Alex Dyer says Kilmarnock appointment is 'good message' for BAME coaches
- Published
Dyer was an assistant at Charlton and Huddersfield before his move to Kilmarnock in October 2017
Alex Dyer hopes his appointment at Kilmarnock can help "open doors" for black and ethnic minority managers.
The 54-year-old Londoner has been put in charge until the end of the season after being assistant to both Angelo Alessio and Steve Clarke at Rugby Park.
"If I am a role model, I am a role model," he said.
"I am here to do the job to the best of my ability and if that opens doors for other people of my colour/culture then all good."
Dyer, who remains an assistant to Clarke with the Scotland national side, stepped up on an interim basis after the sacking of Alessio in mid-December and was given the green light to continue for the rest of the campaign despite three successive 1-0 defeats.
"I am hoping that me up here sends a good message, a message that I am working for a wonderful club and wonderful people who have given me a great opportunity," he added.
"It is a subject that is always going to be there. I am a black man who is working in an industry where there is not many black coaches and I hope that me being a coach and now a black manager, that will open doors for others.
"But at the same time you have to do the right thing. People have to go through the system, that's the way it is.
"I am not naive, I know that in the past people have been turned down for jobs for the reason of their colour. We know that has happened but we still have to keep knocking down the door.
"But I am here as a manager first of all. I am a black man but I am a manager and I want to do the best I can."
Dyer has signed up attacker Harry Bunn, whom he worked with at Huddersfield, and will keep his eye on striker Kwame Thomas, most recently with Doncaster, as he looks to bolster his squad.
"He came in and trained with us," he said of Thomas. "The door is not shut. I just wanted to have a look at him, see what his fitness levels were at.
"If I have to go back I will do. He has other opportunities as well, he wanted to feel us out as we wanted to feel him out."