WITTON Albion have appointed a former player, Caul Macauley, as their new first-team manager.

The club had been in talks with Brian Pritchard, who achieved promotion to the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League’s top flight three years ago, to replace Scott Dundas following his dismissal last month.

However, after interviewing four candidates, they have decided instead to hire the ex-Marine boss.

Macauley will watch tomorrow’s Division One North encounter with Mossley along with assistant Gary Martindale.

They will oversee training on Thursday before picking a team for the first time for Saturday’s home fixture against Lancaster.

“Carl’s credentials as a coach who favours strong discipline and passing football is well-established,” read a statement issued by Witton.

“The short-term strategy is to stabilise and improve the dressing room, while over time building a robust player pathway using a foundation laid with the development squad.”

Macauley, now 44, was sacked by Marine at the end of February with the team in the Premier Division relegation zone – and 11 points from a position of safety – after winning only five of 34 Premier Division matches.

They survived though, at Witton’s expense too, after losing only one of the next dozen under caretaker manager Sean Hessey.

Macauley, who works as a coach for Premier League club Liverpool, left a position as assistant to former Northwich Victoria manager Steve Burr at Chester to take over at Marine last summer.

Before that he was in the dugout at Vauxhall Motors from January 2006, temporarily vacating the role in the summer of 2011 before returning to Rivacre Park in November of the same year.