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Herbst happy with mid-table finish
By Stuart Wickham stuart@westdorsetmag.co.uk
Bridport manager Chris Herbst has told The West Dorset Magazine of his delight at their mid-table finish, and is targeting a promotion push in 2023/24 campaign.
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Herbst guided his team from the lower reaches of the South West Peninsula League, to the relative comfort of eleventh place, and is confident that there is more to come next season. He said: “I’m confident we can push on from here and we will be targeting the top four or five next time. I’m over the moon with eleventh place and am sure we can continue to build. When I took over with us at the bottom, I said I was aiming for a finish in mid-table, so I’m delighted with this.
“We did start to show signs of the struggle towards the end of the season, so we will need to build the squad up. With the backlog of games, they came thick and fast at the end, and that took its toll with some injuries. We called up some from the reserves, but they had the same challenges, so we were down to 15 or 16 in the squad. When you have so few players and less time for them to recover, it’s natural that you’ll pick up more niggles, so the cycle continues.”
Herbst is looking to bolster the squad in the close season. He said: “If I can keep the core of players and add four or five more through the spine of the team, I think we’ll be well-placed to challenge near the top next season. We think we’ve got a striker on his way, and would like to strengthen with a right back, centre back and central midfielder too.”
Herbst took over the reins from Edgar Marcu and building up the team’s fitness levels on his arrival was a priority. Chris said: “It was obvious that they were behind with their fitness when I joined, so we had to have a mini pre-season during the season, just to try and build the players’ fitness and stamina. That was quite hard to do. This time, it will be great to be able to build up their levels during the summer. We’ve recruited a new fitness coach, so when the players return on June 27, we’ll be good to go and hope to be in better shape.”
Bridport Town FC are always open to hearing from potential new players from the local area. Please contact the club for details.
