MARK Bower admits Bradford (Park Avenue)’s decision to sack him may have been “best for the club”, admitting he and Danny Boshell had fallen short of the standards they had set.
He and assistant Boshell parted ways with the club last Monday after seven years in charge over two spells, and Bower was magnanimous enough to admit he fully understood the decision, which came less than 48 hours after a Northern Premier League Premier Division defeat to Basford United that had left Avenue in real danger of a second successive relegation.
Asked if he had seen his dismissal coming, Bower said: “I didn’t feel any pressure towards the end really, because you’re just doing this job to the best of your ability each day.
“As a team, we weren’t where we wanted to be and it was an eye opener for us going down into the Northern Premier League.
“We knew there would be good teams in the league with lots of money, but we were a bit caught out by the strength in depth others have in the division.
“If you look at the injuries we had, there were seven players under 21 on the pitch by the end of our last game, that defeat to Basford, so we’d been decimated.”
This ugly defeat at Basford (yellow) spelt the end of Mark Bower's time in charge of Avenue. (Image: John Rhodes.)
Not that Bower was looking for excuses, saying: “Maybe it was the best decision for Bosh and I to leave and best for the club if they’re wanting to make a change.
“I’m not surprised we were let go, because we’d raised the bar over our seven years in charge at the club, and in the last few months, we’d not hit the standards we’d set previously.”
In an interview with BBC Radio Leeds last week, Avenue’s director of football, Martin Knight, said the club had been struggling to attract quality loan players from Football League clubs this season, due to their relegation from National League North.
In response, Bower said: “It had become slightly more difficult to attract those players, but it wasn’t just that.
“Martin’s gone on record and said our budget is lower than it was last year, and this season, we’d tried to get some lads in from two leagues below ours, but they decided to stay at their current clubs for more money.
“We looked all over and explored different avenues when it came to bringing players in, but I’ve still got confidence in that squad that’s there.
“There’s seven or eight of them out injured at the moment, so that was always going to make things difficult, but if they can get back out on the pitch soon, I’m confident the club will compete and get higher up in the league.”
From afar, Bower will be supporting the club, telling the T&A: “Danny and I had been there for a long time, and maybe they needed that change, someone new to come in with different ideas and get people going again.
“Luca (Havern) and Oli (Johnson) are in (interim) charge now and they’re both top guys who were part of that core of lads who were dedicated to playing under Danny and I for most of the last seven years.
Luca Havern (second right) and Oli Johnson (right) on the touchline last Saturday for their first game in charge, a 3-2 home defeat to Matlock Town. (Image: Martin Taylor)
“We struggled to get as many of those lads in this season as we had previously, but we still had Luca and OJ, and they’re the kind of lads you want to have in and around your first team.
“The pair of them played a big part in what Danny and I achieved at the club, so I wish them all the best in charge.”
In that Radio Leeds interview, Knight expressed Avenue’s preference for the new manager to be full-time, working with the first team as well providing significant support to the club’s academy alongside its current technical director, Tom McStravick.
Bower co-runs an estate agents, Hamilton Bower, in Bradford and Halifax, so it would have been extremely difficult for him to fulfil both of those duties.
He admitted: “That dual role was something that was discussed at various points after Covid, which is when we started trying to build up our academy.
“It just wasn’t something I could commit to, given my interests away from football, as I need to give a fair amount of time to my business.
“If the club are able to get someone in who can fulfil both roles, they can try and make use of the extra money that would give them.
“If they can hire someone to manage the first team, and work with Tom in the academy as well, they don’t need to bring in two different people.
“That would obviously then lead to more money being available to spend on first-team players.”
Expanding on that point, Bower added: “When we made that move towards building up the academy after returning from that initial Covid lockdown, there became a lot of onus on Danny and I to bring those young players through into the first team, while maintaining our status in National League North.
Young forward Myles La Bastide has come through Bradford (Park Avenue)'s academy and is now a first-team regular for the club. (Image: Martin Taylor.)
“We managed that a couple of times, and looked like we might stay up again for a long period of last season, but it just became too difficult, given the injuries we suffered in the last third of the campaign.
“I know that every penny counts for the football club while the academy’s still growing and while they’re trying to attract bigger crowds and a younger fanbase.
“Good luck to them with all of that, and hopefully the money they brought in from the sale of George Sykes-Kenworthy last month can help out too.”
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