Maidstone United manager Craig Fagan able to draw on his time at Hull City and Southend United when it came to breaking bad news

New Maidstone United boss Craig Fagan was well-equipped to deal with one of the toughest parts of management.

Fagan’s first task after succeeding George Elokobi was to finalise the retained and released list, which inevitably meant breaking some bad news to players, with 11 departing.

That’s never a nice job but Fagan was able to draw on his experiences working with the academies at Hull and Southend.

“I’d already done it to a certain degree,” he said.

“At Hull and Southend, you had to have retained-released conversations with academy players, so you’re talking about breaking a kid’s heart and telling him he’s not going to be getting a professional contract, he’s not going to be getting a scholarship.

“These kids have trained so hard from the age of eight to get to 15/16 to be told they’re not getting a scholarship.

“That’s when you see real pain in people’s eyes, with parents there as well. So it’s nothing I’ve not done before, it’s nothing I was scared of.

“The players here knew. The majority we had conversations with, ultimately, they knew if they were getting offered a deal or if they were maybe not getting a deal, and what the reasons were, so there weren’t too many conversations where they didn’t know what was coming.

“I got on with all the players. They knew with me, and with George, that our thing was to make people better.

“So, ultimately, if they’re not getting a contract offer, it doesn’t mean we don’t like them.

“It’s a football decision and I’ve no problem in picking up the phone and speaking to them or speaking to other clubs for them.

“It’s tough in terms of telling them no because you do build that relationship with them but at the end of the day it’s about results and what’s best for my team.”