Danny Searle will be the 10th person to take charge of Waterford FC since 2017 when he sits into the dugout at the RSC next Friday.
Five full-time managers have coached the club over a five-year period with two interim coaching teams and two very short-term managers in between managerial appointments.
The club has been through two divisions, two owners, and a global pandemic in the same time period.
They are currently third in the First Division table, with a game in hand on most teams in the league. They have won all of their last six games and are at odds of 12/5 to gain automatic promotion.
Pre-Covid - 2020
Alan Reynolds left the club after three years while the League of Ireland was postponed in the early days of the pandemic. He secured promotion from the First to the Premier Division in his first year with the club and then guided the club to a European position in 2018. He would go on to consolidate the Blues as a top-flight club in 2019. While Waterford had lasted longer than other similarly sized clubs, players and management were temporarily laid off and the league was postponed amid surging covid-19 cases. The club had not played a game in ten weeks at that point.
Former Irish International John Sheridan was appointed to the hot seat as games returned, but would ultimately leave the club for Swindon Town mid-season after just 65 days in charge. It was largely a positive time under Sheridan, with the players responding well to his methods. However, prior to his departure, controversy surrounded the man who played in two World Cups for Ireland. Dundalk manager Vinny Perth had watched Waterford beat his side at Oriel Park and remarked that he heard Sheridan describing the League Of Ireland as a "pub league", a comment Sheridan denies making.
Tramore native Fran Rocket stood into the breach as interim boss for the remainder of the season. Rockett came very close to earning a European spot for Waterford during his time in charge. He oversaw a safe end to the season and it's understood he had hoped for a position on the next coaching ticket but was not brought in by the incoming Kevin Sheedy. Rockett left the RSC in January 2021 after four years at the club.
Photo Credit Noel Browne
Back to "Normal"
Over Christmas in the first year of covid, former Irish star Kevin Sheedy was unveiled to great excitement. Good stock from Everton and having spent some time in the Middle East, Sheedy and his coach Mike Newell would be the first coaching ticket to have a pre-season since Alan Reynolds. The club was set for a good year as professional sport began to make its way back into our lives once again. The Evertonian duo's time was to be short-lived though, as issues on and off the field clouded the waters. Veteran goalkeeper Brian Murphy was bizarrely dropped from the team and reports of training ground bust-ups persisted. In nine games, the team lost seven, and covid was yet to strike the squad.
Photo Credit Noel Browne
While it was never clear which of the two men was the coach and which was the manager - Sheedy and Newell left the Déise early in May last year and academy boss Mike Geoghegan would take charge for a single game with the squad stricken with covid-19 close contacts. The U19s would be fielded in a 7-0 loss to Drogheda for a night best forgotten and not analysed.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Marc Bircham was announced in May '21, but immediately there was chatter of a mug shot of the former QPR midfielder - a photo which was rubbished by Bircham as something that was never going to leave him. Bircham was absolved of any wrongdoing in the incident which he does a great job of recalling to an English football podcast. Bircham began his reign with the club at rock bottom of the table and looking to build a siege mentality to kickstart their climb.
Productive performances and results helped build a hugely positive mood around the Londoner who played for Canada, but it would all end in acrimony.
After a month in charge of Waterford, Bircham was the first to work with new owner Richard Forrest as Lee Power decided to sell his stake in the club after a five-year tenure. Bircham would sign a two-year extension to his deal shortly after Forrest and Chairman Mitch Cowling took charge.
With the end of the season in sight, bodies had started to tire, and a team that had gone to the well one time too many found themselves bereft of what was needed to win. A final home game with just four substitutes told the story of what had gone before. The Blues were to meet UCD in the relegation playoff, but the relationship between manager and owner had dissolved beyond repair. Bircham left the club but was seen in the stands as his now-former players lost to UCD with Ian Hendon on the sideline. Waterford FC once again found themselves back in the First Division.
A Fresh Start
Former Shelbourne boss Ian Morris was drafted in before Christmas last with an impressive CV in his hand. The Dubliner had overseen two promotions for Shels, while he was also there for an ill-begotten relegation in between those triumphs. The pre-season had gone well for Morris, who had included two Waterford guys on his coaching ticket in Gary Hunt and David Breen.
