DAVE Diaper believes it will take “at least five new players” to get Sholing back on track.

Chairman Diaper has reclaimed the managerial reins at Portsmouth Road following the departure of Mick Marsh.

And when he enters the changing room for tomorrow’s FA Trophy first qualifying round tie at home to Tiverton Town, it will be to give his first team talk since May 10 at Wembley when he inspired the Boatmen to an historic FA Vase triumph over West Auckland Town.

It will be a very different group of players looking back at him tomorrow with the majority of Sholing’s Vase/Sydenhams Premier double winners having either hung up their boots or moved into the Conference South with Gosport Borough.

Although former head coach Marsh and ex-reserve team boss Dave Fear did their best to rebuild the side under difficult circumstances, the Boatmen are languishing 17th on their return to the Southern One South & West and Diaper says it’s time to stop the rot.

“There’s a hell of an amount of work needed to run a team, particularly in the Southern League. It was never going to be an easy job for Mick and Dave with the number of players that went to Gosport or retired, but it was made doubly difficult by injuries. One week we paid 21 players, that’s how bad things were,” he said.

“I went down to Bridgwater on Tuesday (a 3-0 defeat) and it wasn’t nice.

“After a brief conversation with Mick (on Wednesday) it was agreed he would be stepping down. He has a demanding job outside football and I think he was finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil his duties as manager.

“In Mick’s own words there were no hard feelings. He appreciates how hard the job was and you could see in his face on Tuesday that he wasn’t enjoying it.”

While Marsh is leaving the club altogether, Fear will stay on in some capacity with further announcements due in the next few days.

In the meantime Diaper will preach “positivity” to his players and has pledged to “work tirelessy to try and bring some more quality into the club.”

Centre-back Dan Miller and left-back Sam Olaofe will both return tomorrow having drifted away in recent weeks and the hunt is already on for new signings. “It’s not minor surgery we need, it’s major surgery. We need at least five players,” said Diaper.

“Three or four wins and we could be back up there. We need to get a bit of positivity back and start moving forward. We’ve got to get back to the Sholing way of working hard for each other and making sure everyone turns up.

“The lads who travelled to Bridgwater put a good shift in, but the biggest problem we’ve got is scoring goals. Barry Mason played up front at Conference level as a 21-year-old and maybe it’s time he was a forward again rather than a wide player.”

Pacy wideman Jude Nwachukwu is out for two to three weeks having required 20 stitches on a deep cut above the eye.

“My thanks go to Kev Harnett (first team support manager) who took Jude to hospital,” said Diaper.

“We didn’t get home from Bridgwater until 1.30am, so they can’t have got back until gone 4am.”