Glos County Patchway boss: We’re not fighting fires now
PATCHWAY Town manager Tim Minihane believes his club are no longer “fighting fires” in their drive to deal with the demands of Marcliff Gloucestershire County League football.
More accustomed in recent years to battling it out in the lower reaches of the table, the Scott Park outfit, who were propping up the rest back in March when the 201920 campaign was brought to an abrupt halt, sit third and undefeated after three games thanks to 4-1 and 2-1 victories over Hanham Athletic and Gala Wilton and the weekend’s 1-1 draw at Hardwicke.
“We have around 24 lads all feeling they should be in the first team and for the first time in a while here it’s made keeping them all happy difficult, although as a manager it’s nice to have those options,” said Minihane. “I don’t feel that we’re fighting fires now, which certainly wasn’t the case when I first came in last November.
“I tried to bring new players in but when you’re languishing at the bottom of the league, persuading people to join is nigh on impossible.
“Once we knew we were safe I rang up the chairman (Andy England) in May and discussed a tenpoint plan of action via a series of Zoom meetings which centred around attracting more sponsorship and becoming more community-minded in what is a good catchment area.
“We got a couple more bodies on to the committee to help with the sponsorship side and we’ve been grateful for the support shown by our shirt sponsors Alpha Communications and our drinks suppliers Best One, a convenience store on Rodway Road here in Patchway.
“Others have also shown their support and it’s a big help.”
It has not always been that way as former Oldbury Reserves and Tytherington Rocks boss Minihane recalled: “We had only 13 first and reserve-team players left from last season heading into the summer.
“We must have brought in something like 40 new ones and it’s given us greater scope when it comes to addressing availability issues, a luxury we just didn’t have last year.
“Last weekend we had 16 lads unavailable across our two teams for various reasons, yet we still had 29 to pick from which was encouraging.
“It reached a point where we thought about starting up a third team but decided against it as we couldn’t quite guarantee enough numbers.”
Minihane has bolstered his backroom ranks by recruiting his former assistant at Tytherington, Damien Keary, to “help me and my joint manager Phil Vice with training.”
On the pitch newcomers include left-sided duo Jake Cox, once of Yate Town, and Warren Ryan, while Minihane observed: “Lads like Luke Garbacz and Phil Vice are among those who have got themselves really fit. We’ve held twohour training sessions twice a week and the boys have worked so hard. I doubt whether too many teams will better our fitness levels.
“It said it all that our lads came in after drawing at Hardwicke at the weekend disappointed as they’re feeling they should win every game now, although for me we may look back and deem it a good point.”
Patchway were to start the first part of a double-header with local rivals Little Stoke at home in the league tomorrow before facing them again at Scott Park in the Les James League Cup the following Saturday. However, Covid-19 concerns relating to the Little Stoke camp means tomorrow’s meeting has been postponed.
AEK Boco, meantime, hope to stretch their winning run to four games since the start with victory at home to Quedgeley Wanderers.
Bromley Heath United and Shirehampton set out to make home advantage count against Wick and Gala Wilton respectively, while Henbury seek a first point of a testing start at Broadwell Amateurs, unbeaten Rockleaze Rangers go to Ruardean Hill Rangers and Hanham Athletic are at Sharpness.
All games start at 3pm.