Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust

News and Events | The Pip Yeates Story

Former Dunfermline Athletic physiotherapist Philip Yeates retired in August 2024 after 42 years in the profession. Pip worked with the Pars for more than two decades until 2004 and also worked with Scotland and at Rangers. When he qualified from Edinburgh`s Queen Margaret University in 1982 he was already getting practical experience working for Pat Stanton at East End Park. Pip gave a very interesting exit interview, the best parts can be shared here. He started by explaining his entry into the profession:-

`I was interested in sport and I have to say that my PE teachers at Queen Anne, because I was brought up in Dunfermline, Dougie Arneil and Jim Crichton were mentors for me. Rugby and cricket were my sports at school and because of them sport was my safety valve. Academically was I a real brain box? No. I worked at it to get what I needed to get.

`Sport was my thing and in those days when I looked at it, the first choice was PE teaching but I knew folk who hadn`t got jobs after doing the course at Jordanhill as it was in those days. It is pretty specialised and I didn`t want to end up doing it and having to use the degree to get something else.

`I had been treated for things because I had rugby injuries and thought that could be another avenue. In those days the profession was very much female orientated. I was only the second male to get into Queen Margaret and when I applied to Aberdeen, because there was Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Aberdeen said that they didn`t have the facility to have a male student! That was back in `˜78/ `˜79.

`I was lucky because I picked a profession that there weren`t many males in at the time. It made avenues and in those days the males were getting sports jobs."

Arriving at DAFC

`Coming to Dunfermline happened by chance. I was approached by Doc Yellowley to come and help for three months when I was still playing rugby and ended up here twenty odd years. At the end of the season I thought I`d overstayed my welcome, nobody was saying anything so I went to Pat Stanton and said I`d done my bit but he said he wanted me to stay.

`I had to make a decision then to give up the rugby at the age of 21, that`s one of my regrets but as it turned out professionally it was the right thing to do because of all the football work that came my way after that. Sport was my inkling and physio was an avenue to keep going in sport. As it turned out it worked out great for me.`

Evolving backroom support

`There was always somebody here at that time but when I came you were the Sports Scientist, you were the Strength and Conditioning Coach as well as the Physio. Now clubs have a cast of thousands behind the scenes, especially down in England whereas in those days it was all rolled into one.

`I remember getting approached by a club to go to them while I was at Dunfermline but they wanted me to be the Kit Manager as well. Thank goodness things have changed. In those days I was part time doing Tuesday and Thursday while working in the hospital. It progressed from there to full time.`

Advances in treatment of players

`Take something as basic as a cartilage op that everybody knows about in your knee. They were open surgery, you`d be in hospital ten days and you wouldn`t be allowed out of hospital until you could do a straight leg brace because the wound was sore. Nowadays you are out the next day or that day with an arthroscopic procedure done.

`Rab Stewart had a cartilage op here. We didn`t have a gym so I ended up going to Watt and Dewar (Ironmongers) and buying pulleys to screw them into the roof under the main stand, connected rope and made sandbags to get the only resistance exercise he could get. He was only part time, coming in on a Tuesday and Thursday night, I couldn`t get him into a gym so that was the only way I could do resistance exercise with him.

`At Rangers I had an anti-gravity treadmill where you can calibrate it to 80 percent of their weight so they are not taking full weight, then they run in it because they are sealed in an air unit. The changes with rooms compressed to high altitude; the players are put on spin bikes but they have to work harder because they are not getting the oxygen in.

`Over forty years that`s the way it has gone. It`s great for us in terms of the rehabilitation facilities that there are but everything has improved. The surgical techniques have improved and the recovery from that is less invasive and therefore you can get on to the rehabilitation earlier.

`Facilities vary from club to club but if you don`t have the facilities you could be the best person in the world but you need access to things to be able to help players.

`Cruciate ligament injuries used to be stuck in a brace for six weeks, now they walk out the door unless there are other complications. It`s just the amount of research, knowledge that goes into these things and listening to people, when I look back to where I was then compared to now, you see the changes. There are even the changes in surgeons in how they manage things. Everybody has moved on.`

A big decision to come to Dunfermline

`I consider myself really fortunate. Even the involvement with Scottish international team came from the Semi Professional International matches. These matches were played at Raith Rovers and East End between Holland, England and Scotland. John Watson and Norrie McCathie were in the squad but because it was being based at East End and Stark`s Park, Craig Brown who was running the team along with Ross Mathie, came to me and said `˜will you cover it?` That was the start of me doing Scotland games.

`Because of that I continued to cover the Scotland Youth team with Craig. We went to Chile for the under 19 World Cup. We got to the Quarter Finals there and lost on a dodgy penalty decision. Berti Vogts was the manager of West Germany, how things turn round for you? We went there with a squad, it was the era of John Collins and players like that. It was held in October and when we qualified for it, clubs wouldn`t release players. I don`t mean this with any disrespect but to be fair it was the second batch of players that ended up going and they got to the Quarter Finals!

`When Craig moved up to the full team he asked me to go with him and when Walter Smith came to the Scotland team and then went back to Rangers after Le Guen, he phoned me up and asked if I wanted a job. So I have been incredibly lucky that things have progressed for me through football.

`With all the countries that I have visited, the people that I have met. I consider myself so lucky to have been in that position. So from starting thinking it was for three months, okay it`s ten years since I did the football now but I have been fortunate that it`s been really good to me.`

Dunfermline memories

`It`s the ones like Neale Cooper, Tattie when he was at Dunfermline, he phoned me at home at eight o`clock in the morning. He said `˜I can`t train today, you will need to tell Jocky`. I said `˜okay` but he said that he was in casualty. `˜I`m sitting here like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, I was out fishing on Loch Leven this morning and I have cast a line and the black spider has gone in my nose.` He couldn`t get the barbed part but out of his nose, all the nurses were laughing at him with a black spider stuck in his nose and I said to him `˜do you really want me to tell Jocky Scott that story`. You get things like that happen.

