Highs and lows of Central Park.
Previously with Marc Mckenzie: “Ochilview Memories”
Following his 10 year stint at Ochilview with East Stirlingshire, ‘Squib’ found another adopted home at Central Park where he had possibly his most prolific period of his career turning out for Cowdenbeath. Squib endured many successes with the ‘Blue Brazil’ winning promotion and bouncing back up to the first division at the first time of asking, then staying up the year after on the final day. Which he describes as “Just like winning a league title”
He spoke fondly of his time at Cowdenbeath to us, lifting the lid on how that squad achieved what they did after such a knock back.
“Initially when I joined Cowdenbeath, Danny Lennon was the manager at the time and they had just been promoted to the first division , so I’d went in and signed the deal on offer and Danny then left a few weeks later to take the St. Mirren Job and Jimmy Nicholl. This left me in a bit of limbo as i’d knocked a fair few offers back and I was left fighting for a deal with the new management team as they had their own ideas. We went away on pre season to Belfast and a tour of Northern Ireland and I trained hard and played the best I could so that I could prove myself again that I deserved to be there. Turned out that I’d impressed Jimmy Nicholl and i was then offered the contract that i had already signed with Danny Lennon which worked out perfectly.
“Being at Cowdenbeath was probably the best period of my career performance wise and that was mostly down to the team if im being honest and hard work and determination. It was hard we’d just been promoted into the first division at the time and we were one of the only part time teams in the league.
“In my first season there we got relegated, maybe because we couldn’t compete because there’s big money in that league and a lot of it, the standard was crazily high the time too.
“We had a good team though that season, maybe not in terms of quality but it was a good group of boys in terms of closeness and how tight knit we were off the field as well as on it and it showed on the pitch.
“After we’d been relegated Colin Cameron took over and he’d been the assistant the season before and he was someone who i got on with really well anyway so for me having him there as well as the chairman Donald Findlay was also a huge factor in me playing so well I think.
“I was really happy at Cowdenbeath as well which was the main reason i spent a good while there (five seasons) I was playing regularly, i was in good form I was scoring, the boys I travelled through with from Glasgow to Fife were brand new too, we got on really well so all of that added together to make it an extremely enjoyable experience for me.
“Colin Cameron and Donald Findlay were great with me especially and two people I got on with fantastically, two people i can consider good friends, Donald is someone i’m inregular contact with, may it be with personal matters regarding family or if he’s trying to convince me to go back!
“He’s probably one of the best chairman ive ever had and ive always been welcomed back. If i’m right in the home dressing room at Central Park there is a picture of myself, Colin and Donald all with the league trophy when we got promoted thats a cracker, we were all really tight and got on really well.
“Colin Cameron was brilliant with me, that season we won the league, I’d scored 24 goals playing wide right, so not even as your typical striker, I was coming in off the wing. He was desperate for me to stay and I was happy to sign a new deal with them.
“I mean I had been given some big offers from the likes of Dundee United to go full time and quite a few teams from England including Chesterfield who were in League One at the time who were offering me a full-time contract too, but I didn’t even have to think twice about staying at Cowdenbeath.
“I was perfectly happy to stay part-time and it would’ve had to have been a substantial deal to take me to full-time, as I was really enjoying my football, i’m lucky enough to have a really good job on the side of football that okay might not’ve paid as well as the full-time deal but with the contracts on offer that were maybe one or two years I couldn’t risk quitting my job as you never know what would happen and I had my two kids to think about too. Most importantly I was really enjoying my football.
“I probably had one of my greatest days of my career winning the league with Cowdenbeath. That day was just a blur, being able to celebrate and cap off an amazing season.
“Then we stayed up the year after in the First Division on the final day. I’d been told i was going to be kept on the bench that day as we were expecting to be preparing to negotiate the play offs, but Airdire were beating Dunfermline and we were beating Hamilton and they were down to 10 men that day so myself and Michael Moffat who has just won the league with Ayr scored in the second half after I’d came on and we stayed up. If I’m being honest it was like winning the league all over again it was a great feeling.
“A lot of teams had spoken to me whilst I was at Cowdenbeath and that’s football, but i was seriously enjoying myself. When we got relegated and I wanted to bounce back and give it another shot at the First Division.
“We were relegated on the final day but we had been down the bottom of the league scrapping for results most weeks. So personally i was gutted when we went down but the fans were great with me, they supported us right to the end. So i felt like i owed it to them to stay and help get them back up and thankfully we did.
“When we got back up again and we had again been scrapping i knew i owed it to the fans to stay and give it another crack, it didn’t work out as much as i’d hoped it would, I missed quite a lot of football that season with a bad injury playing in a game that I actually wasn’t supposed too, but anyone who knows me will tell you, I’d rather be playing in matches than train.
“I was playing in a reserve match against Stirling Albion funnily enough and the defender came in with a really bad tackle and i’d injured my knee. So I came back towards the final bit of the season, Jimmy Nicholl was back in the fold and he said that I wasn’t going to feature as much as before and again it came down to me just wanting to play, I was fit and felt ready but I didn’t want to go back to not playing a regular 90 minutes so I transferred my contract to East Fife who were desperate for me to go there, so I went and played there for the rest of the season.
“It was sad that my time there had ended the way it did but I couldn’t fault anyone there, it’s a club I have a lot of time for and appreciate everything they’ve done for me, my family and my career.
Marc now has recently signed for Kilwinning Rangers, meaning he is now plying his trade in the juniors for a second year. After a frustating year at Arthurlie where he scored 24 goals in a team that finished bottom of the league, which caught the eye of many teams, junior and senior.
However Chris Strain JR was the man to win his signature and have him play in North Ayrshire this season. Squib believes he still has a few years in the tank left and hopes that he can stay in football after he hangs up his boots, starting with completing his ‘B’ license this coming year through the Professional Footballers Association.
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