Keith have ‘promising’ candidates seeking to take on manager’s job

Keith director of football Michael Brown hopes the club can make tracks with their next managerial appointment after the departures of Andy Roddie and Tommy Wilson.

Brown revealed the club had already received several applicants for the vacancy, which came on the back of a 10-0 defeat to Buckie Thistle last weekend.

Roddie and Wilson had only been in their roles since November, but resigned on Saturday night.

After a board meeting, former assistant boss Brown was placed in interim charge of the team and will be in the dugout for Saturday’s game against Inverurie Locos.

He is also handling the search for a new manager and hopes the right appointment can be made soon.

He said: “We’ve had some promising candidates and we’re looking to get interviews done in the coming weeks. We don’t want the situation to drag on any longer than it needs to.

“There’s no time limit on it. We want to make sure we get the right person in and we’ll take time to do that.

“It’s all hands to the pump just now to keep things moving along.

“The club will survive beyond me, so we’re just looking after the club in the short-term to make sure there’s continuity before the new manager comes in.

“The next manager will have a substantial budget to work with, as did the previous managers.”

Brown took training for the first time on Tuesday night and said players appeared to be in good spirits despite the events of the last few days.

He added: “It’s always a concern when any manager leaves that players can be downhearted and feel the world is against them.

“I know a lot of the boys from when I was assistant manager and they have good characters.

“They will roll their sleeves up and work as hard as they can until the new manager comes in.

“That game is done now – you can’t change it. Training was good and they want to play now to right the wrongs.

“Nobody likes a defeat like that and you don’t want to have a repeat of it.

“The players are all in it together.”

Brown was surprised by the resignations of Wilson and Roddie, given he had spoken to them after the final whistle at Victoria Park.

He added: “About 9pm on Saturday I got a call from Andy saying they had taken the decision to resign, which had come out of the blue.

“I spoke to both of them after the game and there was no inkling that this was on the horizon. Saturday was a freak result.

“We had a young team on the park against what was a very experienced Buckie side.

“We were surprised by the timing of it. We had given them the backing and they had rebuilt the squad from what they inherited. There’s a lot of new faces they have left behind.”