Kinniburgh confident he can balance his roles at Corby

Having guided the Steelmen up the Evo-Stik League South table in a caretaker role he took up at the end of September, the 28-year-old was confirmed as the new permanent manager at Steel Park last weekend.

In that time he has been doing the dual role of managing the first-team while also heading up the club’s academy, a role he started at the beginning of last year after joining from Kettering Town.

Kinniburgh’s appointment as first-team boss seems to have gone down well with the Corby supporters, although the question mark remains of what would happen to his role within the academy should things not go according to plan with the first-team.

And while he is understandably not thinking about anything other than getting things right, he was happy to address the question.

“We have good people already in place and we will have others coming in to help out in various areas of the club,” he said.

“I know there will be that question over doing both jobs and, having done it since October, I have been balancing them well. But it’s something I have been in discussion with the club about.

“My hope, of course, is that it goes well and this is the start of my managerial career.

“It’s a road I always thought I would go down but to be doing it already at the age of 28 is great.

“But there will be that question of ‘what happens if it goes wrong?’.

“If things don’t go well then I will be the first to hold my hands up and I will move back to just doing the work with the academy.

“I don’t foresee a situation where I will have to be moved from the club.

“If things do not go how we want then I will take the step back but I really believe we can all make a success of this.”

Kinniburgh has no doubts about the big benefit of doing both roles, however, as he bids to continue the progression of academy players into the first-team set-up.

“I think there are big benefits to it with the main one being having the day-to-day access to the academy

and the players in there,” he added.

“The question I ask myself is ‘would the likes of Dean McBride, who has been very good for us, have been given the chance if it was someone else as the first-team manager?’

“This is something we are trying to work towards with player progression and we want to give boys the chance to train with the first-team and work their way into the squad.

“And if I have access to them on a daily basis then it gives me the best opportunity to judge whether they are ready or not."