Manx football is at a crossroads. With the new season little more than two weeks away, that’s the belief of St John’s manager Rick Holden.

The former Manchester City and Oldham winger, who clocked up more than 70 Premier League appearances during his playing career, has urged the Isle of Man FA to make changes in order to keep the sport in the island moving forward.

’I’m hoping it’s going to be a competitive and close season because the problem we’ve got in Manx football is that it is still too up and down. We [St John’s] experienced it last year where we had good, difficult games against the likes of Rushen and Peel, but then we’d go and play someone the next week and hammer them 13-0. That’s not healthy.

’My concern is that there is too much of a gap between the top sides and the bottom ones in the same tier. That makes Manx football inconsistent and it has been for many years.

’If we lost a game at Peel while chasing Geordies we knew that was usually it for our title hopes because they wouldn’t lose.

’You want the situation that there was when I first moved here in the mid-90s where we had eight, nine, 10 teams capable of qualifying for the Railway Cup and winning the other cups.

’There are some tremendous lads now, but I don’t think there’s enough good sides as there were in the late 90s. There were more tougher teams to beat then.

’I’m hoping that it does become more competitive, but the Manx FA have got to do something about it. Maybe go to a 10-team top-flight, maybe have play-offs to decide promotion and relegation. At the moment I think Manx football is a bit watered down and I’ve got concerns for it in that respect. It’s losing ground to other sports all the time. The FA have got to come up with some new ideas.

’I’d change the Hospital Cup into a regional league format that would be played pre-season. That would get you meaningful games ahead of the league starting. The top teams in each league would qualify for quarter-finals with the rest qualifying for a plate competition to be played in March or April as usual.

’Another change I’d make is that I wouldn’t have any Sunday football at all aside from the juniors and women’s fixtures.

’I’d also possibly change the Railway Cup into a top-six competition. The top two would qualify for the semis, but the other four teams would play-off to join them.

’Biggest shake-up I’d make would be at the FA itself. I would just get some fresh blood involved to come up with some new ideas.

’I would also let the club’s respective managers and coaches have a far bigger say in what goes on than they do now. I think coaches’ roles in Manx football are vastly under-valued.’

Holden enjoyed a near 20-year association with Peel in various guises before his move along the A1 to Mullen-e-Cloie last summer, but said the time was right for a fresh challenge: ’I was asked to come down because I wasn’t really involved in Peel anymore. I said yes. They [St John’s committee] said: "What do you want?" I said: "Nothing."

They refreshingly said: "How can we improve? What do we need to do?"

’We’ve got a few ideas on and off the pitch. The most important thing for players and the club as a whole is to see that the committee is moving forward every year.

’You don’t just do something and then standstill for five years, which lots of clubs do. I said: "We need proper medical facilities, we need a gym, we need this, we need that." And they said "Yeah we do."

’I’m thoroughly enjoying it, it’s been a breath of fresh air for me.’

’It got difficult at Peel - I realised I’d been there too long by about 2014. I wasn’t having the same impact and the pressure was on to win. We weren’t getting the same calibre of players or committment I’d had in the past and I was butting heads with the committee on an increasingly frequent basis.’

Holden’s physiotherapy business is now based in the Johnners’ clubhouse and he admits he’s very happy at the club who he guided to a fifth-place finish in the Canada Life Premier League last season: ’I’m hoping to get some more help this campaign. I’ve helped Johnny Holland with his UEFA B coaching badge, so he’ll help a lot as first-team coach, which takes a bit of pressure off.

’Last year I just worked with the lads that were already here - I didn’t bring anyone in and we came fifth, albeit a distant one. Nevertheless we ruffled a few feathers.

’I’m bringing a lot of kids through and I’m planning to make a couple of signings ahead of mid-August.

’The plan is to get into the top four. If we can get Railway Cup qualification and establish that as a point of reference then you never know where it might lead to in the leagues.

