Griffin hails Devonshire as the 'best non-league manager of many a generation'

Peter Griffin and Alan Devonshire after winning the National League South title

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Peter Griffin has called Alan Devonshire ‘the best non-league manager of many a generation’ but accepted it was the right time for him to step down as Maidenhead United boss.

Having suffered his first relegation in 30 plus years of management last season, when the Magpies were relegated from the National League, Griffin wanted to give Devonshire the chance to put that right in what was always likely to be his last campaign as manager.

Backed by a competitive budget for the National League South, the hope was that Devonshire could end his second spell as Magpies boss on a real high, by guiding the team to promotion, however, Griffin acknowledged that life rarely works out in the way you hope or expect it to.

A run of seven defeats in eight matches in all competitions culminated in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Dagenham & Redbridge. The players gave a performance which illustrated they were still very much playing for Devonshire, however, after 10 years in the hot seat, he felt it was time to step away and allow someone else to take the club forward.

For the time being at least that will be Ryan Peters and assistant Aaron O’Brien on an interim basis, but Griffin believes they’re capable of grasping that opportunity and making those roles permanent.

He also believes it was the right time for Devonshire to step down from the role. He’s glad Devonshire made the final decision. Having been loyal to the club over the years - and turned down several well-paid offers of management from teams at a higher level - Griffin said it was right that the club showed Devonshire the same loyalty through this recent difficult run of results.

“Everyone as a football fan knows there comes a point (where a change is needed). It feels right now. Dev always said that when it was time, he’d call it, and he did," said Griffin. 

“It’s right that he gets to call it, he deserves that. He’s been loyal to us when he’s been offered jobs over the years. Higher division jobs that have been paying a lot more.

“He’s been loyal to us and it was right that we were loyal to him. But things move on and the time was right to go. The next few games is about us trying to get a few results and celebrate Dev’s career with us. Hopefully that’s what happens and after that we’ll worry about everything else.”

Griffin added: “We’ve had runs over the years that have been quite hard. This year we had a new squad and high hopes for the squad.

“They seemed to be settling in well and we got several wins, but then we hit the buffers a bit.

“I guess it just got to the point where Dev thought ‘I’ve done this for a long time’ and he felt it was maybe enough.

“It is tough. You try everything you can to get the club out of the rut and sometimes it goes on a bit longer and becomes a bit harder to deal with. This time, he decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“People always have a view on managers and what should happen and sometimes those views are highly critical and beyond the pale, and I guess it gets to you eventually.”

Devonshire will take charge of the Magpies for their next two matches, at Salisbury this evening (Tuesday) and at home to Chippenham Town on Saturday - where Griffin hopes supporters turn out in good numbers to give him the send-off he deserves.

Despite their recent poor form, Devonshire remains the greatest manager in the club’s history - over two spells and Griffin insisted he was and is a ‘club legend’. He guided Maidenhead to promotion as champions from the National League South in 2017 and then kept the part-time club in the National League – against all odds – for eight successive seasons.

“Listen, I don’t want to dwell on all of this,” he said.

“Dev was going to leave at the end of the season. You can never quite time things perfectly with the plans you make, and this is just one of those things. He’ll be very much missed but I’m sure we’ll see him a lot anyway.

“He got relegated last season and it was his first relegation in 30 years of management. We decided we really wanted to back him and give him a final year to see if he could finish on the high. But God laughs at man’s plans. It doesn’t always work out how you’d hope.

“We speak all the time, whether results are going well or not, and over the last few weeks we’ve had some honest conversations. It’s been hard, there are no two ways about it. I know supporters get down about results, but managers and chairman we feel it every bit – it’s our whole week. It is hard to deal with.

“When I spoke with him a couple of weeks back, I thought maybe he was finding it harder to get out of this one then maybe he has before. It’s not through not knowing how to do it, but sometimes, it’s just a bit harder.

“Maybe, after a long time managing, it’s just harder to keep on going. Dev has always been fair, and he always said that if he felt he’d lost that fire a bit or lost the will to do it, he always said he’d be honest with us. He contacted us on Sunday and said, ‘I’ve turned this over at home and it’s not just hard on me, but hard on the family’. He decided that was it. I completely understand him because it is tough.

“We’ve known for a while that Dev would be leaving. We didn’t know exactly when, but we knew it was coming to an end. We can’t speak highly enough of Ryan and Aaron. They are excellent technical coaches, and they have a lot of understanding and they’ve learned from the best manager in non-league football for many a generation.”