Marvin Bartley Faces Livingston Again at Ochilview
Marvin Bartley will walk out at Ochilview on Friday night with the TV cameras rolling, an unbeaten record to protect and a familiar name in the opposite dugout. But there will be no warm reunion.
The Stenhousemuir manager has not spoken to Livingston sporting director David Martindale since the day he resigned from the West Lothian club at the end of last season. No phone call. No coffee. Nothing.
“No, I've not seen or spoken to Davie since leaving the football club,” Bartley says. “He's busy, I'm busy so I've not spoken to Davie since leaving the football club.”
The split was raw. Back in May, Bartley and assistant Neil Hastings said they “had no option but to resign” after being told to reapply for their own jobs. Bartley had only stepped up into the dugout in January, promoted from a backroom role when Martindale moved upstairs into a new position.
The shock was immediate.
“When the situation happened, I was really, really shocked,” the 40-year-old admits. In the days that followed, the hurt ran deep. But as the story travelled around Scottish football, Bartley began to see it differently.
“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 anger has gone now. The scar remains, but it no longer dictates his days.
“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.”
If Livingston was the painful ending, Stenhousemuir has become the unlikely plot twist.
Bartley inherited a part-time side tipped by many to struggle after Gary Naysmith, the man who delivered promotion from League 1, left for Ayr United. Instead, Stenny have ripped up the script. Nine games in all competitions. No defeats. Top of the Championship with three wins and a draw, the latest a sharp 3-1 victory over Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
They are not supposed to be here, looking down on full-time clubs with bigger budgets and deeper squads. Yet here they are.
They have already bloodied Livingston’s nose once. In the League Cup group stage at Ochilview, Stenhousemuir edged Livi on penalties. The result prompted a “lovely message” from Livingston chairman Calvin Ford, who reached out to wish Bartley well in his new job.
The cup run has gathered pace. Bartley’s side came through their group, then took a notable Premiership scalp by knocking out Motherwell. Hearts now loom in a home quarter-final next Friday. Ochilview is suddenly a stage for big nights.
Before that, though, comes another meeting with Livingston – this time Glenn Whelan’s team, reshaped and recalibrated after relegation, with two wins and two defeats in their league campaign so far. It is not just about Bartley against his old club. But the subtext is impossible to ignore.
This is the Championship, where fairytales are no longer treated as fantasy. Arbroath showed what was possible five years ago, when Dick Campbell’s part-time Red Lichties pushed Kilmarnock all the way in a gripping title race. That story still lingers over the division like a dare.
Do Stenhousemuir dare to dream of something similar? Of a second straight promotion, straight into the top flight?
“Every club in the pyramid now dreams of one day being in the top flight,” Bartley says. He knows exactly what that kind of talk can do in a dressing room, though, and he reins it in 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.”
So the focus stays narrow. The budget stays tight. The unbeaten run stretches on.
And on Friday night, under the lights and the BBC Scotland cameras, Bartley’s new chapter will cross paths with his old one – without a word needing to be exchanged.
