Stafford manager Chris Brindley has confirmed that he will remain in charge at Marston Road for next season.

The Rangers boss has clarified his future after returning from his summer holiday to the USA on Monday, with assistant Darren Read also set to stay on.

The two have been the management team at the helm since December, in the wake of several financial cuts that threatened the future of the club.

Wolves legend Steve Bull left as manager with most of the playing squad following him, leaving his then-assistant to take over and steer the club through the second-half of the season.

With the worst of that storm now over, Brindley can put some long-term plans into place.

He said: “To be honest, I was never going anywhere. I am perfectly happy here, happy to stay as on as manager and looking forward to leading the club into next season. I took some time off to consider my position but I always planned to remain.

“Stafford Rangers is a great club to be in charge of and hopefully now we can rise to the challenges we will face.”

After a successful fight against relegation, the former Wolves defender now has his first summer to rebuild the playing squad as he sees fit.

Players will come and players will go, but the club have rid themselves of a major noose around their necks – now nobody is on a resource-draining contract.

That should afford Brindley the sort of freedom he has seldom enjoyed thus far.

But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

He said: “People have got to accept that this football club is like so many that we are reading about at the moment – financially it’s a struggle. The board are being prudent for the future, it’s up to me to work in line with that.

“The budget has been cut slightly, lowered a little bit but that’s nobody’s fault – that is what we have to do to move forward. We have to survive season after season, so we are just getting on with it.

“That means we will probably be shopping at the lower end of the market when it comes to players, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be competing next season.”