SFL focus: Alloa wait to see if timing is right

With management change, timing is everything. Football is routinely rife with claims that a manager of any given club was dismissed too early or too late to satisfy the demands of players or supporters. Or, indeed, to trigger the difference between success and failure.

Alloa Athletic's board decision to relieve Allan Maitland of his duties at Recreation Park will be justified or otherwise pretty quickly. Almost immediately upon being condemned to a play-off place after finishing second from bottom of the Second Division Alloa decided upon a dug-out alteration.

"I don't think there is ever a good time to change who leads the team," explained Mike Mulraney, the Alloa chairman. "In our view, the manager had 36 games to try and make sure we aren't in the play-offs. He didn't quite manage that. With that in mind, we felt the best thing we could do is make a change."

That move, at least, has not been an acrimonious one.

"We are still on very good terms," insisted the chairman on relations between the club and Maitland. "Allan was in my house the other night, he was on the phone wishing us good luck as we travelled down to Annan the other night."

The final Second Division table of the season illustrates what trouble and conflicting results are associated with the changing of managers. Dumbarton's move in replacing Jim Chapman with his assistant, Alan Adamson, guided them clear of relegation trouble. Stenhousemuir's appointment of Davie Irons did likewise, with the Ochilview team skipping narrowly clear of the play-offs at Alloa's expense. John Robertson dramatically improved the fortunes of East Fife, themselves in demotion danger when he was appointed, but Peterhead's move to sack Neale Cooper and bring in John Sheran appeared too little, too late as they finished bottom.

Alloa's thinking is, of course, perfectly straightforward. They hope the appointment of two senior players, Scott Walker and Brown Ferguson, to coach their team-mates will afford the club the boost it needs to retain a Second Divison place.

Alloa's 2-1 defeat in Annan on Wednesday night gives them at least a fighting chance of progressing to the play-off final this afternoon.

"It might give us that boost," Mulraney added. "But we just thought we needed to change. Results weren't good enough."

Mulraney understandably refused to speculate on whether the duo have a legitimate chance of holding on to their posts in the longer-term. The blunt reality is that Alloa's play-off showing will determine the validity of their candidacy.

Alloa's season of on-field decline is notable given their position only a year ago. Only goal difference denied them the Second Division championship of 2009/10, with Maitland rightly praised for assembling an impressive squad for the level at which the club were operating at. Walker was, at that stage, a key component of a defence which had excelled.

"When we started out this season, we wanted to be a top four club, a play-off club at least," explained Mulraney of earlier ambitions. The play-off in question, needless to say, was at the top rather than bottom of the league.

"Livingston obviously had a far bigger budget and a better team than the rest but we wanted to be up there. We tend to take the season in quarters. We had one successful quarter and three unsuccessful ones. If I knew what has gone wrong, I'd be a football manager myself and put things right."