Nine goals in three pre-season games had the feel of a positive start, and indeed the season began with two good wins over Athlone and Bray. The honeymoon period ended sooner than expected with only two wins coming in the next eight games. Fifth in the table and with 14 points, the club's hierarchy moved quickly and decided a change was needed.
Coaches Hunt and Breen were promoted on an interim basis and managed to steady the ship in the best fashion possible (for the purposes of this piece, the two coaches are counted as one). Six wins in six games and a team that looked happy to play, but after 55 days without a permanent manager, Danny Searle is the latest edition to the list of managers hoping to guide this club in the right direction.
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Photo Credit: Noel Browne
Another Fresh Start
The former Aldershot boss has been handed the next best thing to a clean start. They are six points off second place with Cork leading the charge; one point better than Galway in second. His first game in charge will be at home to a seventh-placed Bray who are dealing with turmoil on the pitch and in the stand. They then travel to Athlone who are rock bottom and have only won one game all season. With two softer games to kick things off, Searle will then have his first proper challenge with high-flying Galway.
The upside is that the coach and players have 10 days to get to know one another before they return to action next Friday. The downside is that it will have been a month since the players had a competitive match when that game does kick-off. Attendance numbers have been increasing at the RSC in recent weeks and the fans have gotten a taste of what a winning team in the first division can look like - fingers crossed that can continue.
Speaking to WLR Sport on his arrival to Waterford, Searle was excited to get his teeth into his new gig. "It's something that I really wanted to do. I know what a big club Waterford is and how ambitious it is. I've been in situ at clubs where the ambition is quite limited because of what they've got at their disposal. It's nice to be somewhere that matches my ambitions because they want to get promoted, they want to win things and inadvertently this club has got the potential to play in Europe so that ticked all the boxes for me", said Searle.
Searle faces an unusual task heading up the Blues. 9 times out of 10 when a new manager comes to a club it's because something has gone badly wrong. If we were talking about the Blues earlier this season that statement would hold true, but since the departure of Ian Morris, the interim management team of Breen and Hunt have done a stellar job in pointing the ship in the right direction. Searle now needs to maintain that good form and make improvements where possible.
"I think with the type of talent in the squad, and with the age of the squad, it makes you excited to be here", he said, "There are always pros and cons to every situation - if you've got a young squad, yes, they're moldable, but unfortunately that does bring naivety. I've looked at the goals they've conceded where they've dropped points and it's pure naivety. It's not ability."
The Management Team
Blues fans had been adamant in recent weeks that the Waterford natives should be allowed the chance to guide the club to the end of the season. With Searl's introduction, concerns immediately went to the fate of Gary and David, but Searle has quickly moved to clarify their position in his management team.
"Obviously Gary and David have done a fantastic job of putting the club back in a position to be in the promotion race. They are firmly on board and they will firmly stay in place. They are part of the fabric of the club. I'm sure a lot of supporters would have loved Gary and David to carry on as the managers, and if the club had decided to go that way I'm sure no one would have been worried about that because they are great guys. I genuinely think I bring something different to the table and hopefully not only improve the team but improve them as well. They have been fantastic since I walked through the door. The only change in the last 48 hours is me and everything else will stay the same."
The Target
With the club just a handful of points off the top of the table, Searle will need to hit the ground running and build on the foundations laid in recent weeks. Games with Bray, Athlone, Galway, and Wexford will colour his first month in charge.
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Addressing the fans who will fill seats at the RSC in the coming months, the Londoner wanted to offer a note of optimism about what's to come.
"We want to put a team out that when they [the fans] turn up they're proud of it. If they've got Waterford FC shirts, that they are proud to walk around in them. They see a team that represents the town. A team that's hard-working, that will die for the shirt. There's a cliche that you play for the name on the front and not the name on the back. I think there are those characteristics in the team already and my job is to enhance that, and I'm confident that once they see the progression of the team then I will get some nice messages."
Photo Credit Noel Browne
