MARINE LIFE IS GETTING BIGGER
MARINE fans will pile onto eight coaches to travel to Macclesfield – and boss Neil Young says that shows how much the club is booming.
The Mariners have sold out their 1,250 allocation with a record NPL Premier play-off crowd at Moss Rose on the cards.
Young’s side beat Warrington Rylands 1-0 on Tuesday night to put themselves into the final dance.
It’s a far cry from when Young took over with the club struggling in Step 3 which ultimately led to relegation.
But the former Chester boss has led a turnaround that has seen them climb back up the Pyramid – with an FA Cup third round clash with Premier League giants Tottenham, then managed by Jose Mourinho, along the way – to be knocking on the door of Step 2 football.
“The last three years we’ve been to the third round of the FA Cup, the first round this year, we’ve been promoted, we’ve won two Liverpool Senior Cups and now we’re in the play-off final – it’s crazy,” Young told The NLP.
“We haven’t thrown money at it all. What we bring in we spend.
“We’ve mainly got young lads. Keeper is on loan, right-back is on loan, left-back has mainly played a league below, my captain is from Witton. Two lads in midfield are 20.
“We managed to bring Bobby Grant in the New Year and then we’ve got Sol Solomon and Fin Sinclair-Smith – and we’ve brought in Jack Bainbridge.
“But we’ve managed to get that momentum. We play a certain way which is all about running and tackling. That’s half of the battle.
“People get caught up with how Man City and Liverpool are playing and forget you’ve got to work hard and find a way yourselves.”
Young has had success at Colwyn Bay and, famously, led Chester to three successive titles before roles at Stockport County and Altrincham.
In that time he’s been involved in enough big games to have the courage to make big decisions but it all comes from a desire to work hard.
“I don’t want to come away from any game knowing on a Tuesday night I could have gone and watched X but I sat on the couch because it was cold,” Young said. “I don’t want to just play my team and then get undone by a set-piece or a good passage of play they do regularly.
“It’s all those things. In the last three years I think that’s stood me in good stead. Especially in the big games. It’s about leaving no stone unturned and getting the best information you can to win the game. Obviously the most important thing is the players carry it out.”
They will be roared on from the away end and Young believes that only goes to show how far the club has come in recent seasons, with Non-League in the area experiencing a real boom.
“We’ve sold out eight coaches from what I am told – when I first arrived we had an average of 300,” Young said. “We won the Liverpool Senior Cup last week and we had 2,000. There were 1,700 on Tuesday. It’s definitely going in an upward direction.”