BRAINTREE Town chairman Lee Harding is prepared to take a longer-term view for the Iron’s rebuilding process after the appointment of new manager Brad Quinton.

While Harding knows there will be pressure on Quinton to stabilise the club following their relegation from the National League last year, he recognises that they are having to rebuild their squad at the lower level and isn’t putting expectations of instant success on the new boss’ shoulders. It is the first time that Quinton, whose previous management experience has been for three years in the Ryman League at Enfield Town, has been a boss at the National League South level that Braintree now find themselves.

And Harding expects the rebuilding process to take place over the next few years.

He said: “My own feeling is that over the course of the next three years we will target a turn-around in the club’s fortunes.

“I keep reminding myself that over the last 15 years, we’ve had 13 good ones, one mediocre one and one bad one.

“Does one bad season make us a bad club?

“I’m not sure it does.

“We made some poor decisions last year, but we are a well-run club.

“There are going to be clubs who we are up against this year who will be under pressure to be up at the top of the table or at least mounting serious challenges, but one thing that we don’t have is the need to upgrade our ground.

“We already have a Football League graded ground and that was proved by it being passed when we took part in the (National League) play-offs the year before last.

“We have the advantage over some clubs in that we know we don’t have to spend a fortune on the ground and we can direct our money to the core of the business that is the team.

“It’s true that we are looking at a full or partial rebuild of the squad and what we want to ensure is that we are not in that position in 12 months and 24 months’ time.

“We want to be seeing progress year on year and we know that can be tough.

“Sometimes you hit the ground running, but more often than not, it takes time.

“My expectation is that over the next three years we want to get back into a position where we are challenging to get back to whence we came from.

“The door is open to go back up, but as with all things in football, there is a big relegation trapdoor and opportunities to go up are limited.

“It’s going to be tough, but I think it would be great to finish in the top half this year and that would represent a great achievement for Brad in his first year in charge.

“Then we can build on that and look to progress.

“I think three years is sensible as a timeframe.

“There is obviously pressure on the club, on Brad and on the board as we are mindful of what happened to Altrincham with them going straight through and into the Northern Premier League and we don’t want that to happen to us.

“But we feel we have enough about us to be competitive in terms of resources and I think it will be a reasonably level playing field in our division this year.”