Pete Mahon today resigned as manager of Bohemians.
A club statement said the decision was reached by mutual consent after a meeting between Mahon and representatives of the club.
"We regret that we have to make this announcement as during his term we have found Pete Mahon to be honourable, and totally committed to his duties," said the statement.
Mahon took over from Roddy Collins in the summer after Collins departed amidst controversy. Mahon had been Collins assistant the previous season as Bohemians claimed the league and cup double for the first time in 78 years.
Expectations at Dalymount Park were high for this current season and fans quickly became angry at the club’s championship challenge faded after a bright start.
The team has mustered just a single win in the last 14 games, and in recent weeks some fans frustrations has turned to abuse - and last Friday Mahon’s family, who were sitting in the stands during a 2-0 defeat by St. Patrick’s Athletic, were targeted for a particularly "unsavoury incident"
"I thought I was hard-necked enough to get over it" Mahon said this afternoon, "but what happened last weekend was totally unacceptable, I’m just not prepared to put up with it."
Bohemians star striker Glen Crowe this evening told ireland.comthe Bohemians players were "shocked" at Mahon's departure.
"We trained this morning as normal and then had a meeting afterwards and that’s when Pete told us he was resigning. We were all surprised and disappointed."
The striker, the Gypsies top scorer with 12 goals so far this season was critical of the fans who drove Mahon out, intimating they compounded the team’s mediocre form rather than lifted it:
"Pete was getting a lot of abuse from certain fans and so were his family, and that’s just not right."
"Against St. Pats, for instance, we had the upperhand for the first half an hour. We may not have been playing especially brilliantly, but we were on top. But then, because we hadn’t yet scored, the fans started shouting "Pete out" and that wasn’t right. . .their negativity helped put the team on the backfoot."
As a measure of how much respect Mahon commanded from the players, Crowe is convinced his ultimately-forced departure may have a de-motivating effect on the players:
"We haven’t been playing terribly this season, even Dermot Keely has said we’re the best team Shelbourne has played against. But we’ve been getting too many draws where we could have won. We’ve missed chances, me as much as anyone else, and we’ve made mistakes at the back.
The players have to take a lot of the blame for that. But we’ve also been unlucky with injuries - for example, against Shelbourne we only had three fit defenders so we had to go with a back three, something we hadn’t done since I don’t remember when."
"Now, if our results start to improve, people are going to say Pete was the problem, and that’s just not the case."
The Bohemains board have not yet named Mahon’s successor, but said today they would name one soon.