Southern Results will come for our young side, says Mangotsfield chief
MANGOTSFIELD United’s bullish chairman Mike Richardson is optimistic his team can soon start turning “great performances” into victories once the action is allowed to return.
Glyn Ashton’s young charges have not taken a point from seven fixtures so far, to the “surprise” of the entire Cossham Street contingent and “many supporters” who, Richardson says, have been “firmly behind” the stirring efforts of their side in Southern League Division One South.
Richardson is adamant, too, that the action should stop completely until crowds can be waved through the gates, as they have been this season in good numbers, and the clubhouse reopens after games.
Of what he’s witnessed so far on the pitch, the Mangotsfield chief maintained: “We’ve been competitive in pretty much every game we’ve played and been unfortunate to lose so late and be beaten so often by the odd goal.
“We’ve played some great football and I’ve never seen crowds here get behind the team as they have been, and we’ve seen some good crowds, too.
“It’s been tough for Glyn but he’s remained very upbeat. He’s great with the `kids’ and he understands the difficult situation we’re in as a club. It’s something we first spoke about a couple of years ago when he was with the youth team and Ollie Price was in charge of the firsts, that we’d have to go with younger players as our budget would dictate that would be all we could do.
“Everyone bought into it and it’s something we’re going to see through. Yes, supporters of ours who have been here years and years see we get bullied a bit at times, but we’re certainly easy on the eye.
“It’s really only down to the fact we lack experience at both ends of the pitch that we haven’t managed to see out a game successfully yet: in fact, our `keeper Jakob Glover and the entire back four are all aged 17. They’re all good players, too, with good non-League careers ahead of them and a couple of older heads in there could make all the difference.”
Richardson remains concerned about the spectre of Covid-19 hovering over the local game, emphasising: “We’ve been put into Tier 3 as an area and it’s financially not viable when it comes to football at our level as you can’t let fans in and bars can’t be opened. It’s the same for all clubs like ours; you simply cannot pay players and refs and finance all the overheads that go with running a club with no
income. I can’t see us playing while we’re in Tier 3 and I’m not even sure what the score would be were we to be put into Tier 2. When it comes to our bar we have been Covid compliant; we’ve had tables of six with waiter/waitress service and we’ve been shut by 10pm.
“It also begs the question can the season finish? Whether the league regionalises the rest of the season, something clubs have spoken about, who knows? And we haven’t even hit full-on winter yet.
“January and February are always difficult months to get through weather-wise and if you have your usual raft of postponements to go with all these fixture losses, it’s hard to see how everything can be crammed in.”
Mangotsfield were due to be taking on Highworth Town in Wiltshire tomorrow. However, Southern League clubs are still deciding whether football should continue to be stopped for the foreseeable future and there are no fixtures taking place this weekend
» Bristol Manor Farm have announced the signing of forward Kyle Tooze.
The striker, who turns 30 later this month, arrives at The Creek from Vanarama National League South side Hungerford Town, who he joined in May, following manager Danny Robinson and several other players from Manor Farm`s league rivals Thatcham Town.
He had joined Thatcham in February 2019 from Mangotsfield United. He has also spent time at Yate Town, Swindon Supermarine, Bridgwater Town, Paulton Rovers, Bitton and Larkhall Athletic.