Glos County Casualty crisis pegging back Rangers’ ambitions
ROCKLEAZE Rangers manager Peter Bradbury has praised the players desperately striving to turn around their fortunes amid an unprecedented casualty crisis.
The UWE-connected club had been eyeing exciting potential for promotion heading into their latest Marcliff Gloucestershire County League challenges, with a group of players they felt could at least challenge strongly and consistently alongside a string of rival outfits vying for higher-level football.
Instead, Bradbury’s team find themselves a fifth-bottom competitor heading into tomorrow’s away encounter with a sixth-placed Little Stoke side lifted by Saturday’s return to winning ways via a 7-0 away rout of Hanham Athletic hosts desperate still for inspiration.
The Rangers leader admitted: “I’m very frustrated with all the injuries we’ve picked up. It was bad enough anyway without our captain and centre-back Mike Perham becoming the latest to go down with knee ligament damage.
“It’s not even as though these injuries lead to one or two weeks out. We’re talking, to a man, weeks and weeks. It’s helped nothing either that two of our most promising younger players, Jimmy Woolland and Toby Walwin, decided to move on, to Stockwood Wanderers and Hallen respectively.
“It’s disappointing as they’d committed to us at the start of the season, just as a lot of other lads still with us who can play higher, and have played higher, bought into what we’re trying to achieve.”
“With Mike now sidelined it means we have seven lads in the treatment room with only one of them, Ollie Woolland (central midfielder), likely to be back anytime soon after a hamstring injury. It’s just fortunate our squad was quite large at the outset of the season as we’d be in a whole different world right now.”
By Bradbury’s own observation, it’s “not all been doom and gloom” at Rangers’ 3G Hillside Gardens HQ they hire from the university.
“We’ve been competitive throughout,” he stressed, “and none of our five defeats have been by much. Our last three losses have been by single-goal margins. There’s a combination of reasons for the struggle, including not getting the rub of the green at times, as well as failing to take our chances.”
The Rockleaze boss acknowledged: “The hope at the start of the season was to push for a promotion position. That feels very unlikely now, although my immediate priority is to address the slide – we’ve lost our last six games – and restore confidence levels. We just need a winning goal in any manner possible, however scruffy. The lads all know the score; they’re aware so many key players are out and that they’re by no means getting thumped each week. They’re all sticking together and trying hard and hopefully our trip to Little Stoke can spark a turning point.”
No such problems for leaders Shirehampton, who entertain
Quedgeley Wanderers aware they are in a fight for supremacy with second-placed and fellow undefeated outfit Frampton United, who go to Gala Wilton for a top-five spectacle. Wick hopes are alive and kicking in third, although Joe Pople’s men have had setbacks, with last weekend’s 1-0 defeat at Quedgeley one of them ahead of the visit by winless Hardwicke to Oldbury Lane tomorrow.
Mid-table teams Henbury, unbeaten in three, and Patchway Town, boosted by their 2-1 weekend win at Bromley Heath United, both have home games too, against Broadwell Amateurs and English Bicknor respectively. Bromley Heath are at Sharpness, while Hanham target their first points at Ruardean Hill Rangers.