Kilmarnock's Irish skipper Gary Dicker on the lessons of his one-week stint in management

Dicker tells Graham Cummins his short-term insight into life in the dugout will help him in the future

Gary Dicker: “Great to experience management this week.” Picture: Getty

Tommy Wright, my former boss at St Johnstone, was yesterday named the new manager of Kilmarnock, filling the vacancy left by Alex Dyer, who departed by mutual consent a week ago.

It brings the curtain down on an interesting experience for Killie midfielder and captain, Gary Dicker, the Dubliner who began his career with UCD, and maybe offers a taste of a future life. 

Dicker got the call to form a three-man temporary management team, alongside Dyer’s assistant Andy Millen and James Fowler, the club’s head of football operations. 

The trio took the first team for Scottish Premiership clashes with Celtic and St Mirren, and while both were lost, Dicker enjoyed, and was honoured, by the experience. Though he doesn’t think we will be seeing him in the dugout permanently anytime soon.

“It’s been a strange week with everything that has gone on,” the former Ireland U21 international said.

“To get the phone call from James asking me to be part of the management team was an honour but in the back of my mind I was still coming to terms with Alex Dyer leaving the club. 

“That’s football though, things are a hundred miles an hour. It’s never nice seeing someone lose their job but things move on and I was delighted that the board wanted me to be part of the management set-up because it shows that they must think very highly of me.

“I still see myself as a player first and don’t think the player-coach role is something that I could do successfully on a full-time basis. As a player, you have enough on your mind to worry about. It’s not often you see success stories with a player-coach in the last few years. The last person I can think of who would have made a success of it was Gianluca Vialli at Chelsea and that was over 20 years ago.

“The game against Celtic the other night, I just carried out my normal routine. I didn’t get involved in the management side of the game. I just went for pre-match and prepared the same when we were in the dressing room. I’m very vocal anyway being club captain. 

“Even when I came off, I wasn’t giving my opinion to Millen and Fowler because it’s completely different seeing the game from the side than being involved in it. It might have been different had I still been injured, then I might have been more involved in the technical area.”

Although Dicker does have some experience in management, having worked with the reserve and underage teams, the former Rochdale player believes this short-term insight into life at the top level will help him in the future.

“It’s always been said how much time managers put in working in the football club and it was great to experience that this week. After the Celtic game, myself, Fowler and Millen spent hours in the ground dissecting the game, what went wrong, what went right.

“You can’t dwell on things too long as a manager because your attention must focus on the next game and what training sessions to put on to prepare for it. You have to go speak to the physio and ask what players are carrying knocks and who would be available for Saturday.

“I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s a good mixture. I’ve been focussing on doing the video analysis, Fowler was dealing with the transfers, and Millen has been taking training. I did speak to Stephen Rice at Crystal Palace about Brandon (Pierrick) before he joined just to get a bit more information.

“We had our managers meetings every morning before training which was strange because we had to be spread out because of Covid restrictions. We plan out our sessions, then the physio comes in and tells us who isn’t available for training.

“I’ve just returned from a 12-week injury so I just trained as normal, I didn’t get involved in taking the session. After training then it’s back into the manager’s room to dissect training.”

It’s common nowadays for players to jump straight into management after playing but Dicker believes that the best route for him is to learn his trade as a coach before sitting in the hot seat. And he won’t be afraid to reach out to his former managers for guidance.

“I spoke to Brian Barry-Murphy and Gus Poyet this week when I started the new role to get their advice. Obviously, I’ve played under Poyet and with all his experience it would have been stupid of me not to ask him for his advice.

“Brian is relatively new to the management role and has gone down a route that I would be inclined to replicate. Brian was a coach for several years at Rochdale learning his trade. It can be very hard to just go from being everyone’s friend in the dressing room to then being their manager. I do want to become a manager but my focus would be more on becoming a coach first when I do decide to retire.”