Peterhead chairman Rodger Morrison has paid tribute to manager Jim McInally, who celebrates his tenth anniversary in charge of the Blue Toon today.
The Dundee United playing legend took over at Balmoor on October 7, 2011 when he replaced John Sheran, and guided the Blue Toon to their first trophy as a senior football league club by winning the League Two title in 2014.
A Final berth against Rangers at Hampden in the Petrofac Training Cup was secured in 2016 with the League Two title won again in 2019.
Jim is by far the longest serving manager across the SPFL’s 42 teams, with half of all managers being in post less than a year with Rodger adding: “It has been a great ten years, as I really rate Jim as a manager and as a person. As a club, we have been through highs and lows but every time we have a low, I know we will come through it as good managers come through bad times.”
“The past year and a half has been difficult as we have had to have budget cuts and when we discussed these with Jim, he was the first to offer to take a financial hit to help out. Those cuts obviously impact on who we can recruit, but he just gets on with things.”
“On his tenth anniversary we know that our league position isn’t great, but we haven’t been played off the pitch by anyone and on Saturday there, we became only the second team in our league to score five goals this season. To sum things up, it has been ten enjoyable years and just because you go through a bad spell does not mean you are a bad manager.”
“Jim being Jim does not want a fuss, but it is important that we mark such a special milestone.”
