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Beza blasted
Story courtesy of Burton Mail
Gresley Rovers boss Frank Northwood this week closed the final page on an often glorious and, ultimately, sadly unsavoury era for the club.
Following Brian Beresford’s refusal to turn out for Rovers against Lye on Tuesday the Rovers boss declared: “The last episode of the Beresford saga is finished. As far as I’m concerned he’s released and he can go where he wants.”But Beresford’s departure from the Moat ground was accompanied by a stinging broadside from the Gresley boss.
Northwood’s ire was prompted by the fact that Beresford had apparently turned his back on the club that had stood by him during an agonising 14-week lay-off following an eye injury at the start of the season that had one stage threatened to end the striker’s career.
When Beresford finally returned to fitness he was not able to regain his first team place immediately and had talks with neighbours Stapenhill. And that rankled Northwood who claimed that the player was breaking a “gentlemen’s agreement.”
“If the man had any decency whatsoever he would have told Stapenhill he didn’t want to know. After the way we kept faith in him he should have referred all enquiries to me.
“Now he’s shoving rubbish about accusing me of talking about him behind his back. But, believe me, if the fans knew half they wouldn’t be clamouring for him to be on the pitch because he doesn’t care a hoot for the supporters. He suggested that because I asked my daughter to ring him on Tuesday to tell him he was in the team I wasn’t prepared to speak to him myself.
“The truth is that Keith Hill, the lad he would have replaced, had been taken ill at work that afternoon and had been taken home and put to bed. Keith had been due to pick up two other players, Joe Jackson and Gary Stevens, on his way into the game so I had to go straight out and collect them. And as my wife and son both come to all our games there was no-one else left in the house apart from my daughter.
“I think Brian Beresford has behaved very selfishly in all this and I wash my hands of him. I’d just remind him, though, that before I brought him to Gresley the fans had never heard of him.”
Beresford retorted today: “I don’t want to get into a slanging match, but I think it was obvious that the manager would try and tarnish my name again. I think my record in
2½ years at Gresley speaks for itself and would ask the true fans and friends of the club to judge me on that.”
