Matthew Tipton embracing Ards after ‘too many decisions for the wrong reasons’

On Tuesday night he celebrated three points for just the third time in 166 days of this season’s Irish League campaign.

Tipton kicked off life as Ards boss with a Championship win over Loughgall just hours after first meeting his players and 16 days on from a Portadown exit.

The 3-2 success offered Tipton an immediate return off his rapid introduction to Ards - and first winning start of his managerial career for the former Warrenpoint Town and Ports boss.

“It’s only been a short time between leaving Portadown and getting the Ards job but at no point did I feel any hatred of football or anything negative...in the game you must accept you are most likely to be leaving a club either to get a better job or if things don’t work as expected,” he said. “But it actually gave me a greater trust in my own core beliefs about football.

“After leaving Portadown I did go back over my old notes and talked things over with some people close to me.

“Over time at Portadown, for lots of factors, I started making too many decisions for the wrong reasons.

“I was steering things in a certain direction to try and keep control over everything but now realise it was more a reaction to things not working.

“It’s not in my nature to send a team out to be more defensive and adopt a counter-attacking style rather than play on the front foot,

“In a bid to try and manage everything I think, at times, I would overload the players with information.

“And it got to a point I was putting more focus on trying to fix the areas they struggled in than simply allow them to play to their strengths.

“It doesn’t happen over one day when everything suddenly turns, it’s a response to players losing confidence and gradually you try to micro-manage.

“It left me