Stephen Kenny to Dunfermline?

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Originally Posted by Roo69

Get out clause if a UK club came in for him apperently. Can't blame him really, brought Derry as far as he can and probably being offered a much better contract. Sad to see a good manager leave the league though, but i'm sure most eL people would wish him good luck.

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Agree 100%, I hope he is a good success over there. Always a nice chap and was delighted when we appointed him manager. He can't be any worse than the last EL manager to try his luck in the UK.:rolleyes:

I'm sick of this fúcking bóllox. Kenny lost the plot at Bohs and was NOT going to turn it around. I couldn't be bothered going through everything again, here's something I posted a month or so ago on this very issue:

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Originally Posted by Luke O'Riordan

I'm sick of this nonsense that we were wrong to get rid of Kenny.

- We had the biggest budget in the league (or if wasn't the biggest, the difference between ours and Shels was marginal).

- Kenny bottled the title in 2003. Having beaten Shelbourne 3-1 and gone on to be six points clear (I think it was six, but I'm open to correction), poor defeats in November; 1-0 to Shelbourne (50/50 game, fair enough), 1-0 to Derry and 2-0 to Drogheda who were both poor sides back then, finishing ninth and eight respectively in a ten-team league.
Coupled with disappointing draws with Rovers (finished 7th) and UCD (finished bottom), we took only 4 points from 15 in the title run-in at the end of the season and only 2 points from 12 against the bottom four teams at the end of the season.

- Ignored players' pleas to play five in midfield against Rosenborg in the first leg with the net result being that we we were slaughtered in midfield an extremely lucky not to be beaten more than 1-0 before going on to lose the second leg 4-0.

- Replaced Gary O'Neill who has since gone on to prove himself to be one of the best strikers in the league with the stocking of **** that is Robbie Doyle.

- God rid of Derek Coughlan, one of our star performers from the league win in 02/03, while somehow believing Paul McNally was good enough to pick up a wage of €1000+ per week for doing sweet f.a.

2004

- We were ten points behind Shelbourne at the time of Kenny's dismissal, having lost twice to the mighty Dublin City and were incapable of winning games we dominated resulting in nine league draws by the time Kenny got the chop in August 04.

- Kenny won only three out of 17 of his last home games at Bohs.

- We lost 3-1 in the UEFA Cup to a team that Pete Mahon managed to beat comprehensively 3-0 only a few years previously. (The first time we had been knocked out at the first hurdle since 1997). We had drawn the first leg 0-0 with Ken Oman winning motm, yet Kenny replaced him with the injured and well out of form Colin Hawkins for the return leg. As far as I can remember Hawkins was directly responsible for two, if not three of the goals we conceded.

- He had lost the respect of many senior players who were bitching about him behind his back.

- Got paranoid and prevented players from speaking to the media and accused people of having an agenda against him.

- Prevented players from renegotiating contracts with Bohs until he was given an extension to his own, with the net effect being that nine players including Glen Crowe and Simon Webb were allowed leave the club at the end of the season.

- Replaced one useless, arsehole assistant (Liam O'Brien) with another (Gary Howlett).

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I could go on, but you get the drift. I'm glad Kenny's doing so well at Derry as he's someone I admire both as a person and a manager and was sad that his spell at Bohs had to end the way it did. But the reality is that it HAD to end as things were simply going from bad to worse and in reality his tenure probably should have ended earlier, after our second defeat to Dublin City so that another manager could have come in and steadied the ship for the UEFA Cup games.

I think he has learnt from his time at Bohs and his short break from the game did him good as he had time to look back objectively at mistakes and errors of judgement he made with us and he's unlikely to make the same mistakes again at Derry. He's doing a great job with Derry in what is a much harder league to do well in than the league was when he was in charge at Bohs as there are now at least five clubs (Drogheda, Shels, Bohs, Cork and Derry) with budgets of way over €1m p/a while when he was at Bohs, there was only ourselves and Shels with such budgets

Bohs were not mistaken in sacking Kenny, they just made a massive blunder in who they appointed as his successor.

