Page 11 - Patchway Town FC v Hardwicke 070423

Manager’s View

Afternoon everyone

Today we welcome the management, players, officials and
supporters of Hardwicke FC to Norman Scott Park for the
first of 2 matches in the Marcliff Gloucestershire County
League, over the Easter weekend.
We arrive today after seeing a cliched ‘game of two halves’
in our last fixture against Cribbs reserves, a couple of weeks
ago. The lads put in a fantastic performance in the first half
against the league leaders and to come in at half time 1 nil
down, after missing a penalty and having a goal wrongly disallowed, was both encouraging
but frustrating at the same time. Unfortunately, our second half performance saw us make far
too many individual mistakes and collectively, we collapsed which simply isn’t good enough.
If we lose matches due to teams being better than us then we take it on the chin but what
we won’t accept is when we roll over for teams who want it more than us, which is exactly
what happened in the last 45 minutes.
As a group, we understand that todays match is absolutely massive, against a side who are
also fighting for their lives alongside us in the table. We are the home team so we need to
use that to our advantage and go into it in a positive manner from the first whistle and take
the game to them. We are in a mini league now for our final 8 matches and it’s about finishing
as high in that as we can, to ensure that we keep our status in this league for next season .
Taking the second half against Cribbs out of the equation, we are extremely happy with how
our form has been over our past 3/4 matches and those are the levels that we need to stay
at. No game in this league is easy but we certainly feel that we are playing well enough now
to be able to pick up points and ease the pressure of the dreaded R word. Two games in 3
days is always going to be difficult but it’s the same for every team in the league so we have
to make sure that we are up for the fight, starting today.
We have been fortunate enough to add some new (and old) faces to the squad recently and
this quality is exactly what we need as we get to the business end of the season. The club is
definitely in a good place again both on and off the pitch and after a few months of gloom
around the festive period, the atmosphere has definitely been lifted again and that is down
to the recent performances and results of all three sides.
Good luck to the reserves today, who are away to Bristol Barcelona after what was a fantastic
result last Saturday at Thornbury Town reserves, scoring 2 goals in the final 7 minutes to pick
up a much deserved point. (Programme notes wrote before the Iron Acton match!!) No
fixture again for the A’s today.
On behalf of the management and players at the club, I would like to thank you all as always
for your continued support, especially to the volunteers behind the scenes who do so much
for this football club that we all take for granted! I can assure each and everyone of you that
it is very much appreciated by us all.
We hope that you enjoy todays match and we look forward to seeing you all in the bar
afterwards.

Up the Patch

Rich Lee
Assistant Gaffer