Manager's Notes - Richard Kay

RICHARD KAY

A warm welcome to the players, staff and committee of Milton United for todays Hellenic one league game. Its another team we played back when we relaunched in 2019 in the challenge cup.

It’s been a hectic start to life back at step 6. We have played 180 minutes of competitive league football where, bar a crazy 10 minutes against Long Crendon, we have been really competitive in both games. Our previous home game against Crendon we were bang in the game for an hour. It was never a 5-2 game but we were punished for some really poor game management and decision making

Tuesday night away to Abingdon was much more like us. Midweek games away are a huge challenge. It was a 3 hour round trip after work but the players gave a performance full of energy with a much better mindset and mentality. Abingdon will be a tough place to go this season.

Defensively it was chalk and cheese to Saturday and we looked a threat on the counter where our final pass or quality in or around the box was lacking on the night. After conceding late on the players reacted really well to have a right go for the final ten minutes plus five minutes added time. The players went to the final whistle in search of an equaliser which was pleasing. It just wouldn’t bounce for us.

The players are now under no illusions how hard they have to work to compete at this level. Organisation, decision making

and quality in key moments is the recipe for success.

Out of the 19 team league we are probably 19th in terms of our resources and hardly out of nappies when it comes to being an established non-league club. The club has had a proud non league history but since the re launch in 2019 the club has only really started being ran as community business very recently. We were never going to close the gap in one preseason but everyone at the club is working hard after being crippled by historic debt to get on a level playing field.

Nothing about this season will be on a level playing field for us as a club. Its going to take an unbelievable team spirit and togetherness for us to establish ourselves at this level.

We will have to show fight, resilience and dig deep like never before in our recent new 3 year history and meet this challenge head on.

Enjoy the gameUTS

Rich Kay