Jim McIntyre feels his time away from football has refreshed him after his return to club management with Cove Rangers.
McIntyre, who won the League Cup with Ross County in 2016, was unveiled on Wednesday as Paul Hartley’s successor at the Balmoral Stadium.
The 50-year-old had been out of work since leaving Dundee in 2019, but came through as the top candidate in the interview process. He will be joined at Cove by Jimmy Boyle, who was his assistant at Dens Park.
During his time out of the game, McIntyre retrained as a personal trainer and set up his own business in his native Dunblane. So a return to the dugout had to be at the right club.
“It’s quite exciting,” said McIntyre. “When you get into the interview process, you’re never quite sure how it’s going to go, but I’m absolutely thrilled to be given the opportunity. There was a lot of really top candidates in for this job and I’m delighted that I’ve been picked.
“It has felt like a long time, but it hasn’t as well. What you learn is that there is life outside football as well.
“I went away and retrained and started my own business in personal training. I was really enjoying that and sometimes you think: ‘will there be another opportunity that comes along?’
“Fortunately for me, there was. But it had to be the right thing.
“It had to be at a club that I thought were on the up, making progress, that I was going to get the chance to manage and that I was working for good people. That was the big thing.”
McIntyre won the old First Division with Dunfermline in 2011 and had impressed enough at Queen of the South during the 2013-14 season to be tempted to Dingwall by County.
He steered the Staggies into the top six and won the League Cup in 2016.
However, County sacked him and assistant Billy Dodds a year later and, in his last managerial position at Dens Park, the Dark Blues were relegated to the second tier.
There are similarities to a couple of his previous jobs for McIntyre, who was drawn in by the ambition of Cove.
“I think just how well they’ve done recently,” he added. “Keith’s (Moorhouse, chairman) ambition for the club and where he wants to take it. It is a project that he sees Cove being a full-time club.
“We’re not going to put a number of years on that, but that’s the way we want to go. The club wants to grow year on year, which in a lot of ways is similar to jobs I’ve had before.
“(It is similar to) the one at Ross County, albeit they were already in the top level.
“I liken this job a wee bit to the Queen of the South job, where you’re coming in at the start of pre-season and most of the players are already there.
“We do need a few additions to help the good players that we have. It’s about working with the team that you’ve got that has been very successful, a team that’s been used to winning games and now we’re going into a really tough league.
“But there’s no reason why we can’t go and perform at that level.”