Peterborough Northern Star manager is sacked as angry exchange of messages is aired on social media

In a bizarre episode this afternoon (August 10) the Star twitter account appeared to be hijacked by someone with access to recent text messages between Goodwin and club co-owner Scott Steward. A stream of abusive back-and-forth messages between the pair were aired publicly. Neither man has denied the messages are genuine.

Those messages have now been deleted from social media, but the Peterborough Telegraph has copies of them all, as well as a few exchanges from earlier today, and they lay bare a chairman’s frustration with his manager’s failure to build what he viewed as a competitive side and a manager taking exception to some strong personal criticism and accusations from his chairman, while expressing disappointment in promises re ground development not being kept.

Goodwin denies posting any messages on Star’s Twitter account today.

The final straw for Steward appears to have been Saturday’s 4-3 friendly defeat at the hands of a very young Kettering side. It’s not known when the new UCL season will start, but Steward was concerned the current squad was sure to struggle.

Steward has confirmed Goodwin has now been dismissed and the co-owner has promised to issue an official club statement tomorrow (August 11).

Seb Hayes held discussions with Steward about the manager’s post last month and would be seen as a top replacement for Goodwin who only took the job on in May following the departure of Steve Wilson. Hayes’ reputation and contacts would give Star a fighting chance of finding enough players of a standard good enough to at least compete at Premier Division level.

Goodwin’s first act as Star boss was to release every member of last season’s playing squad confident in the knowledge he had the contacts to build a better one. The players he had signed are now expected to leave.

Goodwin informed last season’s squad of their release by WhatsApp message. He confirmed he was sacked by text message today after another heated exchange of views with Steward.