Bray departure leaves Devlin with a bad taste

“The thing that disappointed me about the whole thing is that you treat people properly, and we haven’t been treated properly. It leaves a bad taste because it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair – and the people need to know that.”

Former Bray Wanderers boss Pat Devlin has come clean about the reasons for leaving the club after his departure was announced on December 23rd.

Devlin was relieved of his duties at the Wicklow club prior to Christmas, despite avoiding relegation with a playoff victory over Longford Town. “On December 23rd I went to a meeting and a certain individual said I can’t work for you any more and I said ‘thank god for that I’ve been waiting for that for a long time’. I shook hands with him and thought he was gone, but in actual fact he was trying to tell me that I was gone. But I certainly never resigned, nor did any of the backroom staff. That’s football and if it was a football decision I would accept it but I don’t think it was a football decision.”

Following the 2013 campaign - certain issues in the background, such as unpaid physio bills weren’t dealt with, and this lack of action caused friction between the management and the powers that be. “The players who kept us in the Premier Division last year, there were a few outstanding issues there and they were not resolved. Not only were they not being resolved, they were pushed totally underneath the carpet. I just could not go back to somebody who had issues with the club and ask them to re-sign until those issues were sorted, I just couldn’t. The present needed to be addressed and it wasn’t addressed and still it hasn’t been addressed.”

“We’d asked for a budget and we didn’t get the budget, all my staff who worked loyally have walked out and now that budget is available to the new management team – completely strange.”

Devlin expected better from the club at which he began his managerial career 27 years ago. “I feel extremely disappointed. Disappointed for myself obviously, but more disappointed for the people who have worked behind the scenes. As a manager you know you can’t do the work on your own, you need the support of a good backup group. If you haven’t got that in place you cant go out to a player and ask him to sign. I have to look people in the eye and be able to tell them that facilities are there at the club, that’s my job – and I couldn’t do that.”

Popular with players and staff alike, Devlin has been contacted by all the playing staff since his departure was announced. “All the players have reached out to me We had a great relationship with the players and we got the best out of the small squad that we had. It’s sad to see them moving on because they didn’t want to, but some of them have moved on because of the treatment of the backroom staff and myself. Jason Byrne didn’t want to go, same with Marty Waters – but they knew where this was heading so they had to leave – it’s a terrible shame.”

Bray have wasted little time in appointing a successor for Devlin, with ex-Shels boss Alan Mathews taking the role last week, with Barry O’Connor as his assistant. Devlin wishes no badness on the new duo, but is disappointed by the decision they have made. “It’s ironic that they all played for me. I would be extremely disappointed because if they had of stayed out of the dispute there were other people in the club who have been loyal to the club and were in a better position to take the club forward. Unfortunately they decided to support me and that’s their decision, but they’ve lost out on that opportunity now and I feel sorry for that. The people who are there now I have no badness towards them, but I am disappointed that they are there to be honest.”

“I was always a person to say that you can have a dispute and while that dispute is going on don’t interfere in it and let the dispute be finalised and then everybody shakes hands and moves on and that’s it. I have no animosity towards them I just think they should have stayed out of it until it was settled.”

His own future is now very much up in the air –describing himself as a ‘football person’ with a hope of getting back involved with the game before too long.