Rangers agree for Matt Elliott to stay

Stafford Rangers have reached a verbal agreement with Matt Elliott for him to continue as boss for next season.

Elliott has been presented with a provisional playing budget - which is more than the last figure of £1,350 - and has accepted what he will have to work at Marston Road for the campaign ahead.

The club's hierarchy held a board meeting this week to discuss the manager's future, along with the inevitable fall out after being relegated from the Blue Square North.

They unanimously decided Elliott is still the man to lead the club and, subsequently, held talks with the former Leicester and Scotland defender.

One stumbling block for him was the budget, which plunged to its lowest figure yet at the end of last season, but Elliott was assured he would not have so little to work with again.

Rangers are now starting to plan for next season and so can their manager, who has always operated without a contract in any case.

Chairman Mike Hughes will stand down this summer but he expects to leave Elliott in place, the 64-year-old has revealed.

Hughes said: "I think Matt is willing to stay and give it a go, we have asked him to continue and, as far as we are concerned, he is our manager.

"We have given him a figure that we are endeavouring to work to as a budget, no manager is ever happy but he has accepted it and will do his best to work to it.

"That said, it's higher than we finished with last season."

Rangers are still awaiting official word on what league they will playing in next season, although Hughes is "99 per cent" certain it will be the Evo-Stik Premier League.

The club dropped to the Southern League the last time they dropped out of the Conference pyramid, but an over-spill of clubs into that division this summer makes it unlikely to happen this time around.

However, until they know for sure, the playing budget will be provisional.

Hughes said: "When that is sorted out and we know exactly, 100 per cent sure, what teams we have got to play and what distances we have got to go, we can then start building budgets for the whole thing.

"We can set admission prices, we can do the lot, but with this uncertainty it's a bit difficult."