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CARETAKER Shelbourne chairman Finbarr Flood was coming to terms yesterday with the scale of the task ahead of him in attempting to get the crisis club back on a solid footing.
With Ollie Byrne facing a prolonged spell out of the game due to ill health, Flood has agreed to step in on a temporary basis until the chief executive is able to resume his duties.
He accepted the invitation of the club's management committee after Wednesday night's meeting which ran into the early hours, and spent yesterday meeting with players and staff to ascertain the seriousness of the current situation.
As only a handful of contracted players are remaining - and all have offers from other clubs - Flood is attempting to put a structure in place to keep them at Tolka Park next season.
And the first concern is to appoint a new manager to rally the troops and begin preparations for the Setanta Cup opener against Portadown on February 26.
While Byrne said last week that Stephen Geoghegan would be taking the position, the situation has changed with Flood now having the authority to appoint a new boss with Longford manager Alan Mathews reportedly back in the frame.
"The immediate priority is getting a manager in to look after things on the football side so we can concentrate on the off the pitch side of things," said Flood yesterday.
Ambitions
"A lot of people would want to manage Shelbourne. I would have thought it would have been on the list of most managers' ambitions. We hope to have one appointed in the next 48 hours.
"There's no doubting that things are bad and that we're at a very low ebb. What we're doing now is to try and get things up and running. Time isn't on our side, with the Setanta Cup being only around the corner."
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