TROUBLED AFC Totton are destined to begin pre-season training next week without a manager on board.

Barry Blankley, pictured, has rejected the club's pleas to withdraw his resignation and Howard Goddard - the man recommended to replace him by outgoing chairman John Dawson - has branded his own treatment by the club as "tacky and unprofessional."

In a bizarre sequence of events, Dawson interviewed Goddard last Friday and invited him to an emergency meeting at Testwood Park on Wednesday evening to see if he met with the committee's approval.

But, around three hours before the meeting was due to begin, vice-chairman Richie Maton phoned Goddard to tell him not to bother travelling down and that Dawson, who is not standing for re-election as chairman, would not be attending the meeting.

Former Andover boss Goddard had sacrificed a day's FA coaching, worth £110, to go to the meeting and fumed: "For me to be 99.9 per cent offered the job and then told at 5pm on Wednesday that they couldn't discuss my future because Mr Dawson would not be at the meeting is disgraceful.

"If that's the way Totton go about their business, I'm not surprised they've lost Ian Robinson, John Robson and Barry Blankley - three of the most respected managers in the league - in the last 18 months.

"John must have known when I spoke to him last week that he wasn't going to stand for re-election and the club's just left me out to dry.

"Given all the behind-the-scenes battles, Totton shouldn't have gone for me in the first place or put my name in the paper, but John Dawson wanted people to know they had another manager lined up so that players wouldn't leave.

"I didn't apply for the job, Totton contacted me, and they've done me no favours putting me in the middle of a political battle. It's a shabby way to treat someone. Their fight's not with me, it's between all of them and, even if they offered me the job now, I wouldn't take it."

Blankley is of much the same opinion. He quit the post last week, citing "unprofessionalism" and the fact that Totton owe him money as his reasons for leaving.

Maton was hoping Blankley might be persuaded into a U-turn, but it's a case of 'once bitten, twice shy' for the ex-Bashley boss following his previous experiences at the Recreation Ground.

He said: "I want to be involved in football again as soon as possible, but I made the mistake of leaving one club (Bashley) and going back when I was promised things would be different. I'm not going to fall for that again. There are some good people at Totton, but a lot of work needs doing."