Bradford (Park Avenue) manager hunt close admits McStravick

The person in question is former Academy Technical Director, Tom McStravick, who is now the club’s second coming of a caretaker head coach following the departure of Avenue legend, Luca Havern, the man to originally step into the vacant role left by Bower.

While the search continues for a new permanent boss, furthermore, the club from Horsfall confirmed Martin Knight’s decision to step down as Director of Football on Monday.

McStravick has since been appointed as the new DOF, meaning he will lead all football operations at the club including taking charge of the search for a new head coach.

Despite conducting the hunt for a new boss, as well as overseeing first team matters, the former Academy Technical Director admitted that he’s quite enjoyed the manic nature of the past two weeks.

Speaking to the T&A, he said: “It’s about finding the calm within the chaos with all the different changes that are going on. I’m not going to lie; I’ve actually enjoyed it.

“We’ve been extremely busy with speaking to candidates for the role this week; we’ve been busy with trying to find the right people to fit into the culture of the club, so It’s been exciting and enjoyable.

“From my point of view, I’m in a position where I need to bring clarity, organisation and structure to the group and all the players that we have here. I think they’ve responded really well. There are a million things that we need to do, and we want to get it done quickly so that, as a club, we can move forward, but we must make sure that we get it absolutely right.”

Avenue score their only goal at home to Atherton last weekend (Image: Martin Taylor)

Giving further details on the search for a new boss, McStravick said: “I know fans are really keen for us to get a new manager in, as are we, and we feel we’ve had a very positive week on that front. We’re in a good place despite what it might look like from the outside.”

He added: “I’m very open to different ways of working and different ways of doing things. Martin put us in a really good place and spoke to some really good people on the manager hunt, and some of them conversations are still ongoing with me.

“Furthermore, I’ve got some good contacts within the game and some names do come your way, and I’d be daft to ignore that. So, yes, there have been new candidates come into the fray and the conversations have been great.

“I don’t like to put timescales on things, particularly after it’s taken us this long to get to where we are now. But what I can say is that we are really close with two candidates in particular. We are still having conversations elsewhere, but we are very close to getting something across the line and signed. Whoever does come in will help to keep us in this division, and not just keep us in this division, but build going forward.”

Avenue travel to take on Robbie Savage’s Macclesfield F.C. today (3pm), who currently sit 5th in the Northern Premier League, while the visitors head into the fixture in 20th.

The hosts have been busy recruiting previous Premier League stars in the past few weeks, with former Everton striker Oumar Niasse and Danny Simpson, who was crowned Premier League champion with Leicester, joining Macclesfield.

In the dugout, McStravick will go up against former Hull City defender Alex Bruce, son of former Manchester United great, Steve.

Looking ahead to the contest, Avenue’s caretaker boss, said: “Macclesfield are beatable; we’ve seen them drop points against teams lower down in the division already this season, and anybody can beat anybody in this league.

“We’ve done our homework on them and seen how they play and how they change withing games. Furthermore, we’ve got a lot of quality in our team to hurt them, who on their day can really make a difference.

“They’re a really top side, we know that, how can you not be when you have a £13.5 million pound striker in your side in Niasse? We’ll be there to fight and compete no matter what, so it should be a good test for us.”