Today, the news broke that Ross Jack
and Elgin City “mutually agreed” to part company. It followed Elgin’s 2-0
defeat to Queen’s Park on Saturday where his side performed abysmally. The fact
that Jack did not fill the bench at New Broomfield has led many to suggest that
relations between the manager and the board were not on an even keel.
Jack was Elgin’s longest serving
manager since the club gained admittance to the Scottish Football League,
lasting one day short of five years. When he took over the club they were positioned
bottom and finished the 2008/09 season in that position. That was followed by 9th,
7th, 4th and 5th placed finishes. However,
this season has started badly, with the club performing inconsistently.
It was clear that the past two seasons
saw Elgin’s best chances of promotion since their arrival in the SFL in 2000.
The playoff defeat to a poor Albion Rovers side in 2012 was pretty galling for
the club and last year the club had numerous opportunities to secure a play-off
place, only to squander them.
Elgin’s inability to be clinical last
season arguably cost them the services of two of their star performers – winger
Daniel Moore and striker Stuart Leslie, who both joined Nairn County in the
summer. The former is allegedly pocketing £1000 a week from County, and Leslie
was offered a four year contract to join the Station Park club. Money that
Elgin just couldn’t compete with. The loss of Moore and Leslie was compounded
to injuries to key players such as Mark Nicholson and Sean Crighton, who were
unavailable at the start of the season and Paul Millar out long term. The
midfield situation was made worse by the injury of key man Brian Cameron.
Since Cameron’s injury, Elgin have
looked utterly imbalanced. New summer signing Shane Sutherland has proved
wanting – undoubtedly there is a player of talent there, but his attributes
were not being used to their optimum by Jack. At times this season, and
especially in recent matches away to Annan and Queen’s Park, there has been no
structure to the side beyond the back four.
The signing of former Peterhead
goalkeeper, Raymond Jellema solved a perennial goalkeeping problem for Elgin but
he has not had the luxury of a settled back four in front of him. Club captain
David Niven has looked poor at right back where his selection is all the more
galling when he has a perfectly capable natural right back sitting on the bench
in the young Graeme Beveridge.
The defensive frailties are there for
all to see. After the losing the lead to Annan on 28th December,
Elgin were in 9th place having dropped 15 points from winning
positions – they would have been in 2nd place had they held onto
their leads.
Jack’s biggest weakness has been the
deployment of personnel in the midfield and forward line. Frankly, at points
this season, the defence and the rest of the team have looked alien to each
other. There are a number of talented players on the books at Borough Briggs –
Mark Nicholson, Paul Harkins, Ally MacKenzie, Shane Sutherland, Brian Cameron, Dennis
Wyness and Craig Gunn are, on their day, some of the most talented players in
the league – but under Jack this season, there was no balance and no positional
awareness from the players, which often lead the defence exposed.
There is no question that bad luck has
played a part in Ross Jack’s downfall at Elgin, but Elgin under his tenure have
simply not been clinical enough to see games out when playing with a lead.
The rumour mill is in full flow and
the early front-runners for the job are John Robertson and former player Barry
Wilson. Both would be intriguing appointments for the club, but with the
impending relegation playoffs from the bottom division, the board must be
hoping for a gaffer who can salvage something from this season, consolidate and
build for next season.
There’s potential in Elgin –
attendances were reaching 1000 when the going was good in the last two seasons.
Whether the new man in charge can harness that potential is another thing
altogether. The club has wallowed in the bottom tier for the last 14 years, a
new manager backed by a board with ambitions above mediocrity coupled with the
fear of relegation back to the Highland League could be catalyst that City require.
