Manager Mick Kennedy thought his side could beat Aberdeen, the dressing room singing made the players believe it too
winners and a team five divisions above the West of Scotland Premier Division side, has grabbed headlines across the country. “Certainly in Scotland this is probably the biggest upset in any competition ever,” says Kennedy, “and that makes it a little bit more remarkable.”
Kennedy attributes the secret of his team’s victory to belief; belief in each other and in their ability to succeed. He says he spent the run-up to the match insisting that everyone on his staff shared a belief it could be won, before passing that conviction on to the players. On the day of the game he didn’t mentiononce. “I felt if we were to have any chance of winning the game we had to totally impose ourselves on the game and that it was all about us,” he says.
Belief has been key to the Darvel story, but Kennedy’s principles run deeper than that. Striking in the manager’s post-match remarks was his description of the club’s culture being defined not just by togetherness but “love and respect”. “My most important job every year, as I see it, is making sure I surround the boys in the squad with good people with good hearts. I encourage the guys to understand each other’s lives, to make sure if anybody needs support in football or away from football – whatever your challenges are – that [you can] always see people who respect you, love you, care for you and will do their utmost to make sure you can face those challenges head on.
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