Marvin Bartley Faces Livingston After Leaving Club
Marvin Bartley has not spoken to David Martindale once since he walked out of Livingston at the end of last season. No phone call. No text. Nothing.
On Friday night, under the BBC Scotland cameras, the silence meets the spotlight as Bartley’s Stenhousemuir face Livingston in the Scottish Championship for the first time.
From shock exit to unbeaten start
Back in May, Bartley and assistant Neil Hastings said they “had no option but to resign” after being told to reapply for their jobs at Livingston. It was a jarring end. Bartley had only stepped up into the dugout in January, promoted from the backroom staff when Martindale moved upstairs into a new sporting director role.
Asked if he had spoken to Martindale since, Bartley’s answer is blunt.
“No, I've not seen or spoken to Davie since leaving the football club,” he says. “Obviously, he's got a busy time over the summer in terms of bringing in players. He's busy, I'm busy so I've not spoken to Davie since leaving the football club.”
The break with Livingston hurt. He admits that. “At the time, I was definitely hurt in the days that followed,” he says. “When the situation happened, I was really, really shocked.”
The more he talked it through with others, the more the picture changed.
“The more people I spoke to about it – and the more people that found out about it who weren't shocked – probably made me realise that I was maybe a little bit naive and green. That's probably just me as a person. I take everything at face value.”
The sting has faded now. The focus has moved.
“Right now, I have got no kind of feeling to it. It's just another chapter in my book and I'm just continuing to try to do the best I possibly can for Stenhousemuir.”
A part-time club, a full-throttle start
If Livingston represented a bruising chapter, Stenhousemuir are fast becoming the uplifting one.
Bartley inherited a side fresh from promotion under Gary Naysmith, who left for Ayr United. On paper, Stenny were tipped to struggle in the Championship. In reality, they are looking down on the division after a blistering start: three wins and a draw from their opening four league games, unbeaten in nine matches in all competitions.
They beat Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3-1 last weekend, another result that made people look twice at the table.
The league form is only part of it. Bartley has also driven a strong League Cup group campaign, knocking out Premiership side Motherwell along the way. Hearts come to Ochilview next Friday for a home quarter-final, a tie that would have felt fanciful when he walked into the job.
Since his exit from Livingston, the only significant contact from Almondvale has come from the boardroom, not the sporting director’s office. Bartley reveals he has exchanged messages with chairman Calvin Ford, who sent him a “lovely message” after Stenhousemuir edged past Livi on penalties in the League Cup at Ochilview.
The personal relationships are complicated. The football is not. Stenny are flying.
Livingston next, and the long view
Before Hearts, before any talk of cups and glory, comes Glenn Whelan’s Livingston. Two wins, two defeats in the league so far. Unpredictable. Dangerous. And for Bartley, unavoidable.
Fairytales are not new to this division. Arbroath, another part-time outfit, dragged Kilmarnock to the wire in a remarkable title race five years ago under Dick Campbell. That story still lingers over every ambitious underdog.
Do Stenhousemuir dare to dream of something even wilder – back-to-back promotions and a place in the Premiership?
“Every club in the pyramid now dreams of one day being in the top flight,” Bartley says. He knows exactly what that sounds like, and swerves the hype quickly.
“There's still so long to go and it's a boring answer for you all, but when I came into the job we spoke about what we hope to achieve and that's not changed.
“We've got that target and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what that target is because everyone had us as favourites to go down in this league and we understand we are only four games into it.
“We can't get carried away with thinking about promotion or play-offs or anything like that because this league is unforgiving.
“We're thinking about achieving our goals and if we do that, that's a minor miracle in itself when you look at the financial constraints we have compared to every other club in this league.”
For now, that miracle chase runs straight through Livingston, a club he left hurt and stunned, and a sporting director he still has not called. The cameras will capture the handshake line on Friday night. The question is whether the real story plays out in the stands, in the dugouts – or on the scoreboard.
