Ex-boss: Results weren’t good enough

A club statement revealed the U’s had “parted company” with their manager soon after a dire 1-1 draw with lower grade Bedfont Town in the FA Trophy on Saturday. But Hopkinson said he felt he had “no choice really but to resign”.

Hopkinson explained that he had given himself four games to turn things around but following a discussion with chairman Dave Walters it was decided the curtain should be brought down on his 10-month reign. “It’s disappointing but it was coming,” he said.

“He (Walters) made it clear he wasn’t happy,” he continued. “We agreed to shake hands and walk away from it and that’s what we’ve done, but I wish the club well. At the end of the day it’s a results business and we haven’t had the results.”

The front-runner to take over was former Brighton & Hove Albion ace Adam Hinshelwood who was interviewed on Wednesday night.

Talks have broken down, however, with Walters stating: “With various conditions that he wanted, mainly financial, we just couldn’t make it work.”

Hinshelwood was Hopkinson’s assistant at The Pilot Field until being appointed manager at home-town club Selsey at the start of last month.

Walters said of Hopkinson’s exit: “It wasn’t working and didn’t look like it was going to work which was probably the more important thing. But this is not what anybody wanted and the last thing I wanted, and we have to stop going through this.”

See today’s Hastings Observer for the full article.