Rangers set to name new coach
Southampton Rangers are about to appoint a new coach who they hope can guide them to respectability in the Premier Division.
In a not so surprising move, Tyrone Williams recently resigned from the position of head coach following a string of poor results that saw his side win just once in six outings, and that a slim 2-1 victory over Commercial Division outfit Key West Rangers.
The club's director of soccer Gary Darrell said Williams' successor could be named as soon as today.
Rangers have yet to win a league match -- their closest call a drawn affair -- and have conceded 14 goals while scoring four.
The breaking point for Williams came on the heels of a 7-2 thrashing by PHC, which followed a 4-0 thumping the previous week that knocked them out of the Friendship Trophy.
"Ty resigned,'' explained Darrell when questioned following Rangers' 2-1 triumph over St. George's, which carried them through to the FA Cup quarter-finals. "He wasn't getting the response that was needed to make the team what it should be with the talent that we have.
"He gave it his all and was man enough to say `Hey, the job is bigger than I am, and that I can do'. He wrote us a letter, saying that he was stepping down in the hope that someone else can make sure that this team does not get relegated.
"Rather than go on and do all he could and still not get the results, he kind of stepped away gracefully.'' Darrell admitted that the club might have been able to make more of an attempt to fill the post during the recent two week hiatus caused by the referees' boycott, but intimated that the position would be filled soon.
Sources have pointed in the direction of former Dandy Town head man Mark Trott, currently out of a job, as well as Herbie Bascome, who has operated as an unofficial assistant at St. George's.
But Trott made it clear that it was not his intention to return to coaching at a club level at this particular time.
"I stepped down at Dandy Town at the end of last season to take a break from coaching and at this point in time I intend to continue on my sabbatical. I am doing some things from a coaching point of view but nothing too heavy,'' said Trott.
Asked if current assistant coach Olin Jones might step up to the higher position, Darrell said he thought not.
"Olin will continue to assist,'' said Darrell, arguably Bermuda's most successful national coach. "We have somebody who we're hoping to be able to name to the position by Tuesday to take the team over.'' Meanwhile, Darrell agreed that the squad had too much talent to be in such a rut.
He assessed his squad's problems as having began last season and carried over.
"I think that if you check it out, teams that have a bad second half of a season, unless they work hard during the pre-season, it tends to carry over, and I think that's what happened,'' he explained. "They struggled at the end of last year and there was a carry over from there, so our job is to try and turn that around.''