St Mirren Football Club has appointed James Fowler as assistant manager. James was previously Queen of the South manager where he guided them to the Championship play-offs in the 2014/15 season before leaving the club in April this year. 

New St Mirren manager, Jack Ross said: "I am delighted to be able to bring James to the club and thank the board for their assistance in doing so. 

"James has a great pedigree in the game as a player and has enjoyed success as a manager in his own right. These attributes and experiences ensure that he will be an asset to both me and the club as we strive to drive upwards."

James reflects on the last few days that have just flown past.

“It’s been a whirlwind last 36, 48 hours. Obviously with Jack getting the job I just sent him a wee message congratulating him and he said that there might be an opportunity to come in and it was something that I was really positive about and I’m delighted to be here.

“I’ve known him [Jack Ross] for a long time just within the circles of football but I’ve been keeping track of what he has been doing as well at Alloa. I’ve been over to see him the last few weeks when he has been there and I’m delighted to come in and I’m looking forward to working with him full-time.”

James has been impressed with the squad that he and Jack have inherited and is looking forward to the job ahead.

“I’ve been to a few games this season as well so I’ve seen the current squad, exciting young players here as well a few older experienced heads so I think there is a really good blend and we’re just looking forward to getting started working with them.

“I think it is a great opportunity to be able to help Jack. I’ve done that role of manager as well, I know roughly what he will be expecting of me having been in that position myself so I’m here to work with him and obviously Allan McManus as well and we’re really excited with the group of players we have got. We’re not in a great position just now but it is all positive looking forward and catching the teams above us.”

James will be at tomorrow’s game against Hibs but mostly just as an observer.

“I’m going to go, I’ll just be in the Boardroom I think having a look at the players probably without having too much input, we’ll leave that till Jack starts on Monday but if there is anything there that I can help Allan with once I’m in the door, that’s me here.”

Watch the full interview here

On whether Jack Ross was the right man for the job

Yes. We interviewed a lot of people and I felt as if they could all actually do a job at the club. But I felt Jack was the outstanding candidate and the fan ownership thing with Hearts is a big bonus for us as well so he’s definitely the right guy for the job.

He’s a winner. He actually has a very similar philosophy to myself in life in the way he moves forward and I think that’s important. I can relate to him and he can relate to me and we can work together going forward. 

We both just have an ambition to succeed and do the best we can and want to enjoy our football. We want the fans to enjoy the football, we want to engage with fans again and get them enjoying themselves on a Saturday. We just want to achieve the best we can for the football club."

On Mike Mulraney’s positive comments about Jack

We actually went to the Alloa game; watched the first half, watched how the team set up, watched Jack’s reactions and talked to Mike Mulraney. We have done a lot of due diligence on this - we’ve not just dived in. We talked to top managers. People think we offered various people the job but we never. We wanted to talk to them, we wanted to learn about the process and wanted to learn what it takes to be a top manager. I’m happy it’s a good process. At the end of the day the results speak volumes and they’re up near the top of the league. 

I don’t want to see us playing defensive football but we need to stop losing goals. I think we lost over two goals a game on average and you can't win games if you have to score three goals in every match. We have to get stronger at the back and keep being expressive up front."

On the process of bringing in a new manager

It was interesting. It was important to learn, to go through a process where we felt we were doing the right thing and it was a decision as a board. It wasn’t just my decision and it was important that we were all on-board with that decision. It was an eye-opener that we got such good candidates."

I want to be talking about how we take the club forward, how we change things in the stadium, how we bring more money into the club etc. Hopefully I’m done for the next 10 years talking about football and managers."

St Mirren officially revealed Jack Ross as their new manager today and the former St Mirren player believes the potential at the club matches his ambitions to succeed. He said:

“It’s very exciting. I’m familiar with the club from my time as a player and very much enjoyed my spell here as a player. I know all about the potential of the club, where it should probably be within the realms of Scottish football so I’m really looking forward to it and getting started and tremendously excited about it.

“I think I’ve always had an ambition to manage and naturally you want to try and manage at the highest level that you can. I think it was a position that was attractive because of that, but more than that I think it is the potential of the club, it is exciting for the club with the new ownership and from speaking with the Chairman and the Board I know that they are determined to try and build the club properly so that was a really exciting part of the attraction as well so once I knew that there was potential and opportunity for me to come here it became even more appealing.

