Staffordshire Newsletter (Stone Edition)
Not good enough, fumes Boro boss
Unhappy manager Cooke rues ‘massive missed opportunity’
STAFFORD Rangers manager Dave Cooke did not hold back after defeat to Atherton Collieries last Saturday. The Boro boss was left dissatisfied with his side’s performance and felt sorry for the travelling support.
Stafford fans backed the Boro in their numbers, hoping for them to take another step towards Northern Premier League survival. However, Dylan Thompson netted for 21stplaced Atherton and the Rangers remained three points adrift from safety.
Rangers boss Cooke said: “The fans have been brilliant and they’ve turned out in their numbers.
“I’m disappointed for them because the football that they’ve seen hasn’t been good enough. We’ve got to be better.”
This was an opportunity missed by the Rangers, and concerns that they are heading for the drop will only be heightened by the catastrophic loss. Survival-rivals Basford lost out to high-flyers Macclesfield and will face champions Radcliffe this weekend. Three points against Atherton who seem certain for relegation would’ve seen Stafford level with their challengers.
Defeat meant the Rangers have lost 1-0 to each of their rivals in the bottom-four since the start of the year, and manager Cooke knows the importance of beating those around you, especially the bottom-placed side.
Cooke said: “I can’t fault the lads’ effort but there wasn’t enough cutting-edge, and that’s happened a lot this season whilst I’ve been here.
“Atherton are bottom of the league and it’s so disappointing. If we want to stay in this league we should be beating teams like Atherton. And, that isn’t being disrespectful to them.
“It’s a massive missed opportunity. The lads are disappointed in the changing room but it’s crocodile tears for me. Some of them have probably outperformed themselves in the last few weeks but today when we just needed that bit of class, they fell short.”
Defeat was the Rangers’ 26th in the Northern Premier League so far this season as they conceded their 74th goal of the campaign. But, defence had been a strength of Stafford’s recently, entering the clash with three clean sheets under their belt from their last four matches.
Finding the net has been their biggest problem so far, remaining the lowest scorers with 36 goals, and Cooke was keen to highlight this following the frustrating defeat saying: “I’m very disappointed. We haven’t scored enough goals, we’re the lowest scorers.
“We have tightened things up at the back and we’ve played Basford,
Bradford, and Atherton, three teams that are down there and got beaten 1-0 in each game.
“We haven’t scored a goal against those teams and today I think if we’d have played until 10pm we still wouldn’t have scored.”
Boro were annoyed with several decisions that didn’t go their way, including two penalty appeals turned down. Although displeased with the decision-making, Cooke made no excuses for the defeat.
Cooke said: “I don’t want to harp on about referees but ... they sent their manager off after 10-minutes because allegedly the ball hadn’t gone out of play and he picked it up.
“It’s not the officials or the conditions though, you have to play them and it’s the same for both teams. We never got the ball down and played. We rushed stuff and it was bitty.”
Burton Manor Vikings .. 10 Weston Pioneers ............. 0
THE Burton Manor Vikings squad of Gareth Dunn, Colin Burgess and Alison Taylor took a step closer to retaining the title with a 10-0 victory over a Weston Pioneers team comprising Lisa Brown, Clive Cropper and Alistair MacFarlane.
The result now means that Uttoxeter Warriors can no longer overtake the Vikings although they could still have a say in who wins the league as they have to play both the Vikings and second-placed Burton Manor Defenders.
The Defenders side comprising Darren Ball, Ian Moore and Cyril Merriman remain in the race for the top with a 9-1 defeat of Weston Apollo.
Robert Pugh gained the Apollo’s sole success against Cyril Merriman.
The Apollo returned to winning ways overcoming Uttoxeter Potters 7-3, guaranteeing finishing fourth in the table. Bob Elliott and Jim Kelly both scored maximums.