CHARLIE Little has spoken of his sadness at not being able to remain with Worcester Warriors and help take the club to the next level.

It was announced yesterday that the Sixways managing director was being removed from his post at the end of this month.

Little was brought to Warriors by then-owner Cecil Duckworth as general manager and was promoted all the way to managing director on the back of successful deals to develop the impressive £8million Slick Systems Stand and to bring the David Lloyd Leisure Club onto the site.

However, with Duckworth no longer being the club’s majority shareholder after off-shore investment fund Hockley Investments Limited increased their holding in the Aviva Premiership club to gain a controlling interest, Little’s position was under pressure.

Meanwhile, Anthony Glossop, chairman of the Warriors board, also revealed that a ‘thorough and wide-ranging’ search has been undertaken to find a new chief executive officer for the club and that will be announced shortly.

Little said: “It has been a privilege to work for and lead this club and to have been involved in hopefully taking it forwards with regard to the development of the Sixways complex.

“On my first day working for the club, my office was in a Portakabin in the west car park and you had to drive down a small, pot-holed drive off Pershore Lane to get in.

“We didn’t have the infrastructure in place back then, but hopefully we now have that and it can enable the current staff and the new people coming in to take this club to the next level.

“I hoped I was going to be part of that, but sadly that is not the case. I sincerely hope Dean Ryan is able to do that, but it won’t happen overnight.”

Little joined the club in the role of general manager in June 2006. Previously, he had been marketing manager and then commercial manager at Gloucester Rugby Club.

Glossop added: “Charlie has been a loyal and incredibly hard-working member of our executive team and, in difficult times, has overseen the huge transition of the Sixways complex, which is unrecognisable to when he arrived.”

Little concluded: “I have a couple of things in the pipeline as I was told that I would be leaving the club a few weeks ago, so there are a few things lined up.

“In this job, the last thing you do at night and the first thing you do in the morning is to check your phone and see what is happening.”