“I think you have an affinity with all the clubs that you play for especially if you enjoyed a successful time on the pitch and I felt as if I did that as we had a decent team at the time, and I think individually I enjoyed probably one of my best seasons in football here, the first season I was here certainly. I said earlier that I was ambitious, I also know that in football you have to make the right decisions at times so I don’t think I would have ever jumped at full-time football just for the sake of it. I think it had to be something that I felt was a good fit for me and the club that I was going to, and this certainly feels like it for all the reasons already mentioned in terms of the infrastructure. I would add to that the potential fanbase and also the new ownership because this is an exciting time for the club. It won’t happen overnight but certainly there is a long-term plan that will hopefully help this club get back to its rightful place in Scottish football.”

Jack was at Hearts when the Foundation of Hearts started their moves towards fan ownership. He believes that fan ownership is a move that could work well for St Mirren. He said:

“I understand how it works, I understand the reasoning behind it, I understand the end result if you like from it so I was fortunate to be in at that at the ground level when it first happened at Hearts when the whole new structure was put in place. I’ve seen the support that it can galvanise behind the club, at Hearts what happened alongside that was obviously a successful period on the pitch so I understand that my job is to make sure that happens. So I have to get performances first and foremost and then results correct on the park to help galvanise that feel-good factor that will be around the club. If I can do that then absolutely the new ownership structure will work because fans will feel engaged with the club. I know the work that the club is doing already to do that and improve relations with the supporters, I will do my utmost to continue that as well. Again, I talk about potential all the time, the new ownership model has massive potential but ultimately my responsibility is to make sure that things on the park marry in with that.”

Jack’s admits that his aims at the club are pretty straight-forward.

“I think it sounds very simple but in job terms is to start on matches. I’m not the only person to be surprised by the start to the season as there is undoubted quality within the squad. I said this in a similar fashion when I took the job at Alloa, my challenge as a manager is to get the best out of the players I have at my disposal, and that is what I feel I’m good at and that is what I’m looking forward to doing when I start to work with the players. There will be demands on them but hopefully in a positive and enjoyable way, and if we meet that short term target of winning matches then you can start to adjust your ambitions as that goes on. In the first instance we have to start doing that as that will undoubtedly create a confidence and a belief within the playing group and also within the stands as well.”

The new Saints gaffer also sees a lot of quality and potential in the squad he has inherited.

“Prior to speaking to the club I was familiar with the squad anyway as I have an interest in Scottish football and I’m working within it, but you start to look more closely at it and there is a number of very good players here. Some who have established careers in the game and have really good pedigrees and several others who are exciting young players so that mix on paper is very good, it is then getting it right on the pitch.

“Until as a manager you work up close with players you don’t quite appreciate how good they are or the attributes they have or the type of characters they are so that will be the case for me over the next period is to get to know them. I’ll spend a lot of time doing that as I like to work closely with my players so I’m very excited about that as there is a lot of them that I know but not as well as I would like to but I’m looking forward to doing that.”

When talking about long term targets Jack said:

“I think we’ll set them within the dressing room. I like to have targets and aims within that dressing room environment, we’ll keep them in-house and work towards them and if we reach them then we’ll be successful. But I like my players to have aims and ambitions, I think you have got to as otherwise we will drift. That will be made clear from day one that there’s targets and ambitions there, they’ll not be daft, they’ll understand the size of this club. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out what they may be but certainly we’ll do that in-house and we’ll strive towards them.”

Jack was also pleased to hear the thoughts of the Board’s vision moving forward.

“I wouldn’t say that I was surprised by them but I really enjoyed them. I think when you go into that environment, in an interview structure, you are unsure as to the people you are going to speak to, because Gordon was here when I was a player but I didn’t really come across him too much and Tony I had just known through football circles and the rest of the Board I was meeting for the first time. I was excited by their plans for the club but I think more importantly than that I believed that they are a group of people that I can work with and I know they will comment on that as a Board but equally for a manager he has to feel that, and undoubtedly the plans they have and the way they want to try and do things at the club I think tie in with my approach as a manager. I’m absolutely willing to take part in all aspects of this club and help drive it forward and help to improve all areas of it, but you need a Board that believe in that as well and that has certainly been the case and I’m looking forward to a positive relationship over the coming years.”

Jack will oversee Alloa for the last time this weekend and take over the reigns at the Paisley 2021 Stadium next Monday when he starts to prepare for the visit of Dundee United.

