Interviews - Simon Haworth
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Author: Unknown - Fri 11 May 18

I managed to speak to New Stalybridge Celtic Manager, Simon Haworth, in his first interview in his new role. Here's what he had to say.

AB: Welcome to Stalybridge Celtic, you must be delighted. Your phone must have been going off non-stop in the last 24 hours so thanks for talking to me. What appealed to you about Celtic?

SH: It's a great opportunity for me and I am thrilled to take it! I spent a short time here, 4 or 5 seasons ago, under Jim Harvey. He asked me to come and give him a hand on a voluntary basis which I did whilst I was learning the ropes and getting the qualifications and I loved the place really, I like the owners, the board and the lads were a great set of lads and I've stayed in touch with a lot of them from that spell, such as Mark Lees and Greg Wilkinson. When I went away, I always kept an eye out for Stalybridge, I've always thought it was a good club, Conference North at the time, and its sad to see the last few years things haven't gone so well and when I was given opportunity to come and speak to the club I thought I'm the right man, now at the right place to go in and re-energize that and give the club some feel good!

AB: You've had 2 solid seasons at Clitheroe and you've now stepped up a level, What can Celtic fans expect from your side and what's your ambition?

SH: I think ambition first and foremost, I'm keen to pull the whole club together and we've taken enough knocks over the last few years, I'm talking from the outside obviously, and not had a lot to shout about. So first and foremost, you can't have a successful club unless everyone is pulling in the right direction and I mean supporters, players, board – everyone! So lots of communication with fans, I wanna listen to what they have to say and what they think, the players and the board the same as well and that's the first port of call.

In terms of a playing point of view, I like to play attacking football. It'll be full of hungry footballers and players need to come and play for the shirt. The club have cut their cloth accordingly, they've been paying big wages and getting average results and its only normal at some stage say, ‘This is where we're at and this is the league were in, let's be realistic.'

My job is to bring in, as I did at Clitheroe, some hungry players that want to play for the shirt and want the opportunity and them kind of players give good discipline, high energy, they want to learn and I'm keen to add lots of pace to the team. I think that's what my teams do, they work hard, they press and play with lots of energy and hopefully the fans buy into that and we'll bring people through the turnstiles and get them of their seats. And once you do that, we can push forward and reach the heights. But, the first thing to do is to re-energize the place, get everybody believing, everybody singing from the same hymn sheet and moving forward I think Stalybridge need to take a few steps forward, no matter how big or small they maybe.

AB: Finally, one that fans will be keen to know. In regards to the squad, will you be looking to do your business early and will you be speaking to last season's squad?

SH: I'll speak to all the lads from last season, we were in the league below but I did manage to watch a couple games and there is a few people who I respect who have seen a lot more of Stalybridge that I'm meeting next week to speak to. I'll speak to all of the players over the coming days about their intentions, then maybe conversations about the financial side of things for some of them, but I'll be looking to retain the lads that want to be there and want to play for Stalybridge Celtic Football Club – it's as simple as that. If players aren't keen to do that and they want to wait and see what happens in the Summer, then that's up to them. I'll be on the lookout to bring the right characters to the Club to do what I want to do and play how I want to play and we won't lose sleep over anyone who doesn't want to do that. That sort of mentality has to go, to be here you have to want to play for the Football Club. The people that do will be fine and the ones that don fancy it, as I said the club have finished third from bottom, we're not gonna have sleepless nights over players thinking they're better than what we are and what we're trying to do! So, if that's the case, they'll move on and good luck to them and we'll move on with what we'll try and do!

They'll all be having a conversation and I'll be discussing it with all of them, there are certain players I would like to keep amongst that, but we'll see what we can do in the next few weeks. I know it's that time of year where you want lots done but with the registrations and the way it works the league, a lot of it is players promising their word which isn't worth a lot at times!

We'll do the best we can, I'll be managing from early June onwards!