CHAIRMAN Paul Hilton feels the time is right for Bill Prendergast to return to the manager's hotseat at Radcliffe Borough.

Prendergast had less than two weeks as Boro boss early last year, replacing Paul McGuire at the end of January only to make way for Danny Johnson days later.

Johnson ensured Boro maintained their league status in the Evo-Stik First Division North in the final months of last season, before repeating the feat this term.

But now Prendergast has agreed to return to the Belvoir Stadium as Boro prepare for a new era.

Long-standing chairman Bernard Manning Jnr has been replaced by Hilton while Johnson announced earlier this year that he would stand down as manager at the end of the campaign.

Since leaving Boro, Prendergast has been manager of Northwich Manchester Villa, who are 14th in the North West Counties First Division with one game remaining.

But once the Boro job became available again, the former Crewe Alexandra academy director expressed an interest in returning, and Hilton revealed more appointments are set to follow.

“The situation that we found ourselves in at the time of Bill's original appointment was not great and that situation required a certain type of manager to enable us to stabilise the club,” Hilton explained.

“When Bill came in last time the club was fourth-bottom in the league.

"We were looking to survive but now we are looking to build. It's a fresh start for us as a club.

“Now the time is right to move to the next stage of our project because we have the summer to work with Bill and we feel that his approach will serve us well.

“We are grateful to Bill for coming back into the fold after nobly stepping aside during a turbulent period for the club and we look forward to a successful future under his stewardship.”

Boro are set to forge a link with local amateur club Mace FC, which Hilton previously ran, to help bring promising young players through to a semi-professional environment.

But Hilton stressed that Prendergast will not use Boro's first team exclusively to bring young players through.

“Bill's been involved in football his whole life so he knows the game better than any of us,” said the new chairman.

“He was part of the Dario Gradi era at Crewe, which was a football factory that produced some great players.

“But he's also used to developing older players, to coaching them and getting better performances out of them.

“We do want to create a better youth structure but it won't just be about youth. We will also be focusing on bringing in better quality players with more experience.

“So Bill will be doing what he's always done, only with our players.”

Boro ended their campaign last Saturday, with a 2-1 defeat at Farsley seeing them slip one place to fifth-bottom.

Hilton added: “It's a shame the season ended when it did because, by and large, from March onwards we made a strong finish.

“Danny and Dave (Powell, assistant manager) had got the team playing and got them further up the table. Had the season gone on a little longer I'm sure we would have finished even higher.”