This is the third and final installment of Phil Tooley's interviews with Chesterfield FC Chairman Barrie Hubbard that appeared in the Green Un during June. Here he talks of Roy McFarland's time at Saltergate, his leaving and the appointment of Lee Richardson. It appeared in the Green Un on June 16th.

Spireites Chairman Barrie Hubbard has had a number of difficult decisions to make since first getting involved with Chesterfield as a Board member back in 1983 and few were harder than the one made to part company with Manager Roy McFarland back in March.

"It was a tough decision," said Hubbard, who complimented the former Derby and England centre-half by adding, "But I think Roy did the job that he was employed to do. When he came to the Club we thought that the dressing room atmosphere wasn't quite right and a little bit lacking in discipline, so we wanted somebody who'd been around a bit longer than Dave Rushbury and Lee Richardson had, somebody who knew his way around the game and someone that the players would respect."

"We also needed someone who could bring in players from other managers that he knew well and he actually did that and I don't think we could complain at all about what he did whilst he was here at this Football Club. His attitude was right, he did bring respect back to the Club and we had no problems with him, he was a good man."

However a run of results, particularly at Saltergate, early in 2007 proved to be just too bad for McFarland to continue. Brighton and Bournemouth, both with no form to speak of, returned home with 1-0 wins, one in January and one in February, then fellow strugglers Leyton Orient did the same in March. Hubbard explains the background.

"Towards the end of his fourth year, things got a bit tough. Every year Roy had been with us we'd been languishing at the bottom but I'm not saying that was to do with him particularly, indeed the Club might have been seen as punching above its weight and we didn't really have the money to be able to finance a successful League One side. Apart from Colchester, we've been the worst supported side in the League for many a season, so after four years and still being down at the bottom, the crowd were getting on his back, he wasn't totally happy and he wasn't as young as he used to be and I wasn't sure he'd have stayed on again anyway after his contract that was up this summer."

"We'd talked about it, he's got a new place in Majorca that he likes going to, we'd allowed him to go there for a break back in November to break the season up a bit. But we had a meeting after losing at home to Orient and he said that if we wanted him to go, then he'd go."

"It was a Saturday night and we didn't know exactly what to do at that stage, so we said we'd go away and think about it. I did just that and on Sunday morning I rang everyone on the Board and said I felt it would be best if we parted and when I let Roy know the view of the Board, he wasn't surprised. He came up on the Monday and, financially, we gave him more than he was entitled to, making sure everything was right."

With the Manager gone, Hubbard and his colleagues had to decide who came next in the bid to try and keep Chesterfield in League One. That decision was to be even harder than the one to part with Roy.

"The biggest problem was what to do after he'd gone. Roy always felt that Lee Richardson would do a good job here, as did everyone on the Board, we wanted him to be Manager but we knew it wouldn't be a popular decision. We were not worried about his ability at being able to do the job, it was worrying about what the supporters would say. That was our biggest problem."

"I heard that many people called him the 'cheap option' which is far, far from the truth because with his new backroom team having expanded it's a more expensive set up than when Roy was here. And one thing we always do here is pay what we can afford, so we felt the Manager's role is worth a certain amount and that's what we'd pay. "

"With Roy, we feel we did the right thing at the right time on both occasions, at the beginning of his contract and again at the end, and I'm sure that if we'd said to Roy four years ago, he could move on and we'd elevate Lee to the role, I'm sure he'd have been highly delighted."

"Making the decision to give Lee the job, knowing we'd get some stick, though none of us felt it would be as bad as it has been, but now he's back from his holidays, we've started bringing in some new players and people will start realising that we're really going to try and have a go this season."

The bookies fancy Chesterfield in the forthcoming campaign, the Club have signed up a new Main Sponsor in VK, long standing supporters of their local team, the new signings to date have whetted the appetite of fans and season ticket sales have gone well, new investors are on the horizon and the ground move looks, at last, to be coming together. Now looks to be a good time to be a Spireite.

PHIL TOOLEY from the Green Un of 16.6.2007