Golds sack boss Suter

JOHN Suter was sacked as Littlehampton Football Club manager last week after just one season in sole charge.

Golds are in ninth place in County League Division 2 having completed their league programme, and Suter was disappointed with the manner of his sacking, although not overly surprised.

He had been with Littlehampton for two seasons – the first as joint boss with Gary Young – and they guided Golds to the Division 2 Cup that campaign.

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The experienced boss said: “I had a chat with a member of the committee on April 10 about things such as the players paying fine money and nothing else was said to me.

“But two days later I received a letter, dated April 6, from the club, saying they had had a committee meeting on April 5 and it was with regret that they were not renewing my position as manager for next season.

“I have no idea why I’ve been sacked as no one from the club has spoken to me about it.

“I feel mildly disappointed by it, although I understand that football managers come and go. It would have been nice to know why, though.

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“They haven’t handled it well but it’s a funny old game, as someone once said, and nothing surprises me in football any more.

“I had a feeling it was going to happen and said to the players at our last game of the season against Rustington that I thought it was going to be my last game in charge.

“No one on the committee had spoken to me about next season, so I thought the writing might be on the wall, and so it proved.

“None of them had spoken to me throughout the season and said to me ‘why have you done this or that’ to give me the chance to explain my decisions to them.

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“The last game of the season against Rustington, I said I’d only play players who trained the preceding week, unless they had an acceptable reason not to train.

“It was something I’d wanted to do all season and that was why the older players like Barry Pidgeon, Richie Hellen and Mark White were all in the squad, and some of the younger players weren’t. But, we still had three teenagers in the squad and six in their 20s.

“Looking back at the season, really, it was disappointing. We scored a lot of goals but conceded a lot, too.

“We scored six goals against AFC Uckfield, five against Lancing and four against Worthing United in our league games against them (losing five, drawing one) and they all got promoted. We also led in each of those games as well.

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“The game which pretty summed up our season was at AFC Uckfield. We were 2-1 up, they had a player sent off and we went 3-1 up but then we lost 4-3.

“I think one reason we didn’t do better was that we didn’t have a regular keeper. If we’d had Craig Stoner in goal, I think we’d have been top six and maybe the top three.

“We had no kind of budget, though, so didn’t have much strength in depth when we got injuries or suspensions, so it was an unlucky season in a lot of respects and it ended like that, too, with Dave Schneider breaking an ankle and Ross McKay breaking a wrist in our last game.

“But, overall, we weren’t as successful as we would have liked this season.”

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On his future, Suter said: “I’m not actively searching for another job.

“I’ve seen a lot of games since our season ended, which I’ve quite enjoyed.

“When you’ve been around as long as me, you know a lot of people and it’s quite nice to go around and speak to people.

“I have no plans at the moment and am just getting on with what’s in front of me.”

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