“I think every manager has their own way of preparing for matches and I have my own style. I will use footage that is available of both the opposition and our own performances because naturally being involved with another team this season I haven’t seen the team very often apart from on television so I need to come up to speed with that as well. I do a lot of preparation for games in general and I have done that in my time at Hearts and Alloa so I’m well used to it. I’ve a system of working yes I’ll obviously have to tweak at times and depending on what resources are available to me, personnel, etc, so there will be things over time that will become routine but in the build up to that fixture we will work as normal as possible the way I work in terms of how we train. I’m excited about that because I love coaching and the frustration when you are a part-time manager is that you get to do it only two nights a week so the attraction for me to do that on a far more regular basis is brilliant and it is something that I can’t wait to do.”

What are Jack’s feelings of moving from a part-time set-up to a full-time one.

“I genuinely think it is exciting more than anything else. This biggest frustration for me was not being able to spend enough time with my players both on the training pitch and even away from it in terms of getting to know them, their character and personality and speaking to them about their performance and how they get the most from themselves so a full-time environment will allow me to do that. I’m no stranger to either in a playing sense or a coaching sense because I have done it so it doesn’t faze me in that sense it is more excitement. The realisation that I’m going to have all this extra time to work with the players is terrific and it allows me to deliver more of the ideas that I have of being able to do it to an extent that at Alloa I’m obviously limited by time on occasions so this undoubtedly gives me a greater platform on which to work.”

Jack confirms that he has someone particular in mind for his assistant.

“I do have somebody that I would like to bring to the club. He is working with another club at the moment so I’m hopeful that can be pushed through and it can be done, and if it is done it will be done over the next two or three days. If it doesn’t then we’ll look to alternatives and I would like to do that again as soon as possible. I know Allan [McManus] is obviously in place at the club and he’ll provide assistance as well and I look forward to that. But it is quite important to have somebody in to assist me and if I can get this person in then I think it will be beneficial to the club as well and I think supporters will be pleased with the appointment as well but as I said, at the moment it is outwith my hands to an extent but we’re hopeful that can be concluded soon.”

Jack also confirms the Board’s backing in trying to bring in his new assistant

“In terms of the coaching staff yes because they knew it was important for me and it was an important decision in my own career as well and it is something I want to get right first and foremost for the club and then for myself. So I think to have the right person in alongside me they were very supportive of that.

“On the playing side, I’ve got to be honest, I haven’t asked really because again going back to what I said earlier, we’re outwith a window, I have a playing squad here that has pedigree and quality, my challenge as manager is to get the best from them. I think that’s what managers should look upon as opposed to coming in and saying and making excuses about not being able to make changes, etc. I’ll do my utmost to get the best from them and I’m confident that I will as I believe in my abilities to do that and hopefully the fans will then see that on the pitch.”

Watch the full interview here

St Mirren Football Club is delighted to announce the appointment of Jack Ross as the new first team manager. 

The club would like to thank everyone who took the time to apply for the role but have decided, after several meetings with Jack, that he was the outstanding candidate for the job. 

Jack has done an impressive job since taking over as manager at Alloa and has experience as a coach at Hearts and an assistant manager at Dumbarton. Jack said:

I'm delighted to be named the new manager of St Mirren Football Club. I have fond memories of my time in Paisley as a player and can't wait to get started."

Chairman Gordon Scott said:

I was very impressed with Jack when we got a chance to meet and am delighted to have him on-board as our new manager. I look forward to working alongside him as we look to bring success to the football club. One of the big plus points for me was Jack being with Hearts at a time at a time when their supporters got involved in the ownership of their club."

As part of our on going commitment to improve communications with supporters, we wanted to release the news on stmirren.com before speaking to any other form of media.

More details on the appointment will follow in the coming days. 

I want to thank each and every one of the near 2,000 St Mirren supporters who came along to this evening's match against Falkirk.

With the game on TV and a kick off time of 5:15pm, it was great to see a crowd of 2,000 plus at the Paisley 2021 Stadium.

I thought the backing from the Saints fans was absolutely wonderful with some of the players mentioning how good the support was in driving them on to get a draw.

I had asked supporters to come along in my statement on stmirren.com yesterday and I genuinely can't thank all of you who did enough for the support you gave the team until the very end.

Of course we wanted to get a win but you can see how Tom Walsh's late goal spurred on both the supporters and the players and hopefully we can replicate that in the coming weeks and months.

Your support of the football club is vital and never taken for granted and thank you all once again for coming out in your numbers to cheer the team on.

