LEAGUE OF IRELAND NEWS ROUND-UP:BOHEMIANS' PREPARATIONS for the defence of their league title received another blow yesterday when the club's chief executive, Jim Roddy, resigned just weeks after arriving at Dalymount Park with the aim of running the place a little more professionally.
Roddy, a long-time administrator at Derry City, is leaving immediately to take up a role overseeing a publicly-funded initiative to regenerate his home town. He expressed regret to his employers over the suddenness and timing of his departure – application for licences to play in the league this season have to be finalised by the end of next week – but said he was anxious to take on a task that is very close to his heart.
“It’s a bit of a blow all right,” said Bohemians club secretary Gerry Conway yesterday, “because he’d worked wonders for us even in the four weeks that he was here.
“Clearly, the timing isn’t great but they wanted him to start immediately and he was desperately anxious to take the job. He made it clear that it was nothing to do with having been unhappy here and said he found the idea of walking away from football very difficult. But he felt it was an opportunity to make a positive impact on Derry and the lives of the people who live there and that’s something that means a great deal to him.”
Bohemians will continue the task of securing their licence for the coming season without Roddy. Significant pay cuts have already been taken by members of last year’s squad with a number of them having received compensation in the form of longer contracts.
Some movement in and out of the club is also expected over the next week or so with manager Pat Fenlon linked to move for Stuart Byrne, Joseph Ndo and Paul Keegan but it may be the middle of next week, when the club is due to travel for a training camp in Spain where they will play a friendly game against Lokomotiv Moscow, before the line-up of players for the coming campaign starts to look a little clearer.
Meanwhile, Drogheda United officials will meet the club’s creditors this morning in the hope of striking an agreement that would pave the way for the club’s emergence from examinership at the High Court tomorrow.
“It’s going to be difficult because the creditors are going to be asked to accept a low percentage of what they are owed but we’re still hoping we get agreement,” said club spokesman Terry Collins. “I wouldn’t say that that would make the court hearing a done deal but it would certainly allow us to go in there feeling a good deal more confident.”
Drogheda United have raised about €250,000 from supporters in recent weeks, a figure that includes almost €15,000 collected in buckets over the weekend. There is said to be about another €50,000 in the kitty but players have been promised around €90,000 and the Revenue’s agreement to a settlement of the roughly €500,000 owed to them is important even before the other creditors are dealt with.
“We’ve been in talks with the Revenue for a while now but they haven’t really given us a strong indication of whether they will accept the sort of deal we are in a position to make,” said Collins. “It would be an important boost to us, though, if we could reach agreement with them before the court hearing.”
If the club does emerge successfully from examinership then a frantic scramble is likely to get under way to save the club’s top-flight status. Budgets for the coming year will have to be finalised very quickly while a way of persuading the licensing committee to overlook the standard of the club’s facilities for at least another year will also have to be found.
Former Bohemians and Cork City defender Dave Hill has returned to Cobh Ramblers for a second spell as manager. He succeeds Stephen Henderson and has been given a two-year contract.
Henderson, meanwhile, has brought former Cork City goalkeeper Michael Devine back to Waterford United after nine seasons at Turner’s Cross.
