FAN PASSION BOOSTS GAV
ENFIELD TOWN boss Gavin Macpherson says the Towners will know exactly who they’re playing for when they turn up at Chatham Town.
On the back of the fan-powered club’s highest ever attendance of 2,225 for Wednesday’s semi-final win over Wingate & Finchley, they now travel to deep Kent for their first ever Step 3 play-off final.
Formed in 2001, Town are the first supporter owned club in the country and boss Macpherson says his squad embrace the responsibility.
“You’ve got to understand the club,” Macpherson told The NLP. “A huge nucleus of the support has come from the old, famous Enfield club having started again as fanrun. Then you’ve got a new generation who live locally and totally understand the foundations of the club. They’re the next generation to take this through.
“They’re a very passionate lot. I’ve got a lot of time for everyone there. It’s a different mix for me in respect of my old club (Met Police) but it’s a really good experience. When Enfield Town is rocking then you certainly know about it.
“For players, they will want to understand the football angle and what I am about. Players like Jake Cass are massively entwined within the football club. They understand it, are part shareholders and things like that. It’s important we emphasise what it’s all about to other players because you really do need to get the foundation of this football club to understand how it ticks.”
The support is shown by the fact 300 fans travelled to Copenhagen recently to see their side qualify for the final four of the Fenix Trophy – where they will meet Prague Raptors in this month’s semi-final – and, while disappointed at their allocation on safety reasons today, have quickly sold their 400 tickets. The final day draw with the Chats – where a rogue whistle from the crowd led to their visitors equalising – meant they couldn’t grab second place.
But Macpherson knows what lies ahead regardless.
“We haven’t got an easy one, that’s for sure – you never do because teams that are in the play-offs over 42 matches are always going to be good sides,” Macpherson said. “We include ourselves in that. The fact we’re away from home probably lends the advantage to Chatham.
“But we’ve got ourselves here. We knew the rules of the competition before it started with respect to home advantage. It just means we’ve got to be a bit more resilient and try to do the job in hand.”
And they will stick with what has got them here.
“My experience of the play-offs before has been that very rarely do you produce one of your finer performances,” he said. “They can become edgy, nervy experiences. Every single game I’ve been involved in in the play-offs – and Wednesday was my fifth – has been one goal either way.
“But we trusted ourselves to be ourselves. We stayed true to certain things we do. It wasn’t our finest but we got ourselves over the line.”