Lee’s View

Welcome back to Station View

Welcome to Droylsden, all their management team, players and staff for the opening day of the Evostick North campaign,

It seems like an absolute age since I took the role of first team manager and I feel like I have spoken to hundreds of players throughout the last three months. Finally we are here and with competitive fixtures which is why we are involved with football and the sport we love.

I feel like I have been at Railway for a long time now having spent three years as a player, three years as assistant and now making the step up to first team manager is an honour and I am proud that the club and committee put faith in me to ensure that we do well this season in all competitions but primarily the league.

We had an absolutely fantastic season last year and to finish in eighth place was an unbelievable achievement, throw in the FA cup run that we had and it is safe to say the season was beyond our ambitions at the start of the season.

We now enter a new season with a new management team and a new group of players that are all hungry to do well at this level.

It has taken time and patience to get the squad together and I am now happy with the players we have recruited and the age of the squad. We are a young side and a side that I am hopeful can grow together and over the next few seasons can really grow into an exciting group of players.

I am sure over the coming weeks I will speak about individual players and how they are performing, but I think I should mention Dan Thirkell in my first program notes.

Dan had an offer from Tadcaster and he turned it down and I was delighted to secure his services for the season. He enters his eleventh season at the club and at this level of football that is unheard of when players often move around from club to club. I have made Dan club captain, and I believe he is now of an age and a maturity that can see him lead the club through his best playing years.

He is influential around the changing rooms and as them that know him are aware, he knows when to be serious and when to lighten the mood.

Through pre season we have played some teams above us and also teams below and in total played 9 fixtures, this may seem to many people a lot of games, but in this current climate, I feel that matches serve better than training sessions to provide match fitness, it also has given the players extra time to gel as a team and get to know how I want the changing room to be.

I believe we are a lot closer as a unit than we might have been but we still have to take our time to adjust to the league and give the players the chance to prove they can compete at this level. I looked around the changing room at the Harrogate Town friendly and really thought we had a good squad and I believe that we can do well this season.

When the fixtures were released, I was told by everyone what a difficult start we had, Spennymoor, Brighouse, Scarborough, Clitheroe and todays visitors Droylsden. I agree without a doubt, its difficult but then you look through all the teams and is there an easy game? I don’t think any fixtures are easy at this level and the players are well aware of this. I love that about this league and as you look through social media at the different teams you see that everyone recruits good players. So early on in the season you have a look at the results and see where teams are and who will be thereabouts at both at the top and bottom of the league.

But for the first game, how can you judge? Pre-season results mean nothing, everyone knows that and when you are changing formations and personal its hard to get a true reflection of how teams will do. I have obviously kept an eye on Droylsden as I am sure they have on us but today will be a marker post to get us started and something that we can constantly try to improve on.

Last season we played Droylsden away on the third match and although we took the lead through Ryan Sharrocks an injury to John Maloney set us back and we lost 6-1. At that point we believed Droylsden would take some stopping, but they fell off a bit but I am sure they will be in and around the highest reaches of the league this time around. At Station View we won 4-3 in a cracking match.

I hope that you enjoy the season and support us throughout, football is always a roller coaster of a ride and I don’t see this season being any different,