DOLLYS BACK IN ONE FELL SWOOP
MARK Fell can be forgiven for wanting a more straightforward season when football returns.
The Lancaster City manager led a surprise promotion bid in the last campaign but missed six weeks over Christmas when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
The 37-year-old took a break from the dugout at the end of November up to which point the Dolly Blues’ season had been near faultless, but his absence coincided with a downturn in form.
Fell, most importantly, is now on the road to recovery following an extremely testing end to 2019.
“I went through a really intense radiotherapy period before Christmas and once I was out the back of that I had an operation in February,” Fell told
The NLP. “I’ve got a little way to go and some treatment to have but I am optimistic.
“The speed in which they found it was fortunate because it’s a pretty aggressive type of cancer and if you catch it late, you’re in trouble. I’ve got three young girls and the whole thing is tough for everybody.
“The club and chairman Stuart Houghton were very good to me, we were second at the time it happened and he would have been within his rights to not risk being without a manager for two months and get someone else in.
“It really pained me to have to take that time off. We’d not lost in 23 games and then the first game I missed at FC United we lost in the 96th minute and you feel responsible, you feel like you’ve let people down, that you’ve got no control over the situation.
“It’s a horrible feeling. I ended up going to some home games and slipping quietly in to the hospitality because I needed some contact with it, to see it, to be some part of it. The staff did brilliantly to try and keep things as consistent as they could.”
Fell returned permanently in January but the season was curtailed just when he believed the team was returning to form.
Nonetheless, the turnaround in his time at the club since joining in October 2018 has grown hopes of a return to National League North, where they were in 2007 before the club entered into administration.
When Fell took over, leaving Ramsbottom United, Lancaster were bottom of the Northern Premier
League with just four points to show from the first eight weeks of the season.
But he led them to a 12thplaced finish and that momentum was carried into this season.
“We played South Shields in January and it was first vs second which was unbelievable,” Fell said.
“We were still in the playoffs and I really fancied us
Progress
to have a say in them and be in them at the end of the season.
“We’d be quite happy to have a less dramatic season next time with everything that has gone on but we’ve got our eyes fixed on still progressing.”
Fell has been busy preparing for when they do get the green light to return, retaining influential midfielder Niall Cowperthwaite this week for next season.
“We were second favourites to be relegated this year – 150/1 favourites to go up, some of our supporters told me that because they had a few quid on us!” he added.
“We won’t be 150/1 next year. People will look at us differently and with that comes some different challenges for us but it shows the progress we’ve made.
“We’ve earned that right to be amongst those discussions.”