O’Donohue vows to give it his all after taking the reins at Bulpit Lane

New Hungerford Town chairman Alan O’Donohue has promised an open, engaging and honest approach as he takes the reins at Bulpit Lane.

O’Donohue replaces the outgoing Patrick Chambers, who is taking over at National League North outfit Gloucester City.

The new man at the helm, who was vice-chair until his resignation last summer, will doubtless have his hands full following relegation to the Southern Premier League.

Fortunately, the 73-year-old takes over with the club in transition rather than turmoil.

A number of players are expected to leave in search of a return to Step 2, but there remains a committed, local contingent who might well want to stay in the hope they can help Hungerford bounce back to the National League South.

Likewise, relegation has resulted in sponsors withdrawing or declining to renew their association with the club, but the Crusaders have solid financial foundations from which to build on.

And O’Donohue, who was approached by the club’s committee last month, is determined to make a success of his stewardship in West Berkshire.

“I’ve worked at the club, I’ve cooked in the kitchen, I’ve done just about everything at the club,” he said.

“It’s a challenge and we’ve got a lot of work to do.

“We’re realistic, we have to cut our cloth accordingly.

“We’ve got to make sure the club remains sustainable off the pitch, I’ll be knocking on doors looking for sponsorship.

“It’s going to be a really busy summer, we’re putting things into place as we speak.

“We’ve got to build a competitive squad but we’ve also got to raise the funds to be able to do that.

“It won’t be easy, but we can make a success of it.”

Hungerford were handed a huge boost last week when popular boss Danny Robinson committed to remain at the Crusaders for another season – and O’Donohue is confident he’s the right man to take the club forward.

He said: “We’d like to be able to bounce back at the first time of asking, but we’ll have quite a limited budget.

“We think Danny’s the right man to do it.

“He’s got a good nucleus of players and we’ll need to recruit well, that was the biggest mistake last summer.

“We wanted to put a message out to the supporters that it’s not all doom and gloom.

“We’re on the case, we’ve got things settled with Danny early on.”

O’Donohue suggests the budget for next season will be competitive albeit not colossal and promises to be transparent with his leadership of the club.

“There will be no secrets,” he said.

“Any person can ask me anything and I’ll tell them.

“We’re realistic about the budget and the first priority is to avoid going into freefall.

“We know what we’re doing and we know where we’re going.”