NEWS: Manager’s Update
On the eve of preseason, we caught up with Player/Manager Ryan Beswick to see how preparations are going. “It’s been pretty hectic” stated Beswick, “I’m not sure anything can prepare you for the amount of work it is. The phone never stops ringing, people want to speak to you all of the time, and it’s mostly things you don’t expect, like what colour bibs do we want.”
“We got the important things ticked off early, so Matt Green agreed to stay as part of the coaching staff, but, as I’m playing, I wanted someone else in the dugout as well. So we brought Shaun Wilkes in from Ingles, who, despite his age, has got quite a bit of experience in Management. We’ve also added Adam Smith, who’s going to work with the goalkeepers in training.”
“We’re delighted that Jim Simpson has stayed on as Kitman, but we had the difficult task of replacing Charlotte as Physio. Calum Miller has come in from Gresley Rovers, and we’re delighted to have him as part of the team.”
“On the pitch, we’ve lost a couple of players that we’d have loved to have kept, but that’s football. For the most part we’ve been able to retain the key players that we really couldn’t replace. Where we have lost players we feel that we’ve brought in excellent replacements.”
“One of the areas of weakness that we identified from last season was defending, and attacking, set pieces. We were a pretty small team last season, so we’ve balanced that out with the signings so far. Tom Allsopp, Kane Auld and Mason Frizelle, apart from being very good footballers, have the size and strength that we lacked in the box last season, so I think we’ve got that balance right now.”
“We’re still a couple of players short as we head into preseason, but we’ve got a lot of players joining the squad this week, so we’re happy with where we’re at. Off the pitch, Liam Turner is doing a tremendous job in the day to day running of things, and we have some big announcements to make regarding sponsorship over the next few weeks.”
“We’ve recently gained control of our YouTube page, so we’re hoping to have post-match interviews and other content on there as well. With everything that’s happening it’s an exciting time to be part of the club.”