PARKY’S BOYS ON A GO-PRO
WHEN Phil Parkinson and Altrincham mapped out their transition to a fulltime football club, it was with days like today in mind.
The Robins had hit a low when the former Nantwich Town boss and his assistant Neil Sorvel took over back in 2017.
Back-to-back relegations had seen the Robins slip down to Step 3. Not many would have dreamt they’d be two games from the EFL seven years later.
Having climbed back up to Non-League’s top table, Alty went full-time last season before improving again for a fourth-place finish to cap a brilliant campaign.
“I feel that way,” Parkinson tells The NLP. “We’ve been here a long time now – seven seasons – and we’ve had a promotion, a play-off, a play-off promotion, we’ve had survival for two years as a part-time outfit, we transitioned to full-time.
“The first full-time team looked like it was on to make the play-offs then in January we lost all our frontline and our captain.
“A lot of teams would have go down with the losses we took on January personnel wise but we recovered well and built again this season. So it’s been an upward trajectory and hopefully we can keep going in that direction.
“When I sit back and reflect on it all, everybody who has contributed – players, staff and everybody – we will go through what we’ve done well and what we need to improve on. That will give me the biggest sense of satisfaction. We had a vision, we had a plan we stuck to, and everything we’re doing is taking us in the right direction.
“We’ve just got to keep doing the right things, as you do in all kinds of industries not just football. It’s that Kaizen culture where you’re always looking at improving and that’s certainly what we do here.”
They need only look at today’s opponents Bromley, who are further ahead on their journey from a parttime to a full-time Football League chasing outfit – and a group of players who aren’t riding their first play-off rodeo.
“We’re coming up against the bit we probably haven’t got compared to them which is experience of these occasions at this point of the season,” Parkinson says.
“They’ve perennially been in and around the play-offs, they’ve had a couple of trips to Wembley now, so there’s definitely little bit where I think people will be looking at it, ‘It is Bromley’s year?’
“But, for us, the bit I take a lot of hope in is the fact this team are really capable of overcoming all obstacles and better teams, on paper, than we’ve got here.
“We’re probably underdogs going into the game but we don’t feel that way. We feel like we can go there and get something – even though we know it’s going to be a massive ask to do that.” When Alty made the move to full-time, Parkinson didn’t hide things would change at the traditional NonLeague powerhouse. Where longterm stalwarts from their part-time days moved on, a fresh crop of youngsters have arrived, led by talents like 22-year-old Chris Conn-Clarke. Will the old adage of youngsters not worrying about pressure come through?
“They are young and I don’t think it affects them the same way,” Parkinson says. “That’s what I’m saying with experience – when you’ve experienced it you know how much it hurts and you don’t want that again.
“That’s the bit you can’t coach. You’ve just got to make them aware they’ve got a great opportunity. As much as we’d love it to be year-onyear, we’re Altrincham and we’re sort of new to this.
“If we don’t go up this time, we’ve got to show we can do it again and learn from it. But I don’t want them to have to do that. I want them to show what good players they are. We believe we’ve got a lot of EFL players in this squad. If they want to realise that dream, they’ve got to come through these types of games.
“There are no easy games in the play-offs. That’s why we’re all there and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”