Motherwell chief admits club ‘shocked’ by Stuart Kettlewell resignation

Motherwell chief executive Brian Caldwell admitted Stuart Kettlewell’s resignation came as a shock but the departed manager’s concerns about his family had been building for several weeks.

The club announced on Monday that the 40-year-old had resigned because “personal abuse” directed towards him was affecting his family.

In a club video, Caldwell said: “For somebody who’s so strong-willed in his character and a very determined nature, for him to be feeling the way he was feeling that he wanted to resign because he felt that was the best thing for him and his family was quite a shock to me, if I’m honest. I think it came totally from leftfield.”

Kettlewell explained his feelings had been building since a 2-0 win over Aberdeen on January 5.

Motherwell subsequently suffered three defeats and a draw in four away games with a particularly critical reaction coming after a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup exit in Perth in the first of two consecutive defeats by St Johnstone.

Caldwell said: “I was quite surprised with the Aberdeen game, which we obviously won, for his dad and his brother to leave the game, for his wife and family to leave early from the St Johnstone game and his wee boy being in the state he was in.

“It’s horrible to hear, because I think we said that in our statement, that no person should feel that way, no employee of any football club should feel that way.

“To have the effect that he’s had on his parents, who come to games, his brother that comes to games, and his own children and his wife, it’s just been too much for him.”

Some fans have claimed Monday’s statement painted the Motherwell support in an unnecessarily bad light.

Caldwell was keen to stress that abuse was a football-wide problem but defended the club’s approach.

He said: “Why not just declare the facts? I’m a great believer in honesty. When we spoke about putting the statement out on Monday afternoon, I said, ‘I think the best philosophy is we just tell the truth, as we always would, and say, look, this is what’s happened’.

“You can’t go into a massive amount of detail in a statement, especially when it’s to do with the manager. But I felt we just wanted to be transparent with everybody, so that everybody understood it. A lot of Motherwell fans have emailed in, quite shocked by the situation.”

Caldwell, who has been sifting through dozens of applications for the manager’s role, checked in with Kettlewell on Tuesday.

“He seemed a bit brighter,” Caldwell said. “I know having spoken to some of the staff closer to the football department who see Stuart on a daily basis, they were quite concerned about him, how he was.

“I spoke to (captain) Paul McGinn the other night about it to see if he was OK. Every single one of those players in that dressing room, he said, I’ve never seen this before, but every single one of those players in that dressing room was with Stuart and the backroom team.

“We’re all a bit shocked by it, but hopefully we can turn our attention to the game (against Celtic) on Sunday.”