MY BOUNCE IS BACK AT BORO
TAMWORTH may not be looking back but former joint-boss Andrew Danylyszyn could not be doing a better job of showing what might have been.
Alongside Gary Smith, Danylyszyn inspired two promotion pushes during the campaigns curtailed by Covid but stood down last December after a tough spell.
Within a month he had been installed as head coach at Nuneaton Borough by owner and boss Jimmy Ginnelly.
The team were bottom of the pile and had played more games than each of their survival rivals but new-found resolve, added to in part by a steady stream of players following Danylyszyn over from the Lamb, turned the tide.
A strong summer of recruitment has helped Boro surge up to second in Southern League Premier Division Central – three points behind trailblazing Tamworth, so imperious under ex-AFC Rushden & Diamonds gaffer Andy Peaks.
Danylyszyn insists his focus is on Nuneaton and repaying Ginnelly’s faith but there is an element of wanting to prove that the same trait disthey appeared too quickly when he was in charge just up the road.
“When Jimmy rang me to come in, the first objective was to stay up,” said Danylyszyn.
Winners
“I would say that was more of a challenge than what we started off with this season. Every game was pressurised, we had to work extremely hard and change the culture and mindset – how much we trained, the detail we trained with, the winners-do-more attitude that we brought in.
“We recruited really well in the summer, we had a plan for how we wanted to play, looking for good people and whether they suited what we wanted.
“It has gone really well, we have built on the foundations but Jimmy and the boys are the main assets because they bring it to life on the pitch.
“To now be in a title battle, fighting at the right end with Tamworth and a few other clubs – it is tight this season, Rushall and Leiston are in there – is great. There is a good feel around, something that is really important to a club like Nuneaton Borough.
“It is nice to have that camaraderie and banter with Tamworth, there are some great people there but my loyalties are with Nuneaton now and for me, the buzz is the changes we have made since January and how the club has moved forward.
“Jimmy has to take a lot of credit. When he came in the club was threatened with liquidation, he has grafted for four years without being able to focus on matters on the pitch to get the club right.
“He has laid the foundations for me and the players to build and that is a real buzz for me, where the club has come from to where it is now.”
It was refreshing to hear Danylyszyn admit that pipping Tamworth “would be a buzz in itself” but it came as no surprise as he lifted the lid on the events of a year ago.
“I have no qualms with saying it because my loyalties are here now,” he added.
“We had done really well there but they brought someone else into the picture who had a different idea of how football should be played.
Identity
“How we work and play is really important to me – how we treat the players, how we recruit, our identity – and that changed slightly. I felt the imprint I had on the club was going. I didn’t think the players we were recruiting were right for the way we were playing and how we were playing was not right, that was why I departed.
“A lot of the players backed me when I left and some of them have joined me here, they showed that loyalty because are good people.
“I still speak to Smudge (Smith), we get on well, but other people I don’t speak to. We had that bad patch of five or six games after three years so the reasons we departed were a bit strange. “There is that inner drive, burn and desire to work hard every day to make sure Nuneaton goes in the right direction and also to show people that the decisions they made, not just with me but with the excellent players and good people that have come across. “Tyrell Waite, Ryan Beswick, Aaron Forde, Bilal Yafai who has been out injured, Prince Mancinelli, Revarnelle James, Max Brogan and a few others, they let go some good players. We have that burning desire, not just to get one over on Tamworth but to be successful in our own right.
“There is that part of me deep inside that wants to prove people wrong, that is just human instinct, but I respect the opportunity Jimmy gave me and the people at Nuneaton – if we finish top and Tamworth finish second that would be the ideal scenario.”