LISTEN: Manzur at crossroads admits their boss Romeril
MANZUR could easily disappear from the FNB Priaulx League schedules in a couple of months.
Should a concerted bid to find new signings fail, the former social league side will fold, with all four teams going to the wall said head coach Mark Romeril yesterday while appearing on the GP Football Podcast.
Only last Saturday fourth-placed Manzur ended Sylvans’ lingering title hopes, but with Guernsey FC set to resume in late summer they face the prospect of their small squad being decimated.
‘The biggest issue is simply will we have a team at Priaulx level next season?’ said the coach yesterday.
‘We have got to a point where we are at a crossroads. We have been going 12 years and Priaulx League for four years and it all comes down to whether next season we have a team that can play in the Priaulx League.
‘We need to get six or seven players through the door in the summer. It’s really that simple.’
Romeril knows attracting that talent won’t be simple.
‘If the first team goes, Manzur goes, the sustainability of the club is all based on what the Priaulx brings to the club.
‘Ultimately the Priaulx is the flagship team and if that goes it doesn’t make any commercial sense for a sponsor to come in.’
Romeril added it won’t be easy to secure the new talent required.
‘The big problem we have is that we obviously don’t have a youth structure and our second team, by their own admission, are effectively already playing up a league now.
‘Depending on how we get on in the cups, we could be playing up to mid or towards the end of June and the transfer window will open from that point. We’ll probably have a month in which he have to try and attract players.
‘The first team are playing out of KGV next season and we hope that proves a massive attraction to players.
‘We’ve never really gone out actively seeking to get players, but we are going to have to do it this year and we’ll have to go out and be aggressive as we can and, ultimately, we will have to make a decision by the middle of July and a decision will have to be made on the club.’
Manzur have won few friends in their time at the top table, something of which Romeril is well aware.
‘We’ve always known that we divide opinion. I would say we’ve been good for the league, provided another team and another dynamic when the Priaulx league was probably getting a little bit boring.
‘We’ve never actively gone out to head hunt people. It may upset a few, but we’ll have a go and if we don’t succeed the club will unfortunately fold.’
