Wilson Concentrates on Management

Darren Wilson has stepped down from his role as chairman of Baris Northern Counties East League Premier Division.....

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Published 19th December 2011

Darren Wilson

...club Hall Road Rangers to concentrate on first-team managerial duties for the rest of the season.

Wilson had initially taken charge on an interim basis following Martin Thacker's resignation two weeks ago. But, due to "necessity", he has pledged to take up the role of manager for the rest of the 2011/12 campaign, whilst stepping down as chairman.

"I came to the decision to try and save the club a bit of money, and promote players from within the club", said Wilson, who had previously been manager of the club's reserve side.

"I'm just trying to steady the ship.

"We've had plenty of applications - people from out of town that don't know the players in the area, because there are a lot of good players here, but it's just getting them to Hall Road that is the problem.

"People could come in and decimate the players that we've got here, and we've already got good players."

Wilson's reserve side have been successful since his installment as manager three seasons ago, winning at least one trophy each year.

Steve Gawthorpe, Dave Gilbey, Lee Parker, Rio Buckley, Russ Webster and Dane Mortimer - who all primarily play their football in the reserves - have all featured in the first-team since Wilson took over.

"There were players good enough in the reserves to make the step up to the first team - it's just going to take a bit of practice playing together", he added. "We're only going to build on it for next season, and start using the people that we've got in, instead of paying daft money for players from out of town who are no better than what we've already got here.”

Wilson's decision to take over the running of the first-team means that he is stepping down as chairman - a position the club are actively looking to fulfill as soon as possible.

"We're looking for other non-playing and non-managerial committee members, as it's currently made up of all managers", Wilson said. "Whilst they've got the club at heart, they've also got their own teams at heart, and we need people who have got a few outside contacts that can help us bring other people on board, especially on match days."

Meanwhile, Wilson praised his side's "battling" performance against Parkgate - a game that they lost 2-1 on Saturday.

"Again, we had more forced changes from last week, but the players that came in and the players that were moved about battled well", he said. "Parkgate are a good side, and they've scored a lot of goals in this league, but I felt that with them being used to playing on a very good pitch, they wouldn't want to come here on a cold winter's day in a mud bath.

"I thought we could get at them, upset them, stop their rhythm, stop them playing football, and I thought we did that.

"We battled and kept our heads up, and I thought possibly late on, we could've snatched an equaliser."

He added that there were positives to pick out of the performance, despite not picking up any points. "At times on Saturday, even in that mud bath, we put some passes together and looked dangerous, especially out wide.

"We were getting round them and causing them problems."