Statement – Ray McKinnon and Darren Taylor

It is with sadness and a tinge of resentment that I have to report to our supporters that Ray McKinnon and Darren Taylor have intimated their resignation tonight.

While we have rejected their resignation as they are contracted to the club until 31 May 2019, it does appear that they have left us prematurely.

Ray McKinnon was an outstanding candidate through our interview stages and came into the club having only four players under contract.

Ray did a fantastic job in a very short space of time in putting together a team with a backbone of experience that not only played good football but displayed enormous drive and determination.

Ray and Darren raised the bar and I really thought that we had something great going on. My relationship with Ray seemed to be fantastic.

And while he was only contracted until 31 May 2019, I genuinely thought that we had somebody special who shared our vision moving forward.

I was at Parklea only this morning watching our team going through their final preparations for tomorrow’s encounter with Partick Thistle and I was blown away by the camaraderie and dedication all the players showed towards Ray and Darren.

I spoke with Ray about his formations for tomorrow’s game and he intimated that he wanted to delay his starting eleven until he got to Firhill tomorrow.

I left the training ground on an absolute high and on my way back to my car I received a phone call from Falkirk to ask permission to speak with our manager.

I was told that the friendship and the regard that Falkirk had for our club was important which was why they chose to ask permission to speak to Ray.

It is ironic that six hours later, Falkirk announce Ray McKinnon as their new manager and to me it is clear that there could have been previous discussions with our manager ahead of their phone call to me.

We will be speaking with the appropriate counsel on our options moving forward, and we will keep our support up to speed as we look to fill our vacant managerial position.

I have spoken with Jim, Midge and Tids personally tonight to apologise to all the boys who bought into Ray’s vision and to reassure them that we will still deliver for them.

The three of them all told me that their determination and team bonding has increased ten fold. We certainly look forward to this.

Tomorrow at Firhill, Derek Anderson and John Sutton will take the reins and will be in the dugout together and I would ask all our supporters to get right behind the team.

Let’s do this together!

Crawford