Stephen Baxter will walk away from Seaview at the end of the 2023/24 campaign as the greatest Crusader ever.
The Hatchetmen have been treated to bundles of success during the 58-year-old’s tenure in charge on the Shore Road; almost two decades of unparalleled glory in the club’s entire history.
Three Premiership titles, four Irish Cups, a League Cup, three County Antrim Shields and the Setanta Cup all speak to the glory days enjoyed by Baxter the boss, adding to a couple of Irish League crowns he clinched during six years as a player between 1994 and 1998 and later from 2000 to 2002.
On the face of it, he was an individual who touched gold everywhere he went – but that isn’t strictly true.
For as you home in on when the man affectionately nicknamed ‘Stanley’ was hired by the north Belfast club back in February 2005, replacing the sacked Alan Dornan, you see that he’d stepped into an establishment that wasn’t fighting at the right end of the table.
Indeed, at the end of the former Linfield, Ards and Distillery sharp-shooter’s first half-season in charge, they lost their fight for top-flight survival, relegated via the play-off when another of his old clubs, Glenavon, were the Crues’ conquerors.
Securing just 24 points from 30 matches, only Omagh Town – who went defunct that summer – kept them off the basement of a 16-team Premier League. It was heartache for supporters of a club that would have to rebuild from the second division to maintain any hope of recapturing their past glories.
The hierarchy kept Baxter in post. It may well be the best decision the red-and-black-striped outfit have ever made as he now stands as the longest-serving active manager with a single club in world football.
And while the IFA Intermediate League may not be a natural resting place, their hat-trick of the league title, the Intermediate League Cup and the Steel and Sons Cup in the manager’s first full season in charge was emphatic. So often the lower rungs of the pyramid throw up twists and turns, but Crusaders fell victim to none of them.
From there, Baxter set about building his core.
Long servants, some of whom remain at the club to this day such as all-time record goalscorer Jordan Owens, Billy Joe Burns, Paul Heatley, Jordan Forsythe and Philip Lowry, were the beating heart of his side.
Sean O’Neill, Declan Caddell, Colin Coates, Craig McClean and Matthew Snoddy were other lieutenants looked upon and trusted by the boss to do a job, while gifted young and future international talent like Gavin Whyte and Stuart Dallas also flourished under his watch.
At the peak of their powers under Baxter, Crusaders were a hardworking unit that displayed just how cohesive they were and ruthless they could be, but they also showed they could turn on the style when the situation permitted; a monster 106 goals scored in their third title win stands true to that notion.
They wrapped up top-division titles in 2015, 2017 and 2018, a quartet of Irish Cups between 2009 and 2023 and consecutive Shields in 2018 and ’19 having won his first in the 2009/10 campaign; all told, Baxter will end his reign as boss with 17 senior and intermediate honours.
That’s remarkable for a club who have also adopted a full-time model – on a three-quarter basis – and laid a pioneering artificial surface down at their Seaview home, also bearing in mind that private investment has flowed into the Irish League in the form of eye-catching takeovers at Larne and Glentoran by Kenny Bruce (2017) and Ali Pour (2019) respectively to name but two examples.
Despite the Inver Reds and Glens, not mentioning blue-shirted juggernauts Linfield, all having fully professional models in place, Baxter has kept Crusaders in the trophy hunt with consecutive Irish Cups in 2022 and ’23.
Expectations have changed, and the club is a winning one again – attributable to those first three intermediate honours in 2005/06.
We can talk about all the senior cups, but in Irish League management, every successful supremo starts from somewhere.
In Baxter’s case, it was swallowing the bitter pill of a drop-out and refusing to wallow. A fighter by nature, and over 900 games later – he’ll have hit 950 by the end of his reign – he has firmly installed a true winning mentality back at Seaview.
Perhaps, yes, Crusaders aren’t at their title-challenging peak anymore, but it’s easy to take for granted that the side were in a very different predicament when their iconic boss took over.
As we sit now, they have sealed results over one leg in Europe against Swiss titans Basel, Norwegian giants Rosenborg, Slovenian capital club Olimpija Ljubljana and Swedish talent factory Brommapojkarna.
Beating Finnish outfit Haka over two legs ranks as possibly their greatest ever – indeed, every single one of their five two-legged triumphs on the continent has come during the Baxter era.
But he didn’t build all this overnight.
That’s the sign of a great manager – one who can build a culture of success and a winning mentality even when all the chips appear down.
It takes trust, it takes patience, it takes diligence. Baxter had all three and has since gone on to repay that faith in full.
Trophies followed, famous nights in Europe followed and a swathe of great players whose career progressions can be traced back to him followed, and when all is said and done, it is that which makes Stephen Baxter the greatest Hatchetman Crues fans will likely ever know.
They were at rock bottom. Baxter answered the call. The rest, as they say, is history.
Featured image from INPHO/Stephen Hamilton.
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