SPORTING DIRECTORS ADMIT TO MISTAKES
CHAIRMAN Mike Burke insists Bromsgrove Sporting’s directors do not deserve the bashing they have received from fans but admits mistakes have been made.
The Rouslers cited results when sacking Bren Kelly, the manager who had delivered back-to-back promotions up to Step 3 prior to Covid, in late October.
Gavin Hurren was named interim and then permanent boss but one win in 14 league matches saw Sporting, one of the best supported clubs in Southern League Premier Division Central, spiral into the drop zone.
Wins over Barwell and Redditch either side of a creditable point at play-off bound Peterborough Sports alleviated those worries and some of the backlash from the stands, criticism that Burke deemed unfair.
“Years ago I was one of these fans that would rant at the chairman when the team was not doing well on the pitch,” he said.
“I would say things like sack the board but I feel embarrassed now. When you are involved, you know how hard people work behind the scenes.
“None of them deserve to be slagged off because things are not going so well, particularly at a club that has gone up three divisions in the past six years while sorting out the (financial) losses.
“Everyone here is working to make the club better than it is now, they are not just going to abandon the place because we are going through a bad patch.”
Eyebrows were raised over last summer when some 14 players headed for the exit but Burke told The NLP the club’s budget had stayed the same throughout its time at Step 3, from the start of the 2019-20 season, and “it was agreed” that a play-off place “was achievable” with the funds available at the start of this campaign.
Asked about the exodus, Burke said: “The players would be able to say better than I could, there were probably reasons.
“Things happen in the life of a manager. Perhaps things don’t always go his way and perhaps people don’t always see eye to eye with managers.”
Asked if he had been referring to Kelly, Burke replied: “Not particularly, any manager really. Every manager has his ups and downs.
“We lost some good players and perhaps we should have strengthened more as we went along over the previous two years. We had to change a lot of personnel in one go and that proved too much.”
The recent uplift in results has quietened but not silenced calls for Hurren to go.
Burke said Hurren had been backed with “whatever he needed in order to stay up”, adding: “Everyone is talking about what we are going to do in the summer but honestly, we have not thought that far ahead.
“There are ideas and thoughts that I have but the main thing for now is to stay up, whatever it takes.
“In the summer we can sit down and have a discussion about where we go from here, and the lessons learned from this season of course.”