NEW Cliftonville manager Barry Gray has vowed to do everything in his power to bring success back to Solitude after he was officially unveiled as the Reds boss last night.
The former Warrenpoint Town supremo, who stepped down as manager at Milltown last November after more than a decade in charge, will also quit his role as Director of the Championship winners, to take charge in North Belfast with a backroom staff of Harry Fay and Stephen Small.
While he had planned to take a longer break from the on-field action, Gray admitted that when Gerard Lawlor and Cliftonville came calling, it was too good to turn down.
“People probably thought it was a planned approach – step down as manager of Warrenpoint and see what happens,” Gray said.
“But I said to Gerard and the board that I wasn’t sure if any other job had come up whether I would have had the same interest as I had for this one. That’s mainly to do with the relationship I’ve had with Gerard over the years. We’ve always got on well and we’ve always been open and honest with each other in good and bad times.
“There aren’t many managers that would turn down this opportunity and I think if I had, I would have been sitting in a few months time thinking it was very wrong thing to do.
“For most managers, they wouldn’t think about it too much and just take it because it’s a good job. For me, my relationship and involvement with Warrenpoint clouded that. It wasn’t a hard decision to take this job; it was a harder decision to have to leave Warrenpoint, but the two of them come hand in hand.
“This will test me in way that my previous management didn’t and it will have up sides and down sides that my previous management didn’t.”
While some will see Gray’s appointment not being the big name they had expected, Gray has asked the Reds faithful to judge him on results and nothing else.
“All we ask from everyone, in particular the support, is to judge it on what they see as opposed to what they hear about me or what I have done at different stages of my career,” said the 37-year-old.
“This is one of the first appointments from outside the club in recent times so there is a gap in knowledge – the supporters won’t know me and I won’t know them. All I can say to them is that, I, as a manager, am hungry to be a winner and to be successful on the pitch. There is no magic wand to say that is going to be done tomorrow. There’s work to be done, there are gaps to be filled for short term gains to be had and there are bigger pictures to deal with going forward.
“One thing that nobody can ever question me on is that I will give it absolutely everything I have and do everything under my control to make sure we do everything to the best of our ability. It’s up to me to show every paying supporter through the turnstiles that I am doing that.”
Gray is also aware that expectations at Solitude, with the side missing out on a European spot this season, are still much bigger than those he has been used to.
“I’m going to have the challenge, instead of keeping the club up in the Premiership, of taking a team and trying to be successful with it. I’m not saying I hadn’t that challenge at Warrenpoint, but you have budgets and expectations here that are considerably different than at Warrenpoint,” he said.
“Warrenpoint was about consolidating but here you have a club hungry for success and that’s something that has to motivate me and I have to motivate the players out on the field to deliver that.”
Having shipped five goals in their European play-off defeat at home to Glenavon on Monday night, Gray knows where he is looking to strengthen – although he wants to be selective in his signings.
“Everyone is aware of the weaknesses. The problem is that all of your opposition is fully aware of the weaknesses too and that has played a massive factor in recent results,” he admitted.
“I need to assess that because to fully judge players on what I’ve seen over the last couple of games isn’t fair. I’ve got to judge them for myself. We certainly need to add some key players in, but they need to be right. We can’t just go signing players just for the sake of being seen to be adding to the squad.
“We want to get players that will fit what we want to do here and fit the quality levels required. If that means that we do that this Summer, the January window and through to next Summer, then we have to be patient enough to do that in a structured way.”
