Finn Harps have to get next manager appointment right - Mark Forker 

Mark Forker admits it’s been a painful watch this term seeing Finn Harps struggle through what’s been a disastrous First Divison campaign. 

Dave Rogers left the club last Saturday and Forker admits there was an inevitability to that  parting of the ways given results this term and the fact his former side sits second from bottom in the second tier. 

It’s hard to know where chairman Ian Harkin and his board now turn to as they look to fill their managerial void. 

Rogers came in, we’re told, on a four-year contract and the club have yet to state or reveal whether there was any kind of severance package awarded to the Merseysider to bring that deal to the most premature of ends.  

Regardless, Forker believes the club will have to be much more pragmatic in their approach to their next appointment. 

“I feel sorry for the likes of the chairman Ian Harkin and even Dave - you don’t want to see anyone lose their job,” he said. “He came in with a really ambitious plan. And we all got sort of caught up with that. 

“There was a lot of noise, soundbites coming out about how he was going to approach it. In hindsight, maybe he could have set a less ambitious tone, at least publicly. 

“No matter how well the side was going or playing, Ollie Horgan always downplayed it, Harps were always behind the black ball when Ollie gave his thoughts. 

“Dave was very much talking about a new direction, a new vision, front-foot football. But if you don’t back that up with results, then that’s a rod for your own back down the road. 

“The disappointing thing for me is that while there were academy players that came up and did well I’d have liked to have seen more. Again, in terms of recruitment, overall, it was along the lines of what we’d always done in the past. Even though we were promised it wouldn’t be. 

“In the end, people are asking could Dave have stuck it out until the end of the season? But it was clear it just wasn’t working. Harps supporters have always been reasonable. But some of the results at home were just so poor. 

“We were just too wide open. From the vision that was set out at the start of the season, it didn’t look anything like what was promised.

“Now, we all were clamoring for that kind of change in direction as well. We all wanted to see it work. It’s just unfortunate all around that it didn’t work. On reflection, Dave might look back and feel he underestimated the challenge that was in front of him”

Rogers arrived on Navenney Street looking and sounding polished. His CV certainly looked the part. And, we were promised, the style of play that his predecessor adopted, the one that kept the club in the Premier Division six out of nine seasons,  ‘dinosaur football’, was now firmly a thing of the past. 

“I didn’t agree with that comment at the time,” said Forker. “If you’re a manager and the remit is to set up the team and players you have at your disposal to get results; that’s what you do. And Ollie Horgan did that really well. 

“But definitely, under Dave, there were times when it just felt like there was a certain degree of naivety there in the way we approached certain games”.

On just where or who Harps now turn to, Forker says it’ll have to be a much safer bet.

“I’d love to see a Harps man, someone like Declan Boyle would be a brilliant appointment if he was interested. Joe Boyle as well. Even someone like John Quigg at Derry, I’ve always been a huge fan. 

“We don’t have a massive budget and the recruitment from overseas hasn’t really worked. So if we are to really look at developing players and our academy, then John has a brilliant track record of working with young players.

“It would need to be sorted sooner rather than later.  And the conversations will hopefully have started already. Darren Murphy will probably see out the season and move on. 

“Realistically, at the minute, we are going to have to find someone with a deep love for the club, someone really hurting to see Harps struggling like they are. 

“It will probably need to be a local appointment in that sense. It looks bleak now but it can change really quickly with the right man at the helm”.