Rebels bosses ready for challenges
Slough Town FC: Work going on behind the scenes as Rebels bosses look to move on from last season's struggles
The National League South season has now been officially curtailed and results declared null and void, while training has been stopped and the players put on furlough.
But there’s plenty going on behind the scenes as Slough Town managers Neil Baker and Jon Underwood look to lay the groundwork for what they hope will be a much more successful season.
Baker and Underwood would rather forget about the campaign that’s just been cancelled, one which started behind closed doors but was never concluded, and also never felt quite right without the backing of Rebels supporters.
Slough were one of the first clubs to put their head above the parapet and call for the season to be stopped, on safety grounds at first.
But when it became clear there’d be no further grant funding to back up the initial £90,000 they received for the first three months of the season,others soon joined the calls to stop playing.
A narrow majority of clubs in the North and South divisions voted to terminate the season and void the results and this was ratified by the FA’s Council on Friday. Now, the focus switches to next season when it is hoped fans will be allowed back into grounds to bring a bit of life back to the sport and some much needed income through the turnstiles.
“We’ve stopped training for a while now and the players are on furlough,” said Underwood.
“We’re in that kind of closed season time although it’s a much longer gap than we would normally have.
“Obviously, you normally have two months off in the summer, but we’ve got longer this time, so we’ll have plenty of time to prepare.
“We’ll be speaking with all of our players in the next couple of weeks about next season and will make decisions on who we want to keep and obviously understand which players want to stay or go.
“We will also start talking to one or two other potential signings, the season is so far away but you need to start contacting players now, you can’t rest on your laurels because managers at this level of football are very proactive and you can’t afford to sit back.”
Baker and Underwood are likely to have to accept a reduced playing budget for the new
campaign, with Underwood commenting it was in line with what he was expecting given the financial pressures of last season and the continued uncertainty with regards to next season.
He added that he and Baker had been presented with a number of new challenges ahead of the new season, most notably when to bring the players back in for pre-season training to ensure they’re at the optimum level when the season eventually kicks off.
He also said there was lots of work going on behind the scenes but not a lot they could reveal or announce at this stage.
“We’ve had an initial conversation with the board in terms of the budget which went fine,” he said. “It’s kind of where we expected to be at the minute. There are a lot of unanswered questions about next season, in terms of what it’s going to look like with fans.
“We’re pretty confident, as most people are, that we should be able to return with fans back in next season. We need to plan on that basis, because everything says that should be the case. So, it’s a lot of talking and planning at the moment but we will start to look at our pre-season schedule and
look to set some friendlies up.
“It’s also difficult in terms of the length of time we’ve got to know what’s the right thing to do with training. Obviously, we want the players to keep fit and what we will probably do is have a longer, more drawn-out pre-season this year.
“Our lads haven’t trained for a couple of months now so we will probably start with a few sessions to tick over in May and then increase it as we go through June and July.”
He added: “It’s different but as managers it presents you with a different challenge which is good and, hopefully, we get it right with the amount of training and games.
“There is a lot that’s happening but not a lot we can really say or announce at this stage.
“There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes and I am very much looking forward to getting back to it, and with fans. As we’ve said many times, it’s really highlighted how it’s not the same without fans.
“I’m really excited for that first pre-season friendly with them there, because it will be nice to see them, and nice for them to get back to watching football because I think a lot of supporters have missed that a lot.”