COLIN MILLAR TAGGART’S FIRST PSNI RECRUIT A SAVE-IOUR

By On-loan keeper helps club to its first clean sheet in 41 games as Tumelty goal gives boss debut win

GLENN Taggart represented Carrick Rangers across a 21-year distinguished playing career and now he has returned to football, as the new manager of PSNI. The schoolteacher knows more than a thing or two about the local game, having won six trophies in his time at Taylor’s Avenue and played under 23 managers, including Jim O’rourke, Nigel Best, Stephen Small, Michael Hughes and Gary Haveron. On occasions Taggart managed the club in a caretaker capacity, but after two-and-ahalf years out of the game, he is now in the PSNI hotseat.

“I always knew I wanted to be at Carrick my entire career, right from when I was a 16-year-old,” Taggart explained to Match On Tuesday.

“I had the chance very early on to go across the water to join Wimbledon, but I was already in the Carrick first team and I was so happy at the club.

“I always thought that once I finished my playing career at Carrick, the natural progression would be to go coaching and then managing the club. But whenever I retired at Carrick, I was offered by the club to stay on with them in a coaching capacity and whilst I was very grateful for the offer, I knew I needed some years out to reset.

“When the club were in the top flight, we were always fighting relegation and I was increasingly becoming a bit-part player, so it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as it had been prior to that.

“At that time, I knew I wanted to spend more time with my family and that was a big part in my decision to step back for a while.

“But I’ve been involved in coaching at various levels since I was a teenager and I had my B licence for a while, so it was always something in the back of my mind and I had the opportunity to take over Carrick for the odd game on different occasions.

“The big motivation for me to take up this opportunity at PSNI was knowing the coaches Chris Wright and Phil Lewis, how good they are and important they are – I wanted to work with them too.

“The opportunity to join a great club in the Championship with an excellent set-up and where I know four or five of the players as they came through in Carrick’s youth teams – the positives outweighed any doubts.”

Having only taken his first training session at the south Belfast club last week, Taggart guided his club to an eye-catching victory at in-form Ards to help pull them away from the relegation zone.

“We worked very hard all week on a plan to combat Ards,” Taggart explained.

“John Bailie and Sammy Mcfadden are two very effective coaches while Ards have a group of players who are still top flight quality, so it was a massive ask for us.

“My assistant Chris Wright has only been here for two weeks and I’d just been taking training the past week, so we focused on getting the basics right and sending over the simple messages.

“We had worked very hard on the defensive shape and also focusing on messages of positivity and motivation - we had been aware that results had not been good for some time and that will naturally impact on morale.

“But I took this job on because of what I’d heard about how these playinto