Paul Davis says he won’t reapply for his position as manager of Banbury United after the supporters’ group hoping to take over the club advertised the position in conjunction with the board , writes MATTHEW BRUCE.

Davis was unable to maintain the Puritans’ Evo-Stik Southern League Premier Division status this season, but led his side to success in the Oxfordshire Senior Cup.

However, just 24 hours after their penalty shoot-out triumph over North Leigh at Oxford's Kassam Stadium final on Thursday, while celebrating at the club’s end-of-season awards evening, Davis was informed that he would have to reapply for his job.

“We were supposed to be enjoying our awards presentation evening, we’d just won the Oxfordshire Senior Cup and then I’m told late on Friday night that an advert is going in the paper on Sunday,” he said.

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“Obviously I can understand that when new people come into the club they’re going to want to bring in their own people, because that happens in football.

“But I would have expected at least to have been told.

"I wasn’t actually told until the rumours had started flying about and my chairman had to tell me about it at about 11 o’clock on Friday.”

Prospective candidates have until the end of this week to submit applications, and Davis added: “It would be a waste of my time, because if they wanted me as manager they wouldn’t have advertised the position."

In a statement, Stephen Barlow, chairman of Banbury United Supporters Club, stressed that the decision to advertise the manager’s position was made jointly with the current board and owners of the football club.

It added: "The group very much regret that the agreed timeline for advising could not be followed due to this confidential information coming into the public domain.

"Although we are unaware of the source of this out of courtesy a representative of the group has spoken with Paul and apologised to him."