Gordon

It has been nearly two weeks since we made the decision to change our manager. The process of appointing a new manager can be a lengthy one and we have spent those near two weeks reviewing the 50 plus applications we have received and trying to reduce that to a manageable number to interview. Tony's experience has been invaluable and a couple of our existing board members have past experience when it comes to this so, as a board, we are not entirely new to it all. 

We started the process by aiming high and approached a couple of ex-English Premier League managers. It was always going to be a long shot but I believed, after meeting them, that one of them might have paid off but it wasn't to be. With the breaking news in England regarding the managerial scandal, I feel it's no coincidence that one of them may be waiting it out to see if anything becomes available down south. However, it was worth a try and we thank him for coming in to speak to us. We had a few productive chats and I gained valuable insight into what it takes to be a top manager. 

After that we then looked closer to home and had another worthwhile conversation with one of the leading agents in Scottish football. One of his clients was high on our list to interview but unfortunately, as it stands, he wants another crack at trying to be a success in England and we wish him well. 

We have now whittled down our list and hope to finish the interviewing process early next week with the aim of having someone in place prior to next Saturday's trip to Easter Road to face Hibernian in the IRN-BRU Cup. That list contains a good blend of experienced and up-and-coming managers. We know how important it is to get the right person in and rest assured that when we appoint someone we'll have done everything we can and carried out all due diligence to ensure that they are the best person for the job. For us it is important to get some stability and start planning for the long term. 

I also have to ask you for your support at tomorrow's game against Falkirk. It was a big, and costly, decision to change manager and we need all the support we can get through the turnstiles. While the result against Dunfermline last week was not what we wanted, you could see the commitment from the players for 90 minutes and I can assure you that they are working as hard as they can to turn things around. 

As a club we need your support more than ever right now, so please come to the game on Saturday and drag along any doubters and get right behind the team. 

Gordon. 

Andy Webster says he feels that the team's form will turn around as they continue to work hard on the training field. The captain has been helping out Allan McManus with first team duties while the club continues its search for a new manager and believes the time put in at Ralston will make a difference before long. He said:

"On Saturday the boys worked hard and things transpired during the game of football that weren't good, like the ball bouncing off your knee and going in. We know that with the hard work we are putting in on the training pitch that, come a Saturday, people will generally appreciate as long as the boys are giving their all, they will take anything that comes their way.

"I can definitely say that on Saturday the players gave their all and on a different day we could've got a point or maybe three. If we continue to work as hard as we are doing I'm sure things will turn around sooner rather than later."

Webster admitted that being involved in the coaching side of things, as well as still being a player, hasn't been easy.

"It's been full on," he said. "I left a picture in the house for the kids to remember what their dad looks like! The hard bit for me is the balance between the coaching side of it and being involved in terms of analysing us as a group of players, analysing the opposition and being able to put a team together that we feel is best suited for the players that we've got, but it's been great.

"As disappointing as it is, the manager losing his job and what not, we want to galvanise the boys and try to lift their spirits a bit because we know we are going through a difficult spell. But it's about trying to keep it as positive as we possibly can and getting the right results."

The captain believes it's important to try and focus on the positives and that's what he's trying to do. 

"We did video analysis of Saturday's game on Monday and there were loads of positive things to take from that. It's just trying to re-emphasise that to the lads and going forward we do realise that we're a good group of player and the fundamentals of being a footballer are making sure we work.

"We just need to persevere, that's ultimately it. We need to make sure that we give ourselves the best opportunities during a game of football to win them. We've got more than enough to match anybody but obviously we're not managing to do that at the moment. Hopefully we can turn a corner, get a positive result and the boys will be off and running."

There was good news in the St Mirren camp this week after the news that loanee Ryan Hardie has been called up to the Scotland U21 squad for the upcoming games against Iceland and FYR Macedonia in the European Championship Qualifiers.

Hardie, who scored St Mirren's third in the narrow defeat to Dunfermline last Saturday, has scored three goals for the Saints and Webster said:

"I mentioned it to him and he thought I was winding him up. He's done really well and his goal on Saturday was an unbelievable strike. For any striker they that confidence and scoring goals will breed that for them. He's done really well and it's great for him to get that recognition that he's done really well."

Welcome to the new look official club website here at STMIRREN.COM.

The club has been working hard to bring supporters and our visitors an improved experience when visitng the official website and we hope you like what you see in this fresh new design.

All the same information is here as before, and we hope we've made it easier to find and easier to view especially on your mobile and tablet devices.

In addition you will find a couple of new features such as our Social Media Hub which brings all the latest Twitter posts from a variety of St.Mirren related accounts into one easy to read page right here on the website.

