ISTHMIAN CHIEFS HAD IT IN FOR ME – JODY
JODY Brown has taken an unsuspecting swipe at Bostik League chiefs following his shock resignation as manager of Heybridge Swifts.
Swifts were the lowest ranked team left in the FA Cup and FA Trophy last season, playing no fewer than 20 cup matches before February, and then reached the play-offs.
But they’ve started slowly this season and Brown, who avoided relegation to Step 5 when he first took over, is fed up with the Bostik North.
“The lack of professionalism of the whole league got to me and I’m not saying I’m better than it, but I like to turn up to games with my strongest team and
“I JUST THOUGHT ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. THE ISTHMIAN LEAGUE HAS A MASSIVE PROBLEM” – Jody Brown
“I’M HUNGRY TO BE BACK IN FOOTBALL BUT THAT DIVISION, AND PERHAPS THAT LEAGUE, ISN’T FOR ME”
players are unavailable too often now with things unrelated to football,” the former Welling boss told The NLP.
“Then there’s all the other stuff that goes on. I had the Aveley chairman [Graham Gennings] following me into the car park two weeks ago to have a go at me for not taking the manager’s job there eight years ago.
“He told me that he and the Aveley chief executive [Craig Johnson], who is also the vicechairman of the Bostik League, hated me because of that.
“They won the game 3-2 and it’s almost like he waited all that time to do it and chastised me for 20 minutes.
Coincidence
“When we were in the cups last season they didn’t help us at all with the fixtures. Maybe it’s just a coincidence but when your feelings are confirmed when someone says the vice-chairman hates you because you turned down the job at his club, then you can’t help but think it.” Brown feels he has also been pushed to the brink by the behaviour of some opposition fans and what they are able to get away with without punishment.
“These things go on but people very rarely ever speak out,” he adds. “In football there’s this desire to be loved but I’m not that bothered. When it gets to breaking point, which it has, then I will say about it.
“On Tuesday night [at Basildon], I couldn’t even get off the pitch because there’s fans blocking off the tunnel, insulting me, abusing me, trying to threaten me, staring me down.
“I just thought enough is enough. It’s not the first time this has happened. I think the Isthmian League has a massive problem.
“I know some really good coaches who won’t work in Non-League football and would rather be out of work because of that kind of thing.
Angel
“I’m not painting myself as an angel, I can argue, I can stand up for myself, but I don’t want to feel I have to do that and go through that every other week.
“I have two daughters and I have to be very wary of which grounds they can come to.
“I’m sad this is the way it has ended at Heybridge. Gary White is a brilliant chairman. Eight clubs I’ve worked at and he’s by far the best and most supportive chairman.
“I hope the supporters enjoyed it as much as I did and I’d like to thank them for their support. I’m hungry to be in football but that particular division and perhaps that league isn’t for me.” When contacted by The
NLP, Aveley chairman Graham Gennings and Bostik League vice-chairman Craig Johnson chose to make no comment.