14 October 2015
We've reached the quarter pole of the season, and the Wantage Town train keeps rolling. I was smart to take my scouts' advice about the quality of my players. So far, they seem to be up to the Southern Premier's standard.
We've reeled off eleven straight games without a loss in the league, and a draw and two wins in the FA Cup run our streak to 14.
Mick Hart sidefooted in a
Roy Porter cross in the game's waning moments to give us a win in our first Southern Premier game. He's among the league's top scorers, already making good on his shiny new £170/week deal.
Dominic Hutchinson has proven to be a great addition. He is a very useful midfield destroyer, and he is absolutely deadly on free kicks--all three of his goals have come that way.
The other new man who has made a difference is young
Tom Wilkinson, who has done a job both at left wing, where he spells the aging
Ryan Ryder, and at left back when I need to give
Matty York a break.
One of my biggest challenges so far has been keeping my squad both fresh and competitive. There's a 46-game schedule in the Southern Premier, and we entered the FA Cup for the Second Qualifying Round. The Cup ties are good for the bottom line; we drew a record crowd of 513 to Alfredian Park for the AFC Hornchurch match and broke the record when 524 came out to watch us take on Dulwich Hamlet. They do make me dig deeply into my roster, however.
The replay against AFC Hornchurch was a unique one. You read that right; we won 5-2 in extra time. Within the space of 11 minutes, Hart struck twice and
Richard Ahern blasted in a penalty.
We've got a new man in the team, for a while at least. The departure of Tom Logan (who has signed with league rival Weymouth, where he's getting first team minutes and £150/week) left a void. Our tactic includes the instruction to Pass Into Space. This works a charm with
Mick Hart, who is as fast as any striker in non-league football. Logan is quick, so our offense clicked with him in the lineup, too. None of our other top forwards have even average pace, so I decided to see if anyone wanted to send a nippy striker out on loan.
I found
Rocky Upton, 17, on the loan list at Chesterfield. I was delighted with the fact that a League Two club would send a lad down to Level 7, and even more delighted when Rocky agreed to go. He isn't as pacey as Hart, but he could match Logan in a sprint, and his other attributes are just fine for our level. We'll have him for three months, and I promised his manager that we'd use him as a rotation player. As congested as our fixture list will be, that won't be a difficult promise to keep.
This table contains the top 18 of 24 teams. I'll do the paste-up job for the end-of-the-year report, but it's a bit too much work for now. Hopefully I won't ever need to show you the bottom of the table.
The media chose us among a group of teams with 6-1 odds to lift the trophy, second best behind a pair of clubs on 3-1. We're not exactly shocking anyone, but I'm still surprised to be a point behind the leaders with a game in hand.
The board FINALLY came through with a contract offer, and I accepted it. I'm not happy with the fact they fumdiddled around and kept me on a month-to-month deal for a whole season, and more than once I've been tempted to leave. In the end, I decided to stay because I like the group of players I've assembled. I'm listed on nearly everyone's Favoured Personnel, and I'm enjoying both the style of football we're playing and the results we're getting. So, for now at least, I'm very happy to stay with Wantage Town.