Malcolm Thomson seals coaching role with Birmingham City reserves

Nov 21 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

MALCOLM Thomson’s appointment is the first step to improving Blues’ Wast Hills infrastructure, Alex McLeish has announced.

And the 40-year-old’s role as new reserve team coach relieves the burden on Academy manager Terry Westley, who had filled the position since Keith Bertschin resigned to join Steve Bruce at Wigan Athletic.

Follow Birmingham City v Fulham live from 2.30pm with Colin Tattum and Andy Walker

“He’s a good coach, fantastic with young players,” said McLeish, who was a senior pro at Aberdeen when Thomson was just starting out.

“He has come in to fill the breach at reserve level.

“Terry Westley was doing that for us for a year-and-a-bit now, which we greatly appreciated but it was not fair on Terry.

‘‘He’s the Academy man and he’s got a tough enough job with that one, running the whole show there.

“The owners helped me add to the infrastructure with Malcolm’s introduction.

“He’s under my jurisdiction. He’s my staff, not Terry’s as such, but anything Terry needs he has got the ability and experience to help Terry as well.

“We’re all in it together at the Wast Hills training ground. Everyone is pitching in and multi-tasking until we get the infrastructure right.

“Terry multi-tasked for us and he did a sterling job.”

A back injury forced Thomson to quit as a player aged 24.

“He immersed himself in coaching very early,” said McLeish.

“Therefore he’s got good skills on the training field with the bibs and the cones and also he learned more about the tactical side when he was at Rangers, Celtic and Hibs.

“He’s a gregarious type of guy. He’s got fantastic people skills and he’s got the qualifications from youth certificates right through to his European licence.

“In terms of first-team level, he worked with me at Rangers and got the call to join Craig Brewster at Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the SPL.

‘‘They had a very successful two or three seasons there.

“Craig moved to Dundee United, took Malcolm with him. Things didn’t go quite as good for him there, then Inverness asked Craig to go back and Malcolm went with him.

‘‘Things weren’t so great second time round and Craig lost his job, and that’s Malcolm come back into it again [at Blues].”

Follow Birmingham City v Fulham live from 2.30pm with Colin Tattum and Andy Walker