SOCCER:THREE DAYS after revealing that it had passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in manager Seán Connor, the Galway United management committee was no closer last night to resolving the northerner's position with the club.
This remained the case despite club secretary Ronan Coleman suggesting the supporters who are effectively funding the club’s day-to-day operations now might review their involvement in the event they cannot replace the former Bohemians, Dundalk and Sligo Rovers boss.
It is, even Coleman goes close to admitting, a fairly empty threat given that the fans have committed themselves to keeping the club alive. “That always seems to be used against supporters,” he says, “they can effectively be blackmailed with the threat that the club would go under if they simply decided to walk away.”
Connor certainly doesn’t seem to be willing to depart of his own accord. With more than two years left on his contract and limited enough prospects of alternative employment any time soon in the current climate, he would presumably expect a significant pay-off.
The supporters believe that coming up with the sort of money required is the responsibility of the club’s board of directors but the latter are said to support the manager and would, in any case, be unlikely to commit further resources having handed over effective control to the fans in the first place so as to cap their losses.
The situation is, Coleman acknowledges, “extremely difficult”, but it still needs to be addressed urgently, he insists, as United lurch towards a game against Derry City next week that would, if it is lost, mark the establishment of a league record of 19 straight defeats.
“I wouldn’t blame him for the last few of those and we didn’t expect miracles,” he says. “But most of the early part of the season he had what should have been a competitive team and some of the performances have been very disappointing. It’s not as if he’s a local volunteer who is in there trying to do his best; he’s a professional manager who is supposed to be in the business of getting results and, it’s nothing personal, but he hasn’t delivered.”
Despite the statistics, Karl Moore, one of the professional players to leave the club in recent weeks as it proved incapable of paying their wages, still feels Connor has been hard done by, given the framework within which he has been obliged to operate.
“I don’t know what they expected,” says the ex under-21 international who is likely to sign with a rival Premier League club over the next week or so. “His hands are tied. He had something like a week to put together a squad on a shoestring budget and they’ve taken most of the professional players away.
“He tried to do things properly in terms of the training ground and meals for us after training but clearly it’s been a struggle. I’d known him from his time with Bohemians and Dundalk where he’d let me train and you could see from his work there that he’s a professional
“None of the players had a problem with him. They’d signed for him and they wanted to play for him but in the end you have be sensible. I wasn’t getting paid and if I’d played and got injured it would have scuppered any chance of a move and I think a lot of the other lads felt the same. So if they reckoned there was any interest from elsewhere, they accepted the offer of a termination and a letter setting out what they were owed.”
In their absence, a team increasingly made up of amateurs has struggled. They lost 0-8 to Sligo Rovers and 0-1 in last week’s clash with fellow-strugglers Drogheda.
How Connor can turn things around now is difficult to see but then it’s hardly a surprise he’s reluctant to carry the can for a situation he would argue is not of his making. With the supporters’ trust already trying to raise the €45,000 it’s believed will be required to see the club through to the end of the season, he seems likely still to be in charge for the game against Derry and quite possibly well beyond it.
