Corbet so happy to be back in the mix

PHIL CORBET is back in local football. The former island boss and football development officer stepped down as North's manager last month and yesterday the Guernsey Football Association announced that he had been appointed to the their board as director for representative football.

He will be primarily concerned with the administration of all of the island sides from under-18 and 21 levels to the men and women senior island teams and the over-35 side.

The appointment allows Mark Vidamour to fully concentrate on his job as the board's company secretary.

After a year of upheaval at the GFA following the fallout from the well publicised 'Dorey affair' which saw three of the board members walk away, including Dorey as chairman, the board of directors now has a full complement of members under the stewardship of David Nussbaumer as chairman.

Corbet is looking forward to his new role which is purely administrative and does not involve any coaching.

'Football is something I've been doing for 35 years and I didn't like being away from it,' said Corbet.

'I'm very much looking forward to the new challenge. David spoke to me before Christmas after Trim took over from me at North and the offer was put on the table and it was ideal.

'It's a non-coaching, purely administrative role. Coaching was taking up too much time to fit into my busy schedule.

'Whereas this will be time consuming, it can be done in blocks and most of it can be done by email.'

It has been a roller coaster of a season so far for Corbet. He took over as North's coach in August and two months into the job word was going around that he was about to resign from the post with his team not having the greatest of starts.

This was strongly refuted by Corbet who stated he was taking a backward step from the day-to-day running of the team to concentrate on personal matters.

The rumour mill was in full swing again in November as a story surfaced that he was considering standing for the vacant GFA presidential position.

Corbet announced he was not leaving the chocolate-and-blues and that he would have considered running for president if it had come up at the end of the season.

Then a month later he did walk out of Northfield to be replaced by Trim Morgan.

Corbet's new role will see him work closely with the GFA appointed managers to arrange matches with teams visiting the island and sending our own representative teams away, ensuring that all aspects are covered from transport to accommodation.

Corbet is to review the present representative programme to see what improvements can be made.

'The first job to get through the 2005-2006 season and then there will be a few things to look at,' he said.

'I'm basically going to do a review of our representative programme. Not just the men's but the women's and the over-35s as well.

'There is not much scope to enhance the men's programme, that's very well catered for, but we will do something for the women. We're going to make changes.

'We don't want to overload our domestic football programme with representative football but at the same time we want to give everyone a chance to play representative football. I've made a lot of football contacts through the GFA and it's time to put those contacts to good use.'

Island manager Steve Ogier was delighted by the news as he sees Corbet as a 'football man' who knows the ins and outs of running a team.

'I'm happy with the appointment,' he said. 'He's got a wealth of experience through managing the island side and as the FDO and he's got numerous contacts in football. I'm looking forward to it.'

'Phil brings a wealth of experience and there are very few people on the island who knows more about local football. The opportunity to get him on board was to good to miss,' said Steve Dewsnip, the director commercial sponsorship and PR.