Manager Jon Moran shares his thoughts below on all things Dabbers from November…
By Jon Moran
Hello everyone and welcome back to my second “Dabbers Diary” edition.
It has been another fantastic month for me personally and for the club, as we have continued to prove our ability on the pitch, most notably at home where we have won 6 games on the bounce. By all means I am happy, but I will be the first person to say we have a lot of work to do. Before I get into some first team updates/thoughts, I just wanted to share some of the things I have been up to over the last month and some of the things this amazing club has been getting involved in.
First of all, a big congratulations to the football club for being Highly Commended in the contribution to the community category at the South Cheshire Chamber Business Awards. This is no mean feat as we came up against some fantastic community-based projects/businesses, where to be even in the same running shows just how much amazing work the club has been doing. Congratulations to all the volunteers who have helped to make this happen. It was a true honour to be able to attend on behalf of Nantwich Town and again, it just really helped me realise just how fortunate I am to be able to represent this club as first team manager.
I also sat down with the NTISA at their most recent meeting, where I had the opportunity to meet some of the people who embody everything that’s great about the club. Their support goes much further than just supporting the team and they selflessly give their time and resources to help raise funds to ultimately provide a better experience for everyone visiting and using the facilities, with some very exciting things in progress.
It was a real pleasure and I was really pleased to see so many faces. We spoke in depth about some of the things myself and my team have been working on and I shared my thoughts on the season so far, my transition into management and also some brief updates around the first team. While I saw this as a great opportunity to share my thoughts, I enjoyed hearing about their vision, as well as the current and future projects in the works. I look forward to hopefully joining them again before the end of the season. I think it’s wonderful for us all to be working together, closer, with a shared vision of improving things within the facilities and I look forward to being a part of ultimately, hopefully, exciting and successful times.
Thank you to everyone who joined and continues to join the supporters association, as without you guys I know full well this club wouldn’t be where it is today. Thank you.
Alongside building the link between the fans, I have been keen to build the link to our youth set up. I sat down with Ryan Jones, U21s manager, and his assistant Rich Pullar, where we discussed in great depth our vision going forward, specifically my view on youth and the talent we have coming through. While I won’t openly share all of our conversation, I made it very clear I want to have a closer link to the youth teams, notably with the view to offering more of an opportunity to our “homegrown” players in experiencing first team football. In a results focused environment it is difficult to take “risks” on youth. Or at least that’s what I have been told. The squad I currently have contains 11 players under the age of 23, 8 under the age of 21 and 2 recently promoted youth players. I am a firm believer in the good old-fashioned saying “if they are good enough, they are old enough” and I will stand by that. You will have hopefully seen young Reece Vaughan made his debut for the club, at just 17, in a recent Cheshire Senior Cup game and I can openly say he didn’t look out of place.
With that being said, I do need to ensure I am making an effort to watch and attend as many youth sessions/games as possible, which is a commitment I am making here in this forum. So if you are a young Dabber reading this, then you never know who could be watching… It is also important I remind everyone just how well our U21s have done this season so far, they currently sit top of what appears to be an extremely competitive league, so I really have no excuses not to keep an eye out. I am attending their home game on the 8th of December, so if you are free then get yourself down too!
Now onto the Men’s first team and some of my views on what I would argue has been another extremely positive month. Sadly, we haven’t gone unbeaten as was my first goal and sadly we haven’t won every single game as was my other. But we have shown clear signs of development and learnt a number of valuable lessons. We have also been able to secure young Paddy Kennedy on a contract to remain at the club, a clear sign of the ambitions we hold and the trust our young players have in my management team and the club itself. I am delighted Paddy has agreed to stay and can’t wait to support his development even further.
We started November with a controlled victory against City of Liverpool, a team in transition and a game that could easily have been a serious banana skin. We followed this with a disappointing result against Hyde in the Senior Cup. I want to win every game, so regardless of the opposition, I expect my teams to want to do the same and therefore I expected a reaction. We got just that against Stalybridge, where we were 4-0 victors against a side on the up and a side managed by a very experienced manager. We then went away to Clitheroe, a side who have had a slightly topsy turvy start to the season, driven by their strong home form which proved to be an extremely challenging game. I would argue this was the most disappointing result so far in my eyes, as while a neutral would argue otherwise, I felt like we should have held on to win that game 1-0. We tried a different shape and I made substitutions at different points which may have unsettled things slightly and as such we ultimately walked away with a solid 1-1 draw. As disappointed as I was, the important thing from this game was the fact that we fought hard and showed courage to battle against a side who were pinned as potential league favourites at the start of the year and ultimately, if you don’t win, you don’t lose. We then went into another tough home game against an in-form Atherton Collieries, where we put on what I would argue was one of our most controlled and solid performances of the season so far. In a game with goals at both ends of the game, it should really have been a cosier scoreline. However, it was another clean sheet, which is something my team have been challenged to build on.
Finally, and most recently, we were taught a really valuable lesson in how to defend for your lives by Avro FC, where we played against 10 men for almost 60 minutes. In fairness to Avro, through their sheer commitment and work ethic, I felt they deserved something from the game. However, given we had 80% of the ball, we should have done better and we must find ways to break teams down and to ultimately put away chances. Again, a really disappointing result, but another clear sign of how far we have come as a group in such a short period of time. If anyone has the time to listen to the Atherton manager’s interview post match, you will hear him speak extremely highly of my team. This message was also reciprocated by the Avro manager who believed we were the best team they had played thus far. Sadly, this makes things even more frustrating, as while my opinions are starting to be shared by the wider footballing community, opinions don’t get you wins and wins are what you need to be successful.
We now enter an extremely tough December, with some really exciting games. I can’t wait to see even more Dabbers through the doors across our home games and just want to use this opportunity to thank everyone who has attended so far. I just want you all to know just how important your support is to us, especially given our brilliant run at home. I can certainly speak on behalf of my players and say that we are all extremely proud to represent you fans on the pitch and that we will continue to work tirelessly to make you just as proud of us.
Thanks again for all the support, I look forward to seeing you all against Vauxhall in a couple of weeks where we plan to continue our current run of form.
Up the Dabbers.