Glentoran appoint Ronnie McFall as permanent manager for the second time

Glentoran have announced the appointment of Ronnie McFall for his second spell in charge of the club – 34 years after leaving the club for the first time.

Portadown native McFall took temporary charge of the Belfast side for the final three months of last season following the dismissal of Gary Haveron, and led them to a seventh-place finish.

70-year-old McFall had announced his retirement after stepping down as manager of his local side Portadown, after 30 years in charge, in 2016.

He's brought in two club legends as support staff in the form of Gary Smyth, who arrives from H&W Welders as assistant, while Paul Leeman takes charge of youth development.

It's understood Smyth has been brought back to the club with a view to being McFall's long-term successor at the Oval.

“When the chairman raised this possibility a couple of weeks ago to stay on to help stabilise the club I was only too happy to do so and I’m also happy to have Kieran here also.

“As manager one of the big priorities is to provide the best possible grounding for Gary at Premiership level.

“He’s a Glenman through and through and he’s done the right thing getting a good base of experience before coming back to the club.

“He’s done very well at the Welders and he’s clearly ready to step up to the Premiership and to Glentoran.

“Opportunities like this don’t come along that often and with a three-year contract signed at this great club we’ll do everything we can to help him bed in this season.

“We’ll all do the groundwork this season that will help take the club on to great things and back to where it was when Gary was a great player here.”

With the 2008-09 champions having fallen short of standards in recent signings, McFall has set his sights on a return to the club's traditional values of promoting from within.

“For this season we know what we need to do to bring about the right level of improvement.

“It’s obvious we have far too many professional players at the club so a number will need to go over the summer.

“I’ve had a good chance to analyse the squad in recent months so I’ll be speaking to players over the next while to get that process started.

“As a manager I’ve always preferred working with a smaller but higher quality squad.

“That lets the players know where they stand at a club but equally importantly it creates a clear pathway for young players from the under 20s and the xcademy to come through into a more stable, confident team.

“That was always the Glentoran way of doing things but the club seems to have lost that and far too few players have come through the ranks recently the way Gary and Leeper and so many others did.”

McFall won a league title and Irish Cup during his first spell as manager at Glentoran and would win a further four leagues as Portadown boss.