Neish
08/11/2005, 2:54 PM
Harps' chairman in shock resignaton
By: Diarmaid Doherty
Relegation threatened Finn Harps have been dealt another blow with the news that club chairman, Peter Toner has resigned.
The Letterkenny man walked out of a meeting of the club's Board of Directors in Ballybofey on Sunday and confirmed last night that he had stepped down.
Mr. Toner revealed that a reluctance by his fellow board members to make a decision on the appointment of a new manager led to his decision.
His resignation is the latest upheaval at a club which has been dogged by problems, both and off the pitch this season.
It comes at the end of a season which is almost certainly set to end in relegation for Harps.
Mr. Toner, who has been chairman for two years and vice-chairman for the previous two years, said that for some reason, members of the Board of Directors did not want the manager's situation dealt with at the present time.
"We had a debate about it a fortnight ago, and it came up again yesterday," he said.
"We talked about it for over an hour but I couldn't get the board to make any decision on where we are going with the manager's position.
"That's not in my nature to be indecisive like that and I felt there were too many other agendas - people weren't putting up where they thought we should be going with our manager.
"We've done this over the past number of years as well. Season after season, we have drifted along with no preparation for the new season and I feel it's absolutely essential that with some of our players out of contract, we should have a manager in place to tell us what players he wants to keep and what players he wants to bring in.
"You don't do that a couple of weeks before the pre-season so I just felt I couldn't stay there any longer."
Following the well publicised fall-out between Harps and former manager Felix Healy, Anthony Gorman had taken charge of team affairs until the end of the season.
Negotiations had recently got underway between Gorman and the board with a view to him staying on as manager next season. However, Peter Toner has intimidated that some directors might not feel Gorman is the man for the job.
He said he couldn't accept the board's insistence that the matter be
deferred until their next meeting in a fortnight's time.
" I thought this was unreasonable, it's not the way forward," he said.
"There were suggestions that other people might be interested, but no names were put on the table. So I just felt we were sitting on our hands as usual and doing nothing.
"It's not the way forward and it was unprofessional of us not to deal with it."
And he played down the suggestion that he wanted Anthony Gorman to get the manager's job full time.
"I wasn't promoting Anthony Gorman," he said.
"I was proposing that we make a decision on what we were going to do about the manager's position - whether we are going to offer it to Anthony, whether we are going to advertise it or whether we are going to invite people to apply for it.
"But I couldn't get a decision on that from the board."
By: Diarmaid Doherty
Relegation threatened Finn Harps have been dealt another blow with the news that club chairman, Peter Toner has resigned.
The Letterkenny man walked out of a meeting of the club's Board of Directors in Ballybofey on Sunday and confirmed last night that he had stepped down.
Mr. Toner revealed that a reluctance by his fellow board members to make a decision on the appointment of a new manager led to his decision.
His resignation is the latest upheaval at a club which has been dogged by problems, both and off the pitch this season.
It comes at the end of a season which is almost certainly set to end in relegation for Harps.
Mr. Toner, who has been chairman for two years and vice-chairman for the previous two years, said that for some reason, members of the Board of Directors did not want the manager's situation dealt with at the present time.
"We had a debate about it a fortnight ago, and it came up again yesterday," he said.
"We talked about it for over an hour but I couldn't get the board to make any decision on where we are going with the manager's position.
"That's not in my nature to be indecisive like that and I felt there were too many other agendas - people weren't putting up where they thought we should be going with our manager.
"We've done this over the past number of years as well. Season after season, we have drifted along with no preparation for the new season and I feel it's absolutely essential that with some of our players out of contract, we should have a manager in place to tell us what players he wants to keep and what players he wants to bring in.
"You don't do that a couple of weeks before the pre-season so I just felt I couldn't stay there any longer."
Following the well publicised fall-out between Harps and former manager Felix Healy, Anthony Gorman had taken charge of team affairs until the end of the season.
Negotiations had recently got underway between Gorman and the board with a view to him staying on as manager next season. However, Peter Toner has intimidated that some directors might not feel Gorman is the man for the job.
He said he couldn't accept the board's insistence that the matter be
deferred until their next meeting in a fortnight's time.
" I thought this was unreasonable, it's not the way forward," he said.
"There were suggestions that other people might be interested, but no names were put on the table. So I just felt we were sitting on our hands as usual and doing nothing.
"It's not the way forward and it was unprofessional of us not to deal with it."
And he played down the suggestion that he wanted Anthony Gorman to get the manager's job full time.
"I wasn't promoting Anthony Gorman," he said.
"I was proposing that we make a decision on what we were going to do about the manager's position - whether we are going to offer it to Anthony, whether we are going to advertise it or whether we are going to invite people to apply for it.
"But I couldn't get a decision on that from the board."