Joe Hamill: Livingston first team hopeful

Aug 13 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

THE Livingston first team tucked into the fifteen pizzas which had been delivered for lunch but each and every one of the players had their minds on other things, writes Eric Mackinnon.

Downstairs the future of the club looked to be spiralling into the abyss with chairman Angelo Massone refusing to relinquish control of the club.

And Joe Hamill admits when the club headed ominously towards the noon deadline without any sign of the outspoken Italian the midfield ace worried he was enjoying a last supper with his team mates.

It is a little over two weeks now since Massone missed a deadline set by interim manager Donald McGruther to sell his shares or see the club sent into liquidation.

Since then the club have been rescued from the edge of oblivion by a new consortium but at the time it looked like nothing could stop Livingston becoming a footnote in the history of Scottish football.

Hamill revealed: “When the clock hit 11.50am it struck me that I could be out of a job and Livingston may not exist anymore in Scottish football.

“I really did think it was going to be all over and it was a really bad feeling.

“It’s been another eventful few weeks for us at Almondvale to say the least.”

Last week the Livingston saga took a fresh twist when hard line Scottish Football League chiefs hammered the club for breaching insolvency rules and demoted them to the Third Division.

The decision has stunned the West Lothian club who appealed the decision and this in turn has sparked fixture chaos across the leagues.

And Hamill admits the players have been left as perplexed as the fans by the SFL ruling.

He continued: “One of the young boys at the club phoned me and told me we’d been relegated but I was convinced it was a wind-up.

“I phoned the club straight away and they confirmed it.

“I was completely stunned that they had taken the decision to relegate us as we thought it was be a points deduction at worst.

“We (the players) have been training as usual and preparing as best we can. The manager has been coaching us as usual and taking us through normal training routines as and it’s been good.

“After the decision we carried on training to play anyone, be it Ross County or East Stirling, but we were preparing for a game against someone.

“The last year has been a real rollercoaster as a Livi player and up and down week to week and all we want to do is get back to playing football.

“We’ve had a good preseason under our belts where we had some really good results. I feel we are looking in good shape apart from the disappointing performance against Albion Rovers of course which was one to forget. I feel we can do well if we can bring in a few new additions to the squad to compliment what we already have here.

“The mood in the dressing room is good and nobody is feeling down about it but we all want to play in the First Division and hopefully we can win the appeal and get back to normal.”