‘It feels good to be back in the fast lane’
WHEN I became manager of Kidderminster Harriers in March, our aim was to end two years of underachievement.
We finished 11th and 15th in National League North, which for a club the size of Kiddy is nowhere near good enough.
I’m not going to hide from our status. I’ve played 200 games here. I’m the manager now. I live locally. This is my club, and I know we’ve lost our way.
If we want to be up there – and we do – we’ve got to thrive upon being one of the biggest teams in the league.
Instilling that ethos was the basis of our recruitment – and that’s why we’ve signed my old midfield partner Lewis Montrose from AFC Fylde.
I played with him at York City and he’s a massive coup for the club, as are Luke Maxwell and Amari Morgan-Smith who’s just had his best season in front of goal with Alfreton.
Lewis is the kind of character we’re looking to build around. He’s been around the block, got plenty of promotions, played at the level. He’s a good age, 31, with probably three or four good years left in the legs.
Obviously, we signed him for what he brings to the field of play. But he’s a great character in the dressing room, a leader, and having him in there takes a little bit of work off my hands. That’s the truth.
In some ways, we’ve been in a fortunate position during the Covid crisis. The owners and the board have been hugely supportive. They set money aside, kept our targets from last season.
And because we knew we wouldn’t be involved in play-offs, we never worried about getting players back off furlough or losing money through the summer.
Anxiety
The contracts we’ve setup with all of our players – old and new – were simple. They are basically agreements that state wages won’t be paid until six weeks before the season starts.
Sitting here today, I’d love to be in with a shot of promotion. But from a purely selfish point of view it’s been nice to avoid the anxiety of waiting on decisions.
Teams in the top seven have been very patient, but it must have been hard. Especially for my old club York, who were top of the league when the season was cancelled and looked at one point like they might not even get a play-off.
We’ve had no pressure, no worrying about going up or down, trying to get players back for play-offs. All our focus has been on next season.
When will that be? We’re all in the frame of mind that the season will start relatively soon. Probably with a month’s delay, give or take a week or two.
Considerations
There have been really strong rumours around a start date of September 12. Whether that’s just whispers floating around, who knows? But I’ve spoken to some clubs who’ve actually had formal letters from the FA saying that will be the case.
I even spoke to one club who are in the FA Trophy who had a letter off the FA saying they were still looking to play that in August. Things seem to be moving fast.
At the end of the day, though, nobody can really plan for this season. It’s a unique situation that will require a completely new set of considerations.
If the season does start in September, it’s going to be very congested. Everything will be about how we’re going to look after the players over the course of a full-on season – and it was already a full-on season before this happened!
Like everyone else, though, I just want to get back to playing football. It’s been too long.