New Derry City manager Kenny Shiels with club chairman Philip O’Doherty
DERRY City have unveiled Kenny Shiels are the new first team manager.
The 59 year old native of Magherafelt has signed a two year deal with the Brandywell men.
Shiels admits his work starts now as he looks to strengthen his squad ahead of the 2016 season.
“Derry City are a fantastic club with great tradition and if you put everything together with the fact that they’re full-time – it makes it so endearing to me,” he said.
“If you want to be successful sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and look to try and expand yourself and I think the challenge of the League of Ireland would be much more demanding on myself.
“Peter Hutton and Paul Hegarty have done a fantastic job and thanks to Paul he’s steadied the ship and kept the club up.
“Now it’s up to me now to try and get the players up and running.
“Derry City is a club I’ve always respected and held in the highest regard.
“You look at the people who have been associated with it, the likes of Jim McLaughlin, Felix Healy and even Billy Gillespie who came from Sheffield United.”
Chairman Philip O’Doherty is delighted to have got his man.
“We spoke to other manager’s but all roads kept coming back to Kenny Shiels,” said O’Doherty.
“From a football point of view we are very happy that he has all the experience and the enthusiasm to do this job.
“He has a long record with bringing through youth players and developing youth football, which is going to very important for us.”
Shiels has a wide range of management experience in both Ireland and the UK, most recently with Greenock Morton in Scotland. His last managerial posting was BEC Tero Sasana in Thailand which he managed for a short spell, leaving in August 2015.
Shiels highest profile position was with Kilmarnock who he led to the Scottish League Cup title over Celtic.
Shiels is probably best known to City fans for his time in charge of Coleraine and Ballymena in the Irish League and indeed managed Coleraine against Derry City in the Irish News Cup in the 1994 season. Shiels has experience in both senior football and underage set-up, managing the Northern Ireland U- 17 side.
With extensive knowledge of the local game and his experience in Scotland will prove valuable to City as they look to reverse a disappointing 2015 season, where Paul Hegarty led the club to Premier Division safety before opting not to take the job.
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