LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL FOR HARRY’S U’S
Play-maker eyes play-offs again
HARRY BEAUTYMAN reckons National League clubs have realised Sutton United are no flash in the pan when it comes to promotion credentials.
Paul Doswell’s U’s were one of 2017-18’s surprises as they jostled Macclesfield and Tranmere for the title before eventually finishing third.
They fell in the play-off semi-final to Boreham Wood, but it represented another successful season for the Surrey club following on from past achievements like reaching the FA Cup fifth round the previous campaign.
This year they are back in the promotion picture aiming to go better and midfielder Beautyman thinks the division is recognising their quality on the back of some good times.
“I think it’s made other clubs respect us a bit more,” he told The
NLP. “Especially at the start of last season, clubs may have come to Sutton thinking it would be an easy game.
“If anything, clubs are now giving us a lot of respect. Teams are coming and sitting in whereas a couple of years ago that may not have happened.
“They put men behind the ball a bit more, they respect us and deservedly so with how well we’ve done. It’s not just over the last couple of years but over the last four or five years with the club getting promoted from the Conference South, having a good FA Cup run and then finishing third last season.
Ambitions
“The club has gone from strength to strength and we want to build on that as much as we can. “We had a great year last year, but we let ourselves down in the play-off semifinal. That’s football, it can happen. “But to come back the way we have is a credit to the club, the staff and the players.” Despite three league draws on the spin at the back end of November and into December, a fruitful festive period brought four wins from five games.
Beautyman says they are aiming to build on that platform now and sees no reason why they shouldn’t be confident of lasting the pace – even if the bar has been raised when it comes to points.
“It’s a funny one – if you look at us this time last year, we were sitting third in the league,” the former England C dynamo said. “This time around we’ve got more points, scored more goals, conceded less and we’re a few places below that.
“It just goes to show how tough the league is this year. Leyton Orient, Salford, Wrexham – there’s a lot of teams going really well this year.
“We knew it would be competitive at the start of the season because there are a lot of big clubs.
“People would have maybe looked at us as being dark horses, but we’ve always been confident. We had a really good season last year and this year we’re doing well again.
“Our record against teams in the top nine has been really good. We’ve dropped points against teams further down the table but we’ve got back on the horse and done really well of late. It’s looking positive. We take one game at a time and try to keep in and amongst it.”