Hollands & Blair chairman Paul Piggott takes interim charge of SCEFL Premier Division side, leading them to victory against Rusthall last Saturday

Hollands & Blair chairman Paul Piggott will remain in charge of the first team for as long as it takes to find their next manager.

Blair axed Luke Jessup last week after finding themselves in the lower reaches of the SCEFL Premier Division, having started the new season with much hope of challenging at the top end.

Piggott stepped in as caretaker to face the bottom side Rusthall, and his team ended up playing the final 30 minutes with nine men, following two red cards. They held onto their 2-0 lead for an important three points.

It wasn’t the kind of weekend Piggott has been planning, but the board felt they had to act after a tough opening two months of the season, issuing a statement last Wednesday saying they had “come to a difficult decision to move the club in a new direction.”

In the interim, club chairman Piggott has stepped up to manage, with injured first-team players Dan Ellis and Louis Valencia assisting and managers of their u18s and u23s helping with the coaching.

Piggott, who has previously managed at Chatham and last had a caretaker stint at Blair in March 2019, said: “You watch the Arsenal-Man City game the week before, watching what Arsenal did (trying to hang on after a sending off) for as long as they did, then a week later you find yourself in the dugout having to do exactly the same!”

First-half goals from Charlie Sheringham and David Chandler had put Blair in charge against Rusthall but Elbie Boichat was sent off on 55 minutes for a second bookable offence and Charlie Wright was also dismissed for two yellow cards 10 minutes later.

The club have received plenty of applications for the manager’s job but Piggott was concentrating on the weekend game first. The board were due to meet this week to put