`Going back to George O`Boyle`s time when he had a lot of hard injuries and me and him ended up best friends. When he did his Achilles at St Mirren on the Saturday, I got him operated on the Sunday and then he was in plaster. George stayed on his own, two streets away from me, so I ended up taking him in for six weeks because he couldn`t cook, he couldn`t dress. His girlfriend couldn`t cope with it and went back to Belfast. He ended up in a plaster staying with me and Nora looking after him for six weeks.

`Jackie McNamara got a dead leg and I took his spaniel for the day and the weekends because he couldn`t take it out for a walk. The things you got roped into, but you did it because in any team, you become part of that bubble and when you are in that bubble you want everybody to do well. You do get roped into things, not that I ever had a job description, but you volunteer to do these things.

`When I came here after Pat Stanton left we quickly ended up in the bottom four of the old Second Division going away to Stranraer on a Wednesday night when Tom Forsyth was here. To then come to the Leish time where you go from Second Division to First Division to Premiership. We were top of the Premiership in November when we beat Motherwell and that was an unbelievable roller coaster and I don`t think anybody who was part of it will ever forget it.

`Yes there were downs and ups but it was an unbelievable journey that we all went on in these days. I still blame Leish for me losing my hair, he could motivate, get teams playing for him, get boys playing for him. That`s what happened, it was an incredible time.`

Part timers to Euros and World Cup

`Visiting stadiums like the San Siro, the Noucamp in Barcelona and iconic places to go. When Australia tried to make a bid for the World Cup ten or twelve years ago, they had a tournament pre-season to see how the logistics of how it would work having four teams in Sydney. It was Rangers, AEK Athens, Blackburn whose manager was Sam Allardyce at the time, and Sydney. The football stadium was right next door to the Sydney Cricket Ground. I was right into cricket and so was Ally McCoist.

`We were like wee kids going out to the square thinking this is where Dennis Lillee was battering the ball. We couldn`t help ourselves and the boys were warming up at the side of the Don Bradman Stadium while the two of us were out having a look at the square. You get to these iconic places. You get to Olympic Stadiums, Moscow where Allan Wells won gold in the 100 metres. You are very fortunate.

`It`s been so good to me even with the travelling. You appreciate what you have got when you go and see how these cities are. I have had a good time.`

Scotland days

`Then the first game in the World Cup, Brazil against Scotland was icon. Going to the San Siro to play Italy for Walter`s first game. We got to train, as you do, on the pitch the day before and we were away in Milan somewhere. The task was for Coisty, Tommy Burns and Jim Stewart to go and lay out the training. The Italians would have been on it but we would get it half five to half six at night. They had a minibus to go and get things set up for us while Walter and I were in the team bus. When we turned up at the San Siro, we were walking down a side alley way between the stands but there was nobody there. It turned out despite leaving 40 minutes before us, they got held up and they hadn`t arrived. Walter was doing his nut and said to just take the boys and do some running to warm up.

`Literally five minutes later on, in comes Coisty, Tommy Burns and Jim Stewart with the kit. When they were walking down they saw folk on the pitch and they thought the Italians were still there, they would get a wee look at them. When they saw Walter he was fuming at them. I will certainly remember things like that.

`Things worked against us like Gascoigne`s goal at Wembley, it was unbelievable and the penalty. Even the play-offs we had with England after that, Scotland were really unlucky not to go through when Don Hutchinson scored. Seaman had a great save off Christian Dailly that could have won it. Even in the first game England scored with two setplays, Beckham to Scholes header two goals. If there was ever a time that we were going to beat them. That game at Wembley we weren`t outplayed in the 2-1 in the Euros. It was the biggest disappointment because I think that team was so close to actually getting through to the stages. They drew with Holland, beat Switzerland and dead unlucky against England. Circumstances just went against them.`

Proud achievements

`I might be wrong but think I`m right in saying, we never lost two consecutive competitive games in the time I was there with Craig. It was an experienced team - Colin Hendry, Billy McKinlay, Kevin Gallacher winning the Premiership with Blackburn and John Collins who was at Monaco. You had a real good experienced group there. After that there is a whole generation who would never experience that. I would never for a minute have thought that was going to play out.`

Scotland Fans

`To go to a championships for supporters there is nothing else like it. In Germany you saw the reaction of the fans going there, the football wasn`t good but it`s about what`s going on during the day, meeting folk. It`s not just the game, it`s the whole experience.

`I was convinced that half that Tartan Army wouldn`t have a clue what happened in the game because by the time they got there they must have been absolutely blootered.

`Remember the Estonia game, the fans are so funny. When we trained the night before the corners didn`t have lights, it was like motorway lamp things they had in the corners. When you stood in the box it was like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you just saw this ball coming out of this light. The UEFA official said that`s no good we will play it in the afternoon. Estonia kicked off about it and didn`t turn up but the fans turned up wearing miner helmet lights on their heads. How did they source them in that space of time?

`At three o`clock in the afternoon in Tallinn, John Collins kicked off, the ref blew his whistle and we walk off. That`s it but they turned up at night for the game and eventually we had to play it in Monaco. What the fans get up to is unbelievable.`

Next Africa, Sigourney Weaver, Leaving Dunfermline, Challenging players

News and Events | The Pip Yeates Story

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