March Town chairman Phil White admits he is eager to “move on quickly” after he took less than 24 hours to replace ex-boss, Chris Barlett.

Bartlett was shown the door at the GER after March’s 7-0 humbling at the hands of newly-promoted Holland FC on Saturday, and was swiftly replaced by Wisbech Town Reserves coach Mel Mattless, who will step into the Hares’ hot seat until the end of the season.

And White has admitted he didn’t want a managerial shake-up to disrupt the players ahead of tonight’s League Challenge Cup clash with King’s Lynn Town Reserves.

“We made the decision as a board to move on and we called Chris in after the game on Saturday,” he said. “The poor result topped it really.”

“As a board we’d like to thank Chris for his hard work. He’s worked really hard over the last three-and-a-half years and has done well for us.

“We wanted to move on quickly and move forward as a club as we’ve got an important game in the cup tonight.”

Mattless, who leaves the Fenmen’s second-string in eighth place in the ChromaSport Peterborough District Premier Division, will be joined by fellow coach, Roy Brand in the dugout tonight.

“We knew Mel was doing well at Wisbech so I called him on Sunday and invited him to down to the ground to meet the board and we all got it sorted very quickly,” White added.

“He’s brought Roy along with him and they’ll be in until the end of the season. We decided to discuss the job again and April and when it comes around we’ll see where we are then and move from there.”