“The second season, we looked safe again when the season was called off because of the pandemic. “But to keep them up by eight points was a huge turnaround. “When I went in there in November 2018, everyone apart from myself thought we were getting relegated. “Looking at my own situation, I was successful in keeping a struggling club with the lowest budget in the league in the division. “We all have to start somewhere but do white managers get more of a second chance? I think the stats say yes. “So these opportunities don’t come around often for people who look like me. “Alex Dyer at Killie was the first in the top flight for 17 years. “When I took over at Rovers, I was the first BAME manager in Scotland since Marcio Maximo at Livi in 2003,” the former Portsmouth, Stoke and Dunfermline winger told Record Sport. Or perhaps, as he suspects, there are more sinister forces at play preventing aspiring black and ethnic minority coaches from their big chance. He’s the first to admit he maybe doesn’t have the right numbers for the right people in his phonebook to get him a foot in the door. Incredibly, it took 40 letters just to get him his shot at Cliftonhill, where he became the first black boss to be hired by a Scottish club for 15 years. Only two clubs, though, have afforded him the courtesy of an interview.
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So his return to Leith in a new scouting role is an opportunity to make amends to those he feels he let down back in 1998 when he rushed off to seal his £300,000 switch to Derby County. The manner of his sudden departure has long troubled the former Hibs legend, with the gnawing regret over the fact he did not get the chance to bid farewell to the fans who had supported him through six years of thick and thin. Twenty-four years on from the day he slipped out of Easter Road with barely a word of goodbye, Kevin Harper is grateful to be back where it all began.