Gray backs Billy Reid to lift Accies out of First Division

Jun 16 2011 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

HAMILTON Accies vice-chairman Les Gray has backed boss Billy Reid to bring winning ways back to New Douglas Park – and says the club is well placed for a crack at the First Division.

Accies will tomorrow (Friday) learn the fixtures for their first season back in the First Division following relegation from the SPL and Gray believes there is much to be excited about ahead of the new campaign – particularly the emergence of a new crop of young talent.

In an exclusive interview with the Hamilton Advertiser, Gray said: “We have a long-term strategy for the club and Billy is a big part of that; he's the right man for the job, there is no doubt about that.

“Billy had the club in the SPL for three years with a young squad and a low budget, and as far as we’re concerned that was a big success.

“The way we see the First Division is that this is a fresh and exciting prospect, where we will be working with a crop of young players and playing football the way we want to see it.

“Everybody talks about the Three Amigos of James McCarthy, Brian Easton and James McArthur having left here for bigger clubs, but they cut their teeth in the lower leagues and there are others who will be able to follow in their footsteps.”

Gray admitted that relegation from the SPL looked likely as early as the midpoint of last season, but says he and chairman Ronnie MacDonald will never try to live outside their means, even to keep their place in the elite.

He said: “We could see relegation coming from around December or January, and I think the loss through injury of the captain, Alex Neil, was a key contributor to that.

“We could have thrown money at it but we've always budgeted and will never put the club into debt to pay wages or try to survive. We tried to turn it around and it didn’t work.

“Now we’ve dispensed with a lot of players who were on SPL wages but we will continue to work within a budget and, hopefully, it won’t be too difficult to maintain that.

“We’re starting this season in a much better position than we were in when we won the First Division in 2007-08, and have a mixture of experience and youth, which is quite exciting and allows us to take a fresh approach which was missing in the SPL.

“We’ll have a really experienced squad – we’ve kept the likes of Tomas Cerny, Simon Mensing, Mark McLaughlin, Martin Canning, Alex Neil, Dougie Imrie and Jim McAlister – while there are boys here who are ready to play at First Division level.

“Billy is the man who decides if that happens or not, but it would certainly be easier in the First Division than in the SPL. Hopefully they get that opportunity.

“They are capable of coming into that environment right now and behind them there’s another crop as well, so we will have a pretty full squad.”

Gray hopes taking a step back to the First Division can help bring fans – and a simple joy of winning – back to New Douglas Park.

He said: “We want to win, attack, be exciting and score goals – let’s face it, last season we didn’t do too many of any of those things and it was tiresome to watch at times.

“We want to get back that winning mentality and take games to teams again – we simply didn’t have the quality for that last season.”

With players reporting back for pre-season today, Gray believes the next month or so will be a whirlwind of activity as Hamilton prepare for their assault on the First Division championship.

He said: “Things will accelerate within the next couple of weeks – the season starts soon and the players will have a quick pre-season before being thrown back into it all again.

“They’ve all had a fitness programme to follow over the summer and should come back in peak condition, which will help.”

lHamilton’s First Division fixtures for season 2011-12 will be released at 9am tomorrow. Visit: www.scottishfootballleague.com or www.acciesfc.co.uk after that time for full details.

The league season kicks off on Saturday, August 6.