We also have a new "Suggestion Wall" where supporters can propose ideas to the club on how they feel certain aspects may be improved. We want to improve the communication between supporters and the employees at the club and the website will play an important role in that going forward.

This re-design however is only the first phase in a series of updates. We will now begin looking at each area of the site in turn and looking to make improvements. In subsequent phases we will be looking to introduce online booking and payments for services such as corporate hospitality, event bookings and subscriptions. We want to make things as simple and easy as possible for our supporters and we will be working hard to do that as quickly as possible.

We'd like to thank Alesia Milton of UWS for her time and efforts in canvasing the fans opinions on the previous website and for producing the paper that kicked off the re-design project last season.

Similarly we'd like to record our thanks to Kenny & Karin Pointon who managed our official web hosting for many years with great care and dedication.

Finally our thanks to local website designers Big Front Door who have created and hosted this fantastic new website for us, to KP Kreative who have helped us with some new match graphics, to photographer Allan Picken for providing the brilliant imagery and of course to our intrepid Webmaster Norrie Jamieson who has been kept very busy updating two websites for the last few weeks as we prepared for launch!

Have a good look around and let us know what you think. This is after all YOUR website so post us a message on the Suggestion Wall and let us know your thoughts.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to our new look website and give a huge thank you to all those who helped with the redesign of the site and in particular "Big Front Door" who were responsible for turning all the good ideas into reality.

For me this also represents a perfect opportunity to mark the beginning of a new era both on and off the park.

Our partnership with Smisa is in its earlier stages but I am very comfortable that we are heading in the right direction and that, together, we can create a successful fan ownership model over the next 10 years.

I am also very happy how quickly we have gelled as a board and while everybody is still finding their feet I know we will all have a very positive input in taking the club forward.

We have had the keys now for 2 months and feel that, although we are moving in the right direction behind the scenes, we were not progressing on the park or in terms of our communication with our support.

As a result of that and as part of our long term plan we decided to implement some major changes.

The decision to terminate the managers contract was not an easy one. Alex did a tremendous job last year but for some reason it was just not happening this year. People outwith the club and support will consider that we didn't give him enough time and I can understand that. Our job, however, is to do what's best for St Mirren Football Club.

However, at the risk of contradicting myself, I don't think it is any coincidence that the most successful managers are given time to get things right. That does not just require patience and support from the board but also from the stands. Our long term goal is to have a man at the helm who will have an input into all playing aspects of the club with the aim of producing a successful supply chain from the youth system to the first team. It is vital that our new manager buys into that philosophy as well as producing a product on the pitch that we can all enjoy watching.

We have also made the decision to employ a dedicated media manager. We feel that this is now a full time job and is a vital part of improving our communication levels and selling the services of the club going forward with the new website being key to achieving this.

I have stated from the beginning that we need to increase the turnover of the club so that we are competing with the top 6 clubs of the top flight and not flirting between the Premiership and the Championship.

This will not be easy by any manner of means and we are already £125k down on our income levels for next season due to the loss of the SPFL parachute payments. We also have a very financially beneficial agreement with JD sports that we need to make some tough decisions on.

In my previous role within the stadium construction project I promised that I would try and improve the disabled viewing facilities once we had the SPL compliant stadium that was our agreement with tesco. Unfortunately I left the club before I was able to make good on that promise so it has become a key part of my re-incarnation to fulfil that commitment with the new disabled platform in the main stand.

We are also investigating the viability of numerous projects that include the "Love Street Coffee Shop", an advertising board at the Paisley end corner that will be utilised to promote club services and home games as well as being a source of income, a memorial garden, office provision in one of the corners, and making the 1877 bar a standalone facility so it can be better utilised without the entire main stand being open. These things won't happen overnight and most need significant funding but rest assured we are working hard to take the club forward.

My aim is to provide regular updates for the supporters going forward. Please do also record any ideas or suggestions you have on our new "Suggestion Wall" here on the site. Your opinion really does matter.

Without the continued support of you, our loyal fans, and club sponsors none of this will be possible so we ask that you continue to support us in every way you can. We are in this together for the long haul!

It has been confirmed this afternoon that central defender Ben Gordon has gone out on loan to League One side Alloa Athletic until January.

Ben signed for St Mirren for the second time in his career this summer from Livingston and made his debut in the black and white stripes in last weekend’s Ladbrokes Championship match against Queen of the South.

Ben will join the Alloa squad for tomorrow’s match against Queen’s Park.