Milnes ‘honour’ at being captain for an unbelievable season
CAPTAIN Ben Milnes has described leading Tamworth FC to another promotion as an “honour” and “by far my proudest moment in football”.
An emotional Milnes caught up with the Herald after securing hero status with back to back promotions on Saturday. And as leader of the group, it meant even more to him.
He told us: “To be captain was an honour itself and then to win the league is the best moment of my football career so far and probably for a lot of the lads. It is a great achievement.
“No one expected it. Not even the lads and probably the most loyal, ambitious supporter. I think I did an interview after we lost the Alfreton game in August or September and I said the target was to stay the league which obviously was proved wrong but in a good way!
“At the outset it really was just to stay up. We only went up on the final day last year. It wasn’t like we took the league by storm that year necessarily. When you look at the league as a whole, some of the resources that they have got, staying up was the main objective and a really good season would have been mid table. To win it with games to spare was unbelievable really.
“The real thing that we do have within the whole club is togetherness, there is no one bigger than the dressing room. Some of the last minute winners and holding on for wins really shows the team spirit we have got. I think that togetherness has probably gained us 10 or 15 extra points throughout the course of the season whereas other teams who maybe have got bigger budgets don’t necessarily have that togetherness and team spirit we have got which in football goes a long way.
“The group is amazing. All the lads get on really well. It is a great dressing room to be in. They are always laughing and joking. Obviously we do take it seriously. Even if we lose we are down but there is always someone to pick us back up.”
Milnes was asked if he could pinpoint when he started to believe something special was happening and he insisted it was right from the first game: “The most obvious one was the Scunthorpe away victory. But probably the biggest game of the season for us was the first one: Scunthorpe at home.
“Even though we lost we actually should have won. We played really well and going into it before the start of the season they were heavy favourites so to know we could go toe to toe with them who were supposedly going to be the best team in the league gave us a lot of belief and confidence.”
As for next season, he insists they are just not there to make up the numbers.
He roared: “Hopefully we can keep the majority of the lads. It will be tough but we have proven this year we shouldn’t really fear anybody.
“There’s some big teams in that league so it will be great to play against some of them and in some big stadiums with big fanbases.
“We are not going just to make up the numbers. We will be going to put our stamp on that league. Hopefully we can stay in the division but we are under no illusions that it will be extremely tough. Pretty much every team in there is full time. It will be even tougher than it has been this year. We are just looking forward to it.”