ASSISTANT boss Lee Ashforth says he and Paul Quinn had long talks and weighed up a lot of factors before making the decision to tender their resignations as the management team of Brighouse Town.

Brighouse were in the hunt for a Division One North play-off place right up until the last day of the Evo-Stik League campaign, so the news from the Dual Seal Stadium came as a shock.

The club's committee also held lengthy discussions with the pair before reluctantly accepting that Quinn and Ashforth were on their way. Town had finished ninth, their highest-ever placing on the non-League ladder.

Ashforth said: "I spoke to Paul early last week and a day or so later we travelled together to play in the charity game in memory of Dan Wilkinson, the lad who died in the match at Brighouse earlier in the season."

That tragic event on September 12 certainly put football results in perspective and returning from an event to mark the sad passing of a young man, albeit with the purpose of raising money for good causes, must have been a melancholy journey.

Possibly that led the pair to contemplate their future and make decisions, with Ashforth saying: "Paul and I were coming back from that game, it was a long journey and there was a lot of talking.

"We spoke about the season just ended and about planning for the new one. Paul felt that we would need to rebuild the squad to break into that top bracket of clubs, which would be getting bigger with the clubs coming down.

"He thought that he needed a new challenge and mentioned handing in his resignation, so I asked if his plans included me. It was a short conversation and I decided that if Paul wanted us to seek a new club as a management team, then I'd go with him.

"It's been six years and we came close to promotion because of the calibre of players we had, their professional attitude and their hard work. But looking to kick on again would have been like starting over, so we have decided to do that with another club."