Steady progress

Billy Barr’s squad has been going through the pre-season schedule making steady progress, but face an important fortnight before the serious, competitive football gets underway in early August.

The manager is happy with the way things have gone, but certainly not complacent, and knows, better than anyone, that pre-season in semi-professional football is a juggling act.

There is always the availability issue to contend with as players take their well- deserved holidays during the crucial July/August period and many miss various sessions at that time.

Fitness work, team structure, tactical approach, patterns of play, set piece and throw-in routines, the building of a player’s confidence, bonding, team spirit and general wellbeing are just some of the topics that need to be covered ahead of the season proper.

The ability to ‘learn on the job’ is a good asset to have because it cannot all be banked in the friendly matches.

Losing Friday’s fixture at Consett was not ideal, especially after we had decided not to go ahead with another option a few days earlier.

And it would have been to everyone’s benefit to have played another one or two games at the Fibrus Community Stadium.  The players were delighted with the facilities, and particularly the pitch, for the Carlisle United game but more familiarity with the surroundings would have helped prior to the Redcar Athletic game.

First day at the Fibrus.

Club officials identified numerous teething problems that need to be resolved moving forward, but the match day experience was well received by the majority and will soon match, or emulate, our Tuesdays and Saturdays at Borough Park.

The quality of opposition in four of the pre-season matches might not have been at the best standard in terms of preparation, but every game provides a different challenge and there were certainly positives taken from each of those games.

Billy has used twenty-seven different players in the warm-up games, eleven have whom have featured in all four matches.  Seven players have shared the goals and we have also benefitted from a couple of OGs.

The squad is slowly taking shape, but by no means complete, and is certainly looking that bit stronger and more experienced than where we were twelve months ago.

They trained on Thursday and have two sessions this week before the final ’dress rehearsal’ at Clitheroe next Saturday.  That will be followed by two more get-togethers before the 8 August start at Gainsborough Trinity.