Still calls on clubs to honour contracts given to bosses after season of change

Speaking about a season that had seen Stockport manager Darije Kalezic’s sacked after their 1-0 defeat at Kenilworth Road and the ‘embarrassing’ revelation by the League Managers’ Association that over 100 managers and coaches lost their jobs in 2012-13, Still asserted clubs should keep their word to the managers they appoint.

The vastly experienced former Dagenham & Redbridge and Barnet boss said: “I had one job for nine years and another one for five years, I’ve done very well!

“It’s the game we’re in, it’s just how it is.

“I think my own opinion, and it is an opinion, if a club takes a manager, contracts a manager for a given amount of time, they shouldn’t be allowed to change.”

Reflecting on his departure from Daggers, Still admitted it was the history he was leaving behind rather than the club itself that he had found hardest.

“I didn’t find it difficult to leave Dagenham, I support the club and everything, but I didn’t find it particularly difficult to leave,” said Still. “But I found it very difficult to leave nine years behind me. I did, I found that really, really difficult.”

“I’ve left lots of friends. Some people said to me you should have done 10 years and I can see that. But my project was done.

“We’d been up, we’d had to come down and had to sell players. So that club was now set, it was ready for someone else to come in and hopefully just keep it going, but my project was done.

“I could have stayed there for an easy life, with the greatest of respect, but who wants an easy life? I really want excitement.

“What we’ve created I want to do it again. And there’s only a certain amount of clubs (we would have left for). Terry and I spoke to Division One, Championship clubs and I don’t want to go somewhere and stand still.

“I want to go somewhere where they want to go up and when they go up they want to go up again. That’s the things that drives me and that’s the thing now that I want to try and achieve that again and it’s really exciting.

And although he was dubious about extending his stay beyond the one he had at the Daggers, Still ruled nothing out if the ‘project’ turned out to be a success.

He added: “I don’t think I’ll get 10 years, I’ve got to be honest, that would make me 72, maybe. I really don’t know.

“If I get time to do the project that’s great. The project here, we can do it, but how long I’ll be around it, I don’t know.

“If I feel how I feel now, I can keep going until I feel it’s the right time again.”

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