Haworth looking beyond difficult times

They were in and around the play-offs going in to the New Year, but only managed one league win in 2020, which saw them tumble down the table to 12th when the season was prematurely ended.

The former Wigan striker has already moved to bring in former team-mate Ian Johnson from Marine on to his coaching staff.


He told the club’s official website: "It's difficult, we don't know if and when they'll be a start to next season. I think the decision to call our season sort of over has been good because we can now start to get the players financial issues sorted best we can, through ourselves and the government schemes.

"It's so in the air that I'm sure like many other clubs, we really don't know what's going to happen, how we're going to approach it, when it's going to start. There's so many question un-answered at the moment.

"We'd usually come back end of June beginning of July and we'd be planning pre-season games and maybe if we didn't know now, we'd have an idea of what the budget will be.

"From Stalybridge's point of view, it's trying to get the boys the money they are owed, tie that up and hopefully start to see the virus clearing up and people being well again and able to go out and live a relatively normal life as we'd call it.

"Only then can we start to plan things for next year. The only thing I've considered looking back at it, is that I'd like to add a bit more youth in to the team next year and a bit more pace and legs which I felt we lacked."