“The club is bigger than an individual and I offered it to them that if they thought they could go forward, and better, without me then I’d be happy to step down,” Brookshaw said.

“It certainly wasn’t a decision taken lightly by me or the club. But I think for the best interest of everyone to try and turn the club around to get where it used to be, sometimes you’ve got to make tough decisions.

“The tough decision’s been made, let’s just all move on and we shook hands and go our separate ways.

“The club’s bigger than I am and I want the club to be successful and I wasn’t the man for the job. There wasn’t much point doing it for the rest of the year. Let’s call it quits now and move forward.”

Skipton club president Andrew Bodman said there were discussions at the club over the past month.

Bodman said Brookshaw’s immediate resignation was “a mutual decision”, and described it as a “reset button”.

“We’ve been discussing things over the last month I suppose that things hadn’t really been working out. It all came to a head this week … with him stepping down,” Bodman said.

“The season hadn’t been tremendous for coach, players or committee at this stage and after discussions, he decided to step down and it probably gives us a chance to have a clean start.

Brookshaw, who has coached at the Rockbank and Glen Orden clubs, said he would consider another coaching role if an offer was made from the right club, but was not going to be “looking” for one.