Fahy's future unclear

Managerial moves: Offaly could yet be searching for a new senior football manager despite appointing Gerry Fahy for another season. Tuesday night's meeting of the county board ended with Fahy being successfully ratified as manager for next year but only by a single vote - 27 to 26 - and that, says Fahy, has forced him into a rethink.

The Galway native will sit down with his two selectors, Matt Connor and Mark Plunkett, in the coming days and decide if they will in fact make up the management team for another season.

"The nature of the vote has caused us to have a rethink, to say the least," says Fahy. "So I want to sit down with my two selectors and consider exactly where we stand. There are things we need to talk about in detail and it will be the end of the week before we have a chance to do that.

"Obviously the fact that I put my name forward indicates that I am enthusiastic about going forward for another year. But I wasn't at the meeting on Tuesday night so I don't want to say any more than that right now."

Yet clearly the narrow margin of support has unsettled Fahy's confidence in committing for another season. Part of his future commitment was the option of taking over the under-21 football side, which would be a new departure for Offaly football, but which for now also remains undecided.

Last month Fahy secured a slightly more favourable level of support from the chairmen and secretaries of the football clubs on a 20 to 16 vote. If he does decide to walk away from the reappointment then Offaly will be looking for a football manager for the second successive year after sacking Paul O'Kelly in even more controversial circumstances at the end of 2003.

Although it was far from a memorable season for Offaly, they did secure the Division Two title in the National League, before suffering a narrow defeat to Westmeath in the Leinster championship. On the qualifier route they beat Kildare and then fell to Wexford.

No such indecision in Fermanagh, meanwhile, as Charlie Mulgrew has been unanimously reappointed for a second term by the county board. Mulgrew was behind Fermanagh's remarkable run to the semi-final this year - where they fell to Mayo after a replay.

In Sligo, however, the search is on to find a replacement for James Kearins, who has stepped down following the fallout of the Tommy Murphy Cup controversy. Kearins refused to manage the team in that competition. Caretaker manager Paul Durcan has indicated he's not interested in going forward for the position.