Former Airdrie boss Kevin McBride has lifted the lid on his controversial Diamonds exit four years after the “fiasco” put him off football management for good.
The retired midfielder stepped into the Diamonds top job as head coach in June 2016, taking the reins from Eddie Wolecki Black, who he worked under as head coach.
With the club going full-time for the first time in six years under Tom Wotherspoon, the pressure was on the former Hibs, Falkirk and Motherwell midfielder to get things right quickly on the park.
With Airdrie fourth in the table in October of the same year, radio pundit and former Raith boss Gordon Dalziel was introduced to the club to conduct a ‘football review’ – which would spell the beginning of the end of McBride’s first and only stint in the dugout.
Just days later, Dalziel would be installed as director of football at the club, despite famously being unable to attend games due to his Clyde 1 commitments.
McBride was then offered a demotion to take charge of the under-20 side, and when it was turned down he would be sent packing by the League One side.
Less than 24 hours later, former Celtic defender Mark Wilson, who shared a Thursday night slot on air with Dalziel, was handed his first job in management in a whirlwind turnaround at the club.
Speaking on his exit for the first time, McBride admits he couldn’t work under the “politics” of the previous regime at the Penny Cars Stadium.
The midfielder is still working in the game as a youth scout for Celitc, but says he wouldn’t step into the hot seat again after the horror experience.
He told Lanarkshire Live Sport: “I’ve not really got any intentions of going back in just now, but the scouting keeps my face in it.
“I’m not planning to go into the management side of things after that fiasco.
“I got to see the politics side of things and everything that happens in the background. As a player it’s different; you train and you go home.
“When you’re in as a manager or a head coach and you’re seeing that side of it, it’s basically not the way I like to work.
“It’s not really fair on the players as well when things work like that; like they were at Airdrie at that time.
“Airdrie is probably one of the hardest clubs to go into, and to be honest, it was good while it lasted; the boys were good but the way they were trying to run it at that time with that regime wasn’t suiting me.
“I wasn’t going to work under that.”
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