PATRICK McEleney has been appointed as the new Interim Head Coach of Finn Harps but his unveiling on Wednesday was marred by another turbulent day for the struggling Ballybofey club.
Club legend Kevin McHugh was in charge until last weekend and the Killea man and his management team are unhappy with how Harps conveyed their departure to the fanbase.
Tommy Canning, who served as assistant manager to McHugh, has described the club’s statement announcing that the management team had stepped down from their positions as “factually incorrect”.
Harps stated on Sunday evening that McHugh had stepped down as manager of the club along with Canning and Eamonn Curry.
The statement went on to add that the position of first team manager would become a full-time role as part of the club’s move to full-time football.
The club said they spoke with McHugh about this change of approach, and with the demands of the full-time position not suiting his personal circumstances, it has been mutually agreed that the legendary striker would move into a role that secures his involvement at the club for the long term.
However, Canning, pictured below, has disputed the club’s account, insisting no decision had been made by any members of the management to step aside.
He said he remained fully committed to his role at Finn Harps and rejected any suggestion that he had resigned from the coaching staff.
“There’s been mixed emotions over the last few days as the dust has settled and you get time to reflect on how we arrived at this point,” he said yesterday.
“What you’re looking for is some level of honesty at least. To suggest, as the football club and the board did on Sunday, that we, the management team, had stepped down is factually incorrect.
“Personally for me and I can speak on behalf of Eamonn and Kevin, I didn’t step down. I wasn’t asked to step down, agree to step aside to allow a full-time setup to come in.
“So it’s factually true that I was sacked and the board took the decision to sack me and all of the staff.
“When you enter into something like this and you’re working under the conditions that we were working under, you have to make a decision about whether you’re going to fulfill your commitment at the start of the year.
“You’re under no illusions about what it’ll entail in terms of how difficult the First Division is, the amount of travelling you do and all the things that happen at Finn Park each year.
“I made that commitment to the club, to Kevin, to the players and to the staff. At no point throughout the year, despite how difficult it became, I was not walking away on that group of players.
“Nobody has talked about the players in all of the statements that I’ve seen. The group of players that we had from January including the boys that were asked to leave recently because of the constraints we were under.
“All of those players gave everything to the cause and it’s very important that it’s acknowledged. They put in a huge shift and never shirked the responsibilities. Whatever shortfalls we had, it wasn’t for the want of them boys trying and giving them as much as they can.
“Because of that I was never walking away. I was prepared to stick with it despite the toll it was taking. For someone to suggest that I stepped away is unfair because it’s not true, I was sacked.”