Ahead of Easter Monday’s league match at home to Halesowen (3:00 KO), manager Tim Flowers has looked at the fixture, the opposition and the importance of our home backing. He starts with reflections on Friday’s trip to Needham Market…
On paper, Friday was a tough game, against a team that were in the National North last year are chasing the play offs this year. I thought we started the game well – we had a lot of territory but perhaps could have done more with it. They score with their first foray into our half, having not really landed a glove on us until then. But, we give away a silly foul 30 yards from goal and Marcel Lewis gets the ball up and over the wall and that decides the game.
In the second half, we had the wind behind us and pretty much all the territory, but we didn’t really work their goalkeeper.
In the first half, we should have had a stonewall penalty – Charlie Trustram is about to score, the lad goes through him in the six yard box and the referee told me he thought our player tripped over his own feet. It’s an incredible decision, and sometimes it dispirits you, as you think how can he not give it? It has to be given but, nevertheless, we didn’t work their goalkeeper enough. Other than that, we weren’t really troubled.
We move onto Halesowen on Monday – another team we’ve played in our last three that are going for the play-offs and they’re up there for a reason; they’ve got the top scorer in the league in Jason Cowley, who is obviously a real handful, and he’s got really good players around him; pace with Fin Holmes, creativity with Jordan Ponticelli, Ben Cassidy is a runner down the sides, Milan Butterfield provides legs in midfield, whilst Todd Parker and Josh Smile can dictate the play – so it’ll be a tough game.
We’ve got four games left – I’ve been saying for weeks now that we have no free hits – we need to get wins as soon as possible, with St Ives and Stamford both one win behind us. We’ve got to try and keep them at arms length until the end of the season.
There’ll be no easy games for anyone until the end of the season, because most teams have got something to fight for – at one end of the table or the other. We’ve got to rock up, stick our chests out, roll our sleeves up and give it a real good go.
Our fans can play a big part – they always get behind the players and I’ve never once heard them get on their backs. I’m sure they’ll be there in big numbers, supporting us and trying to haul us over the line.
One thing for sure is that the boys will be giving it everything they’ve got, so lets all push forward into these final four games and push ourselves over the line, together.
