MIKE Ford, Oldham’s interim head coach, has told the players: “The play-offs start NOW. There’s no time to waste.”
The famous Ford, back in training gear at a wet night at Melrose on Monday, had to tell the players that, earlier in the day, the club’s head coach Stuart Littler had been “relieved of his duties” following three defeats in the last four games, writes ROGER HALSTEAD.
In a statement issued by the board, purposely held back until 57-year-old Ford, the club’s managing director, had had time to tell the players, chairman Bill Quinn said:
”We’d like to thank Stuart for all his hard work and commitment since joining the club. However, recent results and performances have been disappointing and have fallen short of our expectations.
”We strongly believe our playing group is more than capable of achieving promotion. With the play-offs fast approaching, the board feels the time is right to take a new direction to give us the best possible chance of achieving that goal.
”The board will now begin the process of searching for a new head coach to take the club forward from next season."
That search is now underway by the FIVE directors — Quinn (chairman), Ford (managing director), Jim Minton, Haydn Walker and Simon Winnard.
Shaw lad John Chadwick, a former chairman who now lives on the Fylde coast, will no doubt offer to help. He’s been named as vice-president and, as a close friend of Bill Quinn, who lives near Chorley, he is clearly close to the board, willing to help, and a man with a wealth of contacts throughout the sport.
In the meantime, Ford was a natural choice to take over in the short term. He’s a young 57 and he’s been in coaching and team and squad management both at Oldham in League and, for many years, in Union at the highest level. His three sons, each heavily involved in Union, keep him young and switched-on to all oval-ball matters.
He’ll still have his suits and smart-casual wear in the wardrobe for his managing director duties, but for the next few weeks he’ll be delving into the bottom drawer again for track suit and water-proofs, assisted and supported, of course, by Brendan Sheridan, Ryan’s brother, who remains in post.
Ford told me:
“It’s never easy to tell a guy this sort of thing, and its even harder when he’s such a nice bloke. I explained to the players the board’s reasons for reaching such a decision and why we were doing it now. Players in general terms are pretty resilient guys and they were given the opportunity to speak publicly about anything they might want to say or to speak privately to me.
“We talked for quite a while actually. We talked through the end-of-season challenges, where we are up to and where we want to get to.
“In an ideal world, we’d win each of our four remaining regular-season games, win our play-off matches and clinch promotion. That’s the target, obviously, and the board has never wavered in its belief that we are good enough to go up.
“The main thing I’m keen to get over to the players is that the play-offs start NOW, at Cornwall on Sunday in fact. Anybody supporting us down there needs to remember that we kick-off at 1pm.
“But we can’t turn up in four weeks’ time and think: “This is now the play-offs. We are going to face some tough challenges away from home and we need to get our act together NOW, starting on Sunday. We didn’t think we would be down in fifth place at this stage, but that’s the reality and we have to come to terms with it.
“Against that, we are guaranteed a play-off spot, we can’t go any lower and we can still win promotion. That remains our goal.
“We face a minimum of five games to the end of the season and the maximum depends on how we do in the play-offs, how other results go before and during the play-offs. the seedings; maybe seven or eight.
“We must be more resilient and tougher to beat. We’ve shown previously we can be like that and we’ve got to get there again.”
Ford’s men have four games left in the regular season — Workington and Midlands Hurricanes at home; Cornwall and Rochdale away.
This Sunday’s games are all highly relevant: Cornwall v Oldham (1pm kick off); Dewsbury Rams v Workington Town; North Wales Crusaders v Doncaster (at Chester); Rochdale Hornets v Hunslet.
If Oldham and Dewsbury win, Roughyeds will go up to fourth again.
THEY WILL BE ON THEIR WAY!