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Originally Posted by Rogue Trader

You have delusions of grandeur big time and sacked the best manager in the country which has to go down as the biggest howler of this decade.

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Only by idiots who haven't a clue about Kenny's record at Bohs.

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Originally Posted by Rogue Trader

By the way you have replaced a spoofer with a super spoofer. ;)

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We know...

Good stuff Luke...any chance you could send that to the Dunfirmline chairman...and quickly? ;)

Says a lot about the state of the League that the managers of three of the top five clubs either have walked or look like they're about to do so.

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Originally Posted by Dr.Nightdub

Says a lot about the state of the League that the managers of three of the top five clubs either have walked or look like they're about to do so.

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Are you including Farrelly in that...? :confused:

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Are you including Farrelly in that...? :confused:

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Kenny, Connor, and Fenlon?

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Originally Posted by dancinpants

Kenny, Connor, and Fenlon?

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Who's the other 2 then ?

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Who's the other 2 then ?

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He said managers of 3 of the top 5 clubs. I named 3 managers. Cork and Drogs seem OK managerially right now. :confused:

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Originally Posted by Luke O'Riordan

I'm sick of this fúcking bóllox. Kenny lost the plot at Bohs and was NOT going to turn it around.

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Okay, you're right, he was a useless manager. You were only second in the table at the time with a good third of the season left. If he'd have been any good, you'd have been out in front by 18 points.

If he has gone to Dunfermline, does anyone not think the timing of it is pretty dreadful, though?

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Originally Posted by The Sheliban

If he has gone to Dunfermline, does anyone not think the timing of it is pretty dreadful, though?

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Yip, I think it's dreadful timing meself.

According to Morning Ireland, he's staying at Derry till after the cup final

just heard on Today FM that he is goint to Dunfermline after the Cup Final.

Good luck to him but he is a big loss to Irish football.

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Originally Posted by The Sheliban

Okay, you're right, he was a useless manager. You were only second in the table at the time with a good third of the season left. If he'd have been any good, you'd have been out in front by 18 points.

If he has gone to Dunfermline, does anyone not think the timing of it is pretty dreadful, though?

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We were 2nd in a two horse race with Cork only catching us both up in 2004.

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Originally Posted by Rogue Trader

You have delusions of grandeur big time and sacked the best manager in the country which has to go down as the biggest howler of this decade. By the way you have replaced a spoofer with a super spoofer. ;)

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Kenny was not the best manager in the country in 2004. The best manager was Fenlon and possibly still is Fenlon. Kenny and Fenlon would have had similar budgets in 2002-03, 2003 and 2004 and Fenlon won 2 league titles, Kenny still only has 1.

Just because he has improved as a manager at a new club doesnt mean he would have improved had he stayed at Bohs.

And how much has he improved. The league was Derry's for the taking and he's bottled it again.

Today's Irish Times :

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National League: There was a growing sense in both Scotland and on Foyleside last night that Stephen Kenny will leave Derry City to become manager of Scottish Premier Division strugglers Dunfermline after the FAI Cup final next month.

The Dubliner insists that nothing has been agreed but sources close to Dunfermline suggest that they believe Kenny will take over early next month while there were reports yesterday in Derry that he had met directors of the Brandywell outfit to confirm his desire to leave.


"There's been an offer and I have a decision to make," Kenny confirmed last night, "but nothing's been done, there's no agreement in place."

The 36-year-old former Longford Town and Bohemians boss insisted that he would remain in charge of City for the team's remaining league games this season and that he would still be at the club for the FAI Cup final against St Patrick's Athletic on December 3rd. Although he declined to elaborate on what would happen then, however, it looks increasingly as if his future might lie elsewhere.

