Sensation as Barton quits Welshpool

Mike Barton (right) has sensationally quit as manager of Technogroup Welshpool less than a month after taking over from Graham Evans.

Barton, who caused the shock of the season by quitting Guilsfield for the crisis club just a day after it had been deducted 15 points, said that a complete breakdown in the relationship with the club chairman, Mike Dawkins, was the reason for him packing his bags.

“It’s unfortunate because I was up for the challenge but the club that I managed was not the same club that was sold to me when I took the job on,” said Barton. “There are some good people at Welshpool who I respect but I have had a complete breakdown in communication with the chairman so I had to go.

“A lot of the promises have not been delivered. I had come from a very well run club like Guilsfield where you receive the full support from everyone on the committee to a club where it was becoming near impossible to get things in place to run a decent football team.

“I believe I made the right decision to leave Guilsfield. I felt I had taken them as far as I could and I was definitely excited about the challenge that lay ahead at Welshpool, but it had become very obvious that I would not be able to do the job in the way I wanted. It is a shame that I have had to quit but the job had become untenable.”

Mywelshpool believes that the club is holding an emergency meeting on Monday night. The club is without a fixture today and Barton has cast doubt on whether they will fulfill their match with Penrhyncoch on Tuesday evening.

“There is a lot of unrest amongst the players,” he said. “They have said that they want to play for me and some have tried to talk me out of it, so I don’t know what they will do.”

Barton has brought in a clutch of new signings to try and turn the club’s fortunes around. The club is bottom of the Huws Gray Alliance after losing 15 points for playing illegal players earlier in the season and the former Guilsfield boss had set a target to get back to zero by Christmas.

“It does make me think about how great a club Guilsfield is when you experience the past few weeks that I have but I made the right decision and will move on,” he said.