DAVID COOK has revealed that a conversation that went on four times longer than planned helped convince the Pars board that James McPake should be their new manager.

The club’s chief executive, who is responsible for the day-to-day running of operations at East End after previous chairman Ross McArthur stepped down from the board, said they were “really chuffed” to land the 37-year-old as John Hughes’ successor.

Less than a week after it was announced Hughes had stepped down following his failure to keep Dunfermline in the Championship, former Dundee boss McPake was unveiled as his replacement.

He was one of a few candidates that had been identified by the Athletic hierarchy and, speaking exclusively to Press Sport on Tuesday, when McPake was announced, Cook said he was confident they had secured the right man to lead their League One promotion bid.

“Once it became apparent John was moving on, we started a search very quickly, and we had a very clear idea of the manager that we would like to bring in and replace him,” Cook explained.

“James was one of two or three that really had a similar profile that was of interest to us. We spoke to them and we felt, as a board, that James was the right fit to take us forward.

“Despite his young years, he’s managed more than 100 games in Scottish football. We felt it was important to have someone with a bit of experience, and especially with a bit of experience of gaining promotion and taking a team out of the lower leagues, so that was important for us.

“We were also looking for someone, and in James we’ve got that person, with that burning desire that matches our ambition to be successful. We felt it was a really good fit in terms of that.

“In addition, I think it was a really interesting profile for us that he’s got great experience of developing younger players and integrating academy players into a first-team set-up.

“So, for a number of reasons, we felt that James would be a really good fit for us.

“What we expected to be an hour ended up being four hours talking about football and James sharing his views on how he could help build the club.

“It was a really interesting meeting and gave us all the feeling that we’d found the right guy to help take the club forward.”

When asked if such a lengthy conversation helped give him and his colleagues in the boardroom the feeling that McPake was the standout candidate, Cook replied: “That was part of the recruitment process, when candidates had been identified, that we wanted to spend a bit of time with them, making sure they understood our objectives.

“We are really ambitious with what we want to do with the club but, obviously, that ambition comes with pragmatism as well.

“Short-term, we need to be a football club that starts winning games again and respects and takes nothing for granted in League One.

“It’s going to be a really difficult season for us but we’ve got to make sure that we’re the best prepared, that we’re tactically aware of all of our opposition, that physically we’re up for a battle every week, and obviously that when we’ve got the ball, we can play.

“We wanted to go through that in detail with the manager about what we were looking for but also we wanted to make sure there’s the right fit, that he liked us as much as we liked him.

“I think his experiences at Dundee in dealing with that pressure will be important for him. The enthusiasm was something that jumped out from the first moment we spoke to him. You can sense that burning ambition and desire.

“Whether some of that’s to prove people wrong or actually just to get his career back on track and get to where he wants to go as a manager, we really feel that enthusiasm and ambition matches our own and is something that can really help the club drive forward.”