NEALE FENN HAS defended his decision to quit his managerial post at Longford Town at a critical juncture in the club’s season.
Fenn, who tendered his resignation from the Longford job last Wednesday, was today announced as first-team head coach at Cork City.
After over two years in charge, the 42-year-old parted company with Longford just 48 hours before they faced Bohemians in the second round of the FAI Cup.
While the Midlands outfit lost a penalty shootout at Dalymount Park on Friday night, Fenn was at Eamonn Deacy Park to watch Cork City suffer a somewhat surprising elimination at the hands of First Division strugglers Galway United.
Longford are well-placed to challenge for promotion back to the top flight via the play-offs, despite losing their manager with just three regular-season league games remaining.
Assistant manager Daire Doyle has taken the reins at the City Calling Stadium on an interim basis, but Fenn’s untimely exit has understandably angered many of the club’s supporters.
Speaking this afternoon at the Cork International Hotel, where he was officially unveiled as the new man in charge on Leeside, Fenn insisted that while it was “a tough decision” to leave Longford, the chance to manage Cork City was too good to turn down.
“This was just an opportunity that I couldn’t risk someone else getting. I had to go for it,” said the former Republic of Ireland U21 international, who won a Premier Division title as a Cork City player in 2005.
Regarding the reaction from Longford Town fans to his departure, he added: “I read Twitter, I’m not oblivious to all of that. I’ve seen it and it’s not nice but I’m a professional football manager.
“The chance to come back to this club and be a full-time manager was one I couldn’t let pass by. [Longford Town] are in a great position at the moment in the play-offs. As they showed last Friday night against Bohs, they’re a great young team with some superb players.”
Fenn takes control of a Cork City side that has experienced a drastic decline in 2019. After a run of five consecutive seasons in the top two — including a Premier Division and FAI Cup double in 2017 — they’re currently languishing in seventh place, just seven points above the relegation play-off spot which is occupied by Finn Harps.
A string of abject results and performances cost John Caulfield the manager’s job in May. John Cotter, his temporary replacement, will remain involved as Fenn’s assistant manager according to chairman Declan Carey.
Although Carey declined to specify the length of Fenn’s contract, he did mention that the appointment is part of a three-year plan to return the club to the upper echelons of League of Ireland football.
“A lot of lads looked like they were trying to keep the ball safe rather than taking risks with it,” Fenn said of Friday’s 1-0 loss in Galway. ‘Not enough shots, not enough crosses, not enough people making forward runs — just all a little bit safe and a little bit one-dimensional.”
He added: “You’ve just got to look at the league table to know that not everything is right on the pitch at the moment. I was aware that things weren’t great on the pitch, but I was confident enough that once I got in there, I knew some of the players, they’re just under-performing for whatever reason.
“There could be a variety of reasons for that, but I felt that I could come in and at least get a reaction until the end of the season and decide then what players we’re going to try and keep and what ones can be let go. Certainly I wasn’t coming into this blinkered, thinking the team is flying. If the team were flying I wouldn’t have got the job.”
During his Longford reign, Fenn earned praise for his team’s ability to retain possession while playing an attacking brand of football. That style is in stark contrast to the direct approach deployed by his new employers in recent seasons.
“We’re going to try and play but we also have to be aware that we need results,” said the new Cork City boss, who’ll take charge of the club for the first time for Friday’s Premier Division meeting with Sligo Rovers at Turner’s Cross.
“Where we are in the league is not great, so we need to make sure that we get results too. It’s not just all about playing nice football.”
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