INTERVIEW WITH THE MANAGER

MONDAY 13TH APRIL 2009.

After 4 matches in 8 days, the game against Chorley last Tuesday heralded the beginning of another batch of three in the space of 7 days.  The games are coming thick and fast, but like you’ve maintained you’re looking at each games as it comes, so the win over Chorley proved to be objective achieved?

 

“We keep raising the bar and asking the players to keep on going, which is not easy, but they keep on plugging away at it.

 

“It was never going to be easy against Chorley because there were a lot of tired legs out there, but they put in the hard work and were rewarded with a victory.

 

“We met Chorley at a time when they’d had a couple of good wins, and without being disrespectful to them it was a potential banana skin.

 

“At the end of the day we did our job and maintained the pressure on Durham, so I was very pleased with the result,”

 

Warrington Town presented us with a slightly different equation.  They had little to play for other than pride, but as it was a local derby, they weren’t going to do us any favours either?

 

“No they weren’t going to do us any favours, but we didn’t expect them to in fairness,

 

“We knew we’d have to work hard to beat them.

 

“They had four ex-Skem players in the squad for starters and we knew they’d be up for it.

 

“It took us a while to get into our stride, but I told the lads to be patient and start playing football, which they appeared to be reluctant to do because of the state of the pitch.

 

“We resorted to playing the long ball which isn’t our style of play, but we got it on the deck in the second half and we were still able to play football, and they started to tire as we forced them into chasing the ball.”

 

And the win of course meant that we had qualified for the play-offs?

 

“I wasn’t thinking about the play-offs before the Warrington game to be honest, because at the end of the day we’re looking at bigger things, but it was nice to know that we have achieved our first objective.

 

With Durham drawing 2-2 against Curzon and involved in cup action today, we could go top this evening if we beat Clitheroe...indeed the Championship Title would be in our own hands then?

 

“It’s a scary thought, especially as we have a very tough run-in, but all season we’ve been playing catch-up and it was Durham’s title to throw away, so now it will be interesting to see how they react.”

 

Like you’ve said we have to take each game as it comes, but today’s game against Clitheroe is very important as a win could put us in the box seat?

 

“It’s a huge game because if we win we go top, and like I’ve said it asks questions of the other pretenders and particularly Durham who’ve held top spot for so long.

 

“We’ve been to watch Clitheroe a few times and they’re an honest, hard working bunch of players, with a great manager in Peter Smith and I’m sure he won’t need to fire them up too much for this game.

 

“You can forget the 6-0 win at their place, because that counts for nothing this afternoon.

 

“Clitheroe will give us a tough game, but when you’re in the hunt for titles you have to work very hard.

 

“Whatever happens we’ll stay focussed on securing as many points as we can, because there’s not a great deal of margin for error.

 

“And of course if we have to settle for the play-offs then we want to finish second which would give us home advantage.”