Dunfermline Athletic goalkeeper Ryan Scully admits it has been a bit strange calling John Potter “gaffer” ahead of today’s visit of Stranraer.
But that’s exactly the situation at East End Park this afternoon as Jim Jefferies’ successor takes the hotseat for the first time, and Scully is in no doubt that the team are determined to impress the ‘new’ man in charge.
“It’s strange but I had the exact same situation at Partick Thistle with Alan Archibald when he moved into management and I had to start calling him gaffer,” he explained.
“But John’s the gaffer now, he’s explained that, and he’s said that’s what we have to call him now.
“We got used to it quite quickly at Thistle – because you got fined if you didn’t call him gaffer.
“Within a couple of weeks you get used to it and it becomes second nature.
“But John’s always been involved.
“It was usually him and Neil that took training, so nothing really has changed too much that way.
“We had a good talk with him on Wednesday when he just explained what he expects from us now and stressed that he’s the gaffer and he’ll be making the decisions.”
It has been a whirlwind of a week for everyone at the Fife club after Jefferies stepped aside on Tuesday morning, but everyone at East End will have their fingers crossed that the Potter era gets off to a winning start.
“It’s been a bit strange,” Scully added.
“The gaffer leaving was obviously a bit of a shock.
“We just found out on the Tuesday when we came back, but we’ve got everything out of our system now.
“Potts – the gaffer – came to talk to us on Wednesday, just to tell us what he wants from us between now and the end of the season.
“We’re a bunch of professionals, we just need to get on with it and start producing on the pitch now.
“We knew Jim was probably going to retire at the end of the season and he said he was going to revise it anyway at Christmas.
“Obviously the last few results haven’t been great but we still didn’t really expect him to walk away.
“But that was his decision and now we just need to get on with it.
“You can’t really sit and dwell on it.
“We’re professionals at the end of the day and we’ve not being the job to our best in the last few weeks.
“It’s up to us now to start picking up results and hopefully we can do that on Saturday.”
For Scully personally, the recent poor run of results that led to Jefferies’ departure was particularly disappointing after what was a great start to the campaign for the Pars number one.
“That was probably the best start of the season I’ve ever had,” he added.
“I had a lot of clean sheets, which was really good.
“But the last few weeks hasn’t been good enough, we’ve been losing too many goals.
“It’s a case of being a bit too gung-ho and not really getting our shape but the defence has been a bit makeshift at times.
“We’ve not been good enough as a whole collective, as a team, but Saturday is the perfect time.
“We obviously had a bad result against Stranraer last Tuesday, so this will be a good chance to get a bit of revenge.
“After the last few results we could be going in to Saturday with a wee bit of a downer but the new manager is here now and has maybe given us a wee bit of a lift.
“So, hopefully we’ll see on Saturday that we can get back to winning ways.
“It’s a wee bit about revenge but it’s about ourselves as well, about getting back to playing better and scoring goals, and keeping clean sheets.
“That’s the main difference.
“Obviously it hurt, them putting us out the cup, because I think we were favourites for it.
“We want to get back to winning ways and get the three points and start getting the performances back up to the level they should be.”
Defender Lewis Martin has trained this week and should return to the fold, which is a major boost for the home side.
Ryan Williamson is still out through injury though and, while Ryan Wallace returned to action in a Development League game in midweek, it is still too early for him to be considered for a first team comeback.