Dorey lined up as Vale Rec chairman
IT'S not being shouted from the rooftops, but Dave Dorey is, apparently, back in football.
IT'S not being shouted from the rooftops, but Dave Dorey is, apparently, back in football.
Great news for Vale Rec, where he will take on the chairmanship, good news for football and, I hope, himself after four painful years since he left the GFA hot seat.
What effect 'DD' can have on a club which has let its standards on and off the pitch drop in recent times, we can only surmise, but if it is anything like his first spell with the yellows back at a time when they ruled the local game, then Vale supporters can look forward to much brighter days.
Coming quickly on the appointment of Phil Corbet as first-team coach with Carl Le Tissier assisting, it's been a good spring for the Corbet Fielders who, I hear, will be abandoning their traditional apathetic recruitment policy – 'they will come to us if they want to, but we're not chasing anyone' standpoint – and be selling themselves hard in the June transfer window.
It promises to be an active summer ahead of a campaign which will see one of the strongest array of coaches vying for silverware next season.
The return of Corbet, Mac Gallienne at Rovers and Steve Ogier with new side Athletics, brings a vast depth of knowledge and expertise to the game.
The only coaching novice at the top level will be Leighton Chainey if, as expected, he takes the helm from Micky Ogier.
The Port Soif appointment is great news for Rovers and, as an old blue myself, one that excites me.
Nobody has been more critical of Rovers' failings and lack of ambition in recent years than yours truly, but they have taken a big step forward in bringing in this 'Red Adair' character at the top of the club.
Gallienne is a no-nonsense, realistic type, who will demand improvements in all facets of the club and make a difference.
He has already talked about changing the club's mentality and, whether they like the tag or not, a lack of sporting ambition away from developing excellent facilities, has been their biggest failing in the last decade or so.
But while Gallienne gets his feet under the table, a Rovers antique is being readied for its departure.
Tomorrow morning, the club say goodbye forever to their original training rooms, affectionately known as 'the shed'.
Slowly – it has to be because of the blue asbestos that lies within – it will be brought down and with it signal the end of a quaint period in the club's football history.
It was from there that John Brehaut led out the team for Rovers' very first Priaulx League game in late summer 1974.
It was from there that a diminutive visiting player, I won't embarrass him by revealing his identity, sought to extend an onfield punch-up with a Rover and paid painfully for his follow-up attack in the solitude of the home dressing room. Legend has it – I was standing outside and only heard the fracas not saw it, but who am I to spoil a possibly embellished yarn – that the little 'un found himself hung on one of the fixed coat-hangers, bruised physically and mentally.
Who could ever forget the toilet facilities – men only and an open pipe – and the need almost to be rescued by boat when the surrounding area flooded, as often it did.
But, I seem to remember, the showers were always hot and welcoming, and the catering by the Warrens and Rose Brehaut, always done with a smile and a friendly face.
Rovers now need to transfer the homeliness into sporting achievement.
With Gallienne on board they have both feet on the rung on the way to the top.
