Where do we start with the newly appointed manager who is standing in front of his dugout with a story that is so complex and, at times, controversial that his club decided on the eve of his last match to bar The Athletic from entering the stadium?
Michael McIndoe’s playing career took in more than 500 matches with 10 English clubs before he decided, at the age of 31, that he wanted to find new adventures away from football.
But there are other reasons why there will always be a certain amount of notoriety attached to a man whose previous clubs include Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bristol City, Derby County and Coventry City.
McIndoe has been accused of being “the mastermind behind the biggest case of fraud to hit the British game” and, if that sounds dramatic, this is how his own autobiography describes the allegations that, by his own admission, have left a permanent stain on his reputation.
It is a long list of players, including many former team-mates, who were reported to have been stung by the man who is now trying to reinvent himself as a first-time manager at Gretna 2008 FC in the fifth tier of Scottish football.
Some lost huge amounts. Five players from Wolves alone were reportedly owed £2.6million before McIndoe was declared bankrupt in 2015 and the Metropolitan Police launched a fraud investigation through the specialist Falcon Unit at New Scotland Yard. The investigation was dropped two years later.
McIndoe (left) in his Doncaster days (Photo: Shaun…
