevie Crawford is a great manager as I don’t think the evidence supports that. But consider the Pars managers since administration; Jim Jefferies, John Potter, Alan Johnston, Peter Grant and John Hughes. 

Even pre-admin, there’s a decent number who he’s outperformed.

Ultimately the nature of management means you will nearly always leave a club at a low point.  Far more managers are sacked than move on to bigger clubs and few get to call time on their careers on their own terms.

Crawfords spell was ok.  And whilst that’s hardly the greatest compliment I can give, there’s quite a few who would be delighted with that compared to how they’d be described. 

Genuinely how many managers of ours are remembered as greats 3 or 4? And probably only stein who didn’t have  playing career with us to help him out with that reputation. 

Becoming a great manager is a hell of a lot harder than becoming a great player IMO

Edited September 23, 2022 by parsforlife

[Al k]

59 minutes ago, Number Eleven said:

I’m not going to make an argument that Stevie Crawford is a great manager as I don’t think the evidence supports that. But consider the Pars managers since administration; Jim Jefferies, John Potter, Alan Johnston, Peter Grant and John Hughes. His success is clearly better that average on that measure. 
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t demand high standards but we also need to be grounded in reality.

I also need to be convinced that SC spent the most money. I’m thinking of AJ in 2018-19 and even Peter Grant. Even if he did, he also brought in the most with Kevin Nisbet.

Its true there's multiple different ways to look at it. I thought AJ had been our best with his last season being the only with no improvement.

Did he bring in the most with Nisbet, I thought it was a smaller fee with a percentage on resale?

Sure Longridge brought in 6 figures. I had forgot AJ paid a few fees Muirhead and Ryan being two from the top of my head. 

[parsforlife]

2 minutes ago, Al k said:

Its true there's multiple different ways to look at it. I thought AJ had been our best with his last season being the only with no improvement.

Did he bring in the most with Nisbet, I thought it was a smaller fee with a percentage on resale?

Sure Longridge brought in 6 figures. I had forgot AJ paid a few fees Muirhead and Ryan being two from the top of my head. 

I wouldn’t be basing spending at this level on fees payed to other clubs, wages will be easily our biggest expense on any signing.

[Rossmcno1]

I really wanted Stevie C to work, but in reality, he underperformed.  just because his record is better than some of his predecessors and successors, says more about the quality of them than him.  

 In fact other than AJs first season and McIntyres promotion season, I think all the managers we’ve hired have underperformed.  Indeed - I don’t think any single Dunfermline manager has “over performed” since Bert Paton.  What do I mean by that?  Well look at what St Mirren, Livingston, St Johnstone in recent years have done - we’ve not had such success.  At no time have we punched ABOVE our weight over the last couple of decades.  Calderwood was spending to get us where we were.  

[parsforlife]

1 hour ago, Rossmcno1 said:

I really wanted Stevie C to work, but in reality, he underperformed.  just because his record is better than some of his predecessors and successors, says more about the quality of them than him.  

 In fact other than AJs first season and McIntyres promotion season, I think all the managers we’ve hired have underperformed.  Indeed - I don’t think any single Dunfermline manager has “over performed” since Bert Paton.  What do I mean by that?  Well look at what St Mirren, Livingston, St Johnstone in recent years have done - we’ve not had such success.  At no time have we punched ABOVE our weight over the last couple of decades.  Calderwood was spending to get us where we were.  

I do agree to an extent, but if you look at the clubs you mentioned, how many of their managers over the past 40 years would you put in the same bracket as leighman and paton?

[GG Riva]

On 23/09/2022 at 09:32, Digs said:

Folk say that a lot about Stevie, but it's not true. He commands respect in his dressing room and isn't scared to say what he thinks. I played with him for a short time at over 35's and he definitely wasn't meek or too nice, although he definitely was a good guy. 

A good example of this comes from a friend of mine from a few years ago when Stevie was manager. His son played with mine, and was in Fife Elite for years, at the same time as Matty Todd. During a reserve game where they got pumped, Robbie Muirhead was being less than helpful or complimentary towards some of the young guys, as if he was above playing that level and wasn;t doing as he was asked by the coaching staff. He was taken off and gave his opinion towards the bench as he did so.

At the end of the game, Stevie was watching and came into the dressing room and told everyone to leave their stuff and be quiet. First thing he said was, in front of everyone, "You, you ever speak to my staff or anyone else at this club like that again, and you'll be straight out the door" but with a few more industrial words used. Funnily enough, he didn't last that long, and it was him who brought Muirhead in.

Stevie is not a soft touch.

Good luck if he does go. I do think some guys are better suited to being a number two. I always preferred it in the ammies and juniors, I had no interest in being the manager. Gordon Forrest at Hearts is great example. Brilliant coach, and has been a fantastic number two to Stevie Leighton at Kelty, all the way through to where he is now with Robbie Neilson at Hearts, sitting 3rd in the league. Again, he has never had any interest in being a manager in his own right.

Thanks for your input, Digs. You've obviously seen Stevie working at close quarters and I haven't. My impression was gleaned when I met him and his squad to brief them about the Schools Engagement Programme. Stevie is very soft spoken and some of the players didn't appear to be paying attention when he was introducing me. I was annoyed on his behalf, but he seemed unruffled by it. I remember thinking they'd all have been paying close attention if it was Fergie or Jock Stein.