It is believed that he travelled to Scotland at the weekend to meet Dunfermline officials and that they have made it clear to the local media that they believe they have found their man. It is also widely believed that he will bring his first-team coach Declan Devine, a former goalkeeper at Derry, Glentoran and Hull City, with him to his new job.

Dunfermline certainly appear willing too to wait until the second week in December to get Kenny despite the fact that they currently lie at the bottom of the Premier Division with just nine points, two less than Dundee United, from the 13 games they have played so far. With two years left on their manager's contract Derry would, of course, be hoping to receive compensation in the event that Kenny departs but he is believed to have a clause in his deal that allows him to depart in circumstances such as these. It is not clear, though, precisely what terms it specifies.

There are said to have been indirect contact between the two clubs yesterday and so ultimately it seems that a disagreement over money will not scupper any move assuming Kenny wants to go.

Before then, he has the opportunity to finish the season here on a relative high even if the league title does look to be beyond his side in the wake of Tuesday's disappointing 3-1 defeat in Drogheda. "I'm determined that we finish the season as strongly as we can over the last three games," he said. "The league's not in our hands anymore but the least we can do is to make sure we qualify for Europe and then see what happens elsewhere."

Shelbourne, he realises, would now have to more or less collapse for Derry's title aspirations to be revived and the championship could be settled as early as tomorrow night when Derry visit their cup final opponents in Inchicore and Pat Fenlon's side travels to Cork.

Understandably, however, he refuses to concede defeat and is determined that his side do their best to keep the pressure on their rivals.

Even if Derry fail to add to the League Cup they have already won this season, his already strong reputation has been hugely enhanced during his almost two and a half years or so at the Brandywell. He arrived at the club - in the wake of Bohemians' hasty decision to sack him - at a time when they were struggling and morale within the squad was low. Since then the team has won two league cups, missed out on a championship title on the last day of last season and made it to a cup final.

Dunfermline clearly hope that he can work a similar sort of transformation at East End Park and it is not entirely surprising that Kenny, though he insists he loves his current job, appears to be tempted by the challenge himself.

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It is believed that he travelled to Scotland at the weekend to meet Dunfermline officials

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I'd be fecking fuming if I was a Derry fan. That means he was in talks about another job a day or two before the massive game against Drogs on Tuesday night, a game which ultimately may cost them the title.

Whether Harps like to admit it or not, this is going to have a profound effect on our own destiny. New manager comes in - Higgsy comes to us, McHugh coming back, Pizza manages us other Derry players released etc etc. Will be very interesting to see and although he will be very very difficult to replace, he still only won one league cup.

He could have been (still could) an all time hero and legend in Derry had he went on and won the treble, or even the league for that matter.

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Originally Posted by BohsPartisan

And how much has he improved. The league was Derry's for the taking and he's bottled it again.

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You've said that a few times now without any shred of evidence.

Define bottling and justify why he's bottled it.

As a hint, I'd be fairly certain our wages are 4th highest in the League.

We finished 2nd last season and will hopefully better 4th this season. So he performed better than expected.

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Originally Posted by cheech

I'd be fecking fuming if I was a Derry fan. That means he was in talks about another job a day or two before the massive game against Drogs on Tuesday night, a game which ultimately may cost them the title.

Whether Harps like to admit it or not, this is going to have a profound effect on our own destiny. New manager comes in - Higgsy comes to us, McHugh coming back, Pizza manages us other Derry players released etc etc. Will be very interesting to see and although he will be very very difficult to replace, he still only won one league cup.

He could have been (still could) an all time hero and legend in Derry had he went on and won the treble, or even the league for that matter.

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Firstly, he's won 2 league cups to date with Derry.
Secondly, why would any of the current Derry set-up want to join Finn Harps?

Looking at as Pars message board last night - they're so depressed they make Bohs look like 14 year old Shels fans. All they want out of this season is not to be relegated, so if he can manage that he has all of next season to build. Some of them are wondering what they are doing recruiting from a league that they perceive as well below the SPL but they respect the Euro run