Green quits after ‘stellar’ career
... Hawks short on numbers for Hampshire cup trip
Defender Michael Green will miss out on making a return to former club Eastleigh with Hawks after calling time on his playing career.
The 32-year-old has been released from his one-year Westleigh Park deal and taken the decision to retire from the game.
Hawks boss Paul Doswell revealed Green, who only joined the club from Eastleigh in the summer, had asked for his contract to be terminated prior to last month's FA Cup first round trip to League One Charlton.
But the defender, who made just 11 appearances in a brief Westleigh Park stay, remained with the squad up until last Wednesday's National League South home draw with Dulwich Hamlet.
Green spent more than a decade with Hawks' Hamp
shire Senior Cup third round opponents Eastleigh, who they travel to tonight, and Doswell believes the retiring defender can take great pride from a ‘stellar non-league career’.
The Hawks boss said: ‘Mike Green has retired. He told us three to four weeks ago - his wife’s work has really taken of, they’ve just had a baby, he wants to spend more time at home.
‘He asked me about three to four weeks ago whether I’d release him from his contract there and then which was before the Charlton game.
‘In fairness, I asked him if he’d stay on to help us through this crisis and Dulwich was actually his last game on Wednesday night (he didn’t play in the 2-2 draw, though).
‘We didn’t get to see the best of him at all (during his time at Hawks) because he got injured. It’s fair to say that
‘He had a stellar nonleague career, really, he’s a good lad, a good player, but he’s obviously at a point of his life when things are starting to change.’
Hawks’ current injury crisis means they are likely to travel to take on National League Eastleigh with a squad of just 14 players.
Oxford loanee Leon Chambers-Parillon and Theo Widdrington - recalled by Hawks last month after a loan stint at Gosport - are both in line to start the cup tie.
But Doswell has doubts over ex-Spitfires striker Scott
Rendell and midfielder Nicky Bailey (both illness) while Josh Passley is ruled out with concussion after being knocked out in Saturday's league defeat to Bath City.
Ex-Eastleigh players Abdulai Baggie, Oscar Gobern and Jamie Collins, however, could well face their former club.
Doswell, returning to the club who handed him his first job in management in the late 1990s, added: ‘Whatever happens we’ve only got 14 players and I don’t really want to play seven of those 14 because they’ve already played far too many minutes. ‘It’s just been really difficult, I think playing Tuesday-Saturday, WednesdaySaturday has just been too much, we’ve got the same players playing the same minutes.’
In contrast, Eastleigh haven’t played since November 23. Their home game with Solihull was postponed to an electrical outage problem while last weekend’s scheduled game at Stockport was
off due to the Cheshire club’s FA Cup commitments.
That means Eastleigh boss Ben Strevens could field a fairly strong XI tonight, including ex-Horndean youngster Sam Smart.