’It’s too early to start talking about titles, but we certainly don’t want to be any worse off than we’ve been. Rome’s not built in a day. It took me a long time at Peel. Everyone thinks that we were an overnight phenomenon there, but after the initial success in Division Two and the Hospital Cup and FA Cup we had a season and a half where we were dire. Things culminated with the Railway Cup victory in 2003 with probably the best team we had during my spell there. That took seven years to come to fruition.’

The 53-year-old hasn’t ruled out a return to the professional game in the future. Holden had a three-year spell as assistant and physio at Barnsley in the mid 2000s: ’I might offer my services in a consultancy role. I’ve got friends at several clubs that want me to do various bits.

’Frankie Bunn and Andy Rhodes are now in charge at Oldham. I know them both well and when I get chance I’ll be going over to run some ’wing’ clinics with their players. The immediate two or three years though is here at St John’s, but I feel young enough and healthy enough to carry on for a while yet.’

Holden was part of the Isle of Man FA coaching team that helped the side secure a first Island Games gold medal in Gotland last year.

He admits his feelings are still raw about the fact that his and manager Nick Hurt’s contracts weren’t renewed in the role: ’To win the Island Games was such a hard thing and to sack us all en masse for what I think was a minor misdemeanor by some on the plane back was very cruel.’

Since then he has been involved in the Manx International Football Alliance’s Ellan Vannin side as a physio. The future of the latter after their well-publicised withdrawal from June’s CONIFA World Football Cup after a row over player eligibility won’t be resolved until the governing body’s AGM in January.

Holden admits it could potentially be a sad end to something that started with so much promise: ’It was very disappointing because we had such a great start to the tournament in London and you could see us going all the way.’

So how would Holden take forward representative football in the Isle of Man?

He believes a revival of the old Steam Packet Festival is one possible way forward. The last one was in 2005, but Holden said it is imperative that the island starts playing against professional sides once again on a regular basis: ’If you take a look at the FA side now, they are playing the likes of Rhyl, Connah’s Quay and Bangor. You go back 20 years and they were playing professional sides.

’I remember my horror watching the Isle of Man get beaten 8-0 by Bury at Peel when I first came.

’I then got involved with the FA set-up first through Tim Crispin at the time and then Kevin [Manning], and by using the games against the pro teams we eventually got to the standard where we beat Burnley in open play in 2000. We took confidence from that game to go on and win the Guinness Cup, which is the highest standard the lads play at. It’s higher than the Island Games or the Inter-League Cup.’

Would professional club’s academy teams still be keen to head to the island with warm-weather training in the continent so readily available? Holden seems to think they would: ’I asked Joe Royle when he came over with Everton’s under-23s. He said it would be great as it would bring them back down to earth! He explained the clubs like it because it grounds the players and they have to play some real old school football.

’Leeds United when they came said it had been a real wake-up call for their players and totally different to the reserve team football they were used to. The other thing is they won’t get mithered by fans asking for autographs etc. There is a lot of scope in that area I think.’

’With the advent of the new UEFA Leagues which sees teams seeded and playing sides of similar abilities I think there will be a sea of change which might allow smaller nations to join in. My gut feeling would be to get our own house in order first.

’Getting the pro sides back would get us ready for when we can go and join UEFA.

’Another option would be to go down the Guernsey FC route and enter a team in an off-island league. We’ve played Guernsey’s rep side twice in the last couple of years and you can tell they’ve benefited from the experience. The way they behave is totally professional compared to the rest at the Island Games. You can tell by the way they pass the ball, warm up etc. It’s done wonders for them, whether you could break through the parochial ideology of the Manx game though would be another thing. A team over here coached properly could compete as high as the Conference in my opinion.’

Off the pitch, aside from his physiotherapy business and offering one-on-one coaching clinics, Holden has published six books with his Wibble Publishing firm. His latest book ’Mankind - Victim of Evolution’ details Rick’s own unique theory on evolution and was released on Amazon recently: ’The first book I did was my autobiography. That came out in 2010, but myself and the other guy that helped with it weren’t overly impressed with the machination of it so we decided to start publishing our own stuff. We’ve done lots of books for local authors and I’ve written several books from football, to cricket to medicine. I find writing cathartic.’