Stephen Kenny sacked by Dunfermline

By: Ian Rose | December 4th, 2007

It had to happen eventually, and some, myself included, would say it should have happened before today. Stephen Kenny was sacked today as manager of Dunfermline Athletic. Kenny’s year at the reins at Dunfermline has been a strange one, with the unusual mix of relegation and European qualification, made possible by the now-defunct SFA policy gifting a UEFA Cup spot to the runner up of the Scottish Cup (if the winner qualified through the league). From the roughest possible league start, in which Pars failed to score for eight straight matches, Kenny was never on solid ground at Dunfermline. His one positive feature seemed to be his ability to guide the team through cup campaigns (reaching the finals of both the Scottish Cup and Challenge Cup), but even those brave efforts came up short, as both finals were lost. His league record was atrocious, racking up only eight wins in 38 league matches. Despite this, he has seemed to be living a charmed life at Dunfermline, and has been backed over and over again by chairman John Yorkston. He came to Scotland from Derry City, where he gained reknown by beating Goteborg in last year’s UEFA Cup, the biggest win in recent Irish football history. That campaign also saw him face down Gretna, who Derry City demolished 5-1 on aggregate. Ironically, when he left Derry to go to Dunfermline, and ultimately, to fall into the second tier of Scottish football, his team would be replaced in the SPL by none other than Gretna.

Anyway, Kenny has the potential to be a good manager, and I hope he finds his place either back in Ireland or somewhere else. But Dunfermline had to do this. Favored to spring back up to the SPL, they now sit second-to-last in the First Division table, with a second straight relegation looking much more likely to happen. The question now is whether interim manager Jim McIntyre, or his replacement, can put anything right on the heavily listing ship that is Dunfermline Athletic. There’s a long road ahead, and to be realistic, they are playing the rest of this season with survival in mind, and shouldn’t look much past that.