Campbell puts a positive spin on Partick's recent gloom

“I am very big on natural enthusiasm for life and will not accept negativity,” he says. “I’m insisting that everybody here walks past me and says, ‘Good morning’. I don’t like the doom-and-gloom brigade. I can’t be bothered with them. I won’t tolerate it. I’m 51 years of age and am not needing all the hassle and all the crap that goes with negativity.”

Campbell leads through example, his face breaking into a succession of smiles as he draws on a series of cigarettes in his new office at Firhill. His mobile phone employs, as a ring tone, a variety of jungleanimal noises to help to ensure that jollity is never far away but Campbell’s shaven head and bulky build give him the potential to take on a more fearsome aspect. Few Thistle players are likely to confuse his light-heartedness with leniency.

“When it comes to having a laugh,” he adds, “I am the funniest guy in the world — but only when the job’s done. The thing that comes with my natural enthusiasm is a deep, deep hurt when you get beaten. Players have got to know the score. They’ll be paid by reward after the job’s done; not before it.

“My father had a principle about being a good listener and I think it helps to be a good listener as a manager. I need to know my players inside out — their mentality, their backgrounds, their families, their problems — and find out if I can help to make them better people and better players.”

Tight budgets proved no barrier to success for Campbell as manager of Dunfermline Athletic and at Brechin City. That attracted the directors of Partick Thistle, a club whose financial costs have been pared down to such an extent that they achieved the almost miraculous feat, in Scottish football, of showing a profit in their most recent accounts.

The thrifty Campbell replaces Gerry Britton and Derek Whyte, who, when appointed joint-managers of Thistle a year ago, were each taking on their first managerial jobs.

“My wife, Ann-Marie, says that I looked after Brechin City’s money better than my own,” Campbell says, “and I think that’s where the experience comes in. You’ve got to look after your football budget and I think young managers forget that at times. I know what the budget is here or I would never have taken the job. I’m not going to gripe and moan that I can’t do this and I can’t do that. It’s not what I can’t do; it ’s what I can do.”

Today’s tie with Hearts offers Campbell a chance to make a sudden impact at Thistle by claiming the scalp of a club in the top half of the Premierleague but which lost Mark de Vries and Alan Maybury, both key players, to Leicester City this week. A good omen may be that Campbell’s assistant, Jimmy Bone, is back at the club where he was a goalscorer in Thistle’s last major cup win; the 4-1 League Cup victory over Celtic in 1971.

“There’s an excitement about it,” Campbell says of the match with Hearts. “The players will be in front of a big crowd, at home, with a new manager taking over and I’ll be focused on winning the game because I want to create this winning mentality and a fortress at home. The reasons for that are simple: there are 14 games to go in the league and eight of them are at home.

“Hearts are heavy favourites. You can get caught up in this player of theirs is not playing and this one has been sold and all the rest of it, but it’s an opportunity for someone else at Hearts coming in.”

Today’s match offers Campbell the chance to begin what he hopes will be a “natural progression” at the club where his main task is to steer them away from a second successive drop in division. He is deeply puzzled at the situation in which Thistle find themselves.

“They played Brechin at the start of the season and hammered us here,” he recalls. “It was 4-0 going on ten. I was going to go to the bookies and put £100 on them to win the league because I didn’t think they would get beaten with that magnificent support. So there’s something wrong. They are underachieving.”

A Fifer from Hill o’ Beath, Campbell has spent his life on the east coast and now relishes the chance to work at a big-city club for the first time. “I can’t remember the last east coast manager to manage a Glasgow team,” he says. “I think there is still this west coast thing where they think you’re still on the end of a sheep up there.” With Campbell in control, there is likely to be little that is sheepish about Partick Thistle from this afternoon onwards.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk