The new Hibs manager admits to being grumpy, but promises much-needed stability at the club.
Terry Butcher isn’t promising a quick fix at Hibs.
The new Hibs boss is adamant he’s not looking for a swift route to bigger things.
Being a legendary former England captain, there’s always an intense interest in his career south of the border.
Success with Inverness Caley Thistle led to talk that he should be rubbing shoulders with the Mourhinos and Wengers of the world.
However, Butcher and assistant Maurice Malpas are preparing for several years of blood, sweat and tears in Edinburgh.
Suggest he might want to manage his country one day and he snaps to attention.
“Flippin’ Nora. Bloody hell. Hold on a minute. I’m only just in the job and you’re trying to move me on!” he bristles.
“Anything Maurice and I have done that was right at a club, we have done through long-term work.
“It was four years at Motherwell, it’s been nearly five years at Caley Thistle. So hopefully what we can give Hibernian is stability, durability and a longevity.
“We stabilise and we build. I think that’s what we do very well.”
Butcher has an incredibly close relationship with Malpas. He believes his assistant is the best coach in Scotland and admits he missed the former Dundee United defender when he left Motherwell to spend a season in Australia.
The pair kept in touch despite being at opposite ends of the planet and were eventually re-united in Inverness.
Another integral part of Butcher’s team is Chief Scout Steve Marsella. Butcher says: “He looks for good players, not a type of player. It’s amazing that agents will be contacting Steve rather than Steve having to contact agents.
“He will probably work at a different level now and he’s got a good eye.
“We give good players opportunities, whether it be at Hibs, Caley Thistle or anywhere else. We want to stabilise but improve in every department, not only the team but the club, then we will see where that takes us.
“We want it to be like it was at Caley Thistle a great journey and an enjoyable one.
“At Inverness, we improved and improved. That comes through hard work and we will see where it takes us, whether it’s Argentina or Brazil or the England manager’s job!”
Butcher comes over as the more cheerful half of the partnership with Malpas. But the 54-year-old reveals that he is the grumpy one.
“I’m the worst. The poor phone gets a bit of a battering,” Butcher admits. “There are marks on my table where I have banged it and smashed it.
“The drawers are a bit wobbly because I’ve slammed them, the door is hanging off the hinges and they have had to repair a hole where I put my fist through it!
“When I’m like that, Maurice just walks away
“He just thinks: ‘Here he goes again’. He knows I have to vent it.
“There is actually a door at Easter Road that I ripped off its hinges. I probably will be paying for it from my first month’s wages! It was on the dressing-room. I just booted it and it flew open and then came back.
“I thought: ‘Oh, oh. You’re asking for it again’ and bosh, I hit it again!”
Whatever happens at Hibs, it won’t be quiet.
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