AFTER having to replace a number of key players, Stocksbridge Park Steels manager Chris Hilton has called for patience this season.
Joe Lumsden, Matt Reay and David Reay are among the players to have left with Aaron Moxam, Brad Beatson, Kane Swinburn, Kurtis Turner and Tyler Williams coming in.
Hilton told Non-League Yorkshire:
“I had a feeling we would lose the players we did do. We were disappointed to lose Joe, but these things happen. I wish everyone who has left all the best.
“We’ve kept a good core of last season’s squad and recruitment has gone well. There was one other target we had, but we decided against it because the club he was with wanted some money for him and we weren’t prepared to pay. We’re not that type of club.
“I’m pretty happy with what we have got and I’m still looking at a couple of other players.
“There’s no doom and gloom, but people have to realise that it is a little bit of a rebuild. It is not massive, but we have lost six players from last season.
“We have to bring six players and they have to be of the same quality, if not better for us to push on. But we have to give them time to gel and get them used to the way we play.
“It can take a season to click, it could take a week or six months. It is now about how hard myself, Lee Thompson and Ryan Laight and Shaun Handisides work the lads in training to get them playing the way we want to do.
“We’re at the start of that. The Nostell game really is the first one. The Sheffield United and Rotherham United games, let’s face it, you’re playing against professionals and you don’t get a lot of the ball.
“We now need to progress against Parkgate, Penistone and then Worsbrough and show that we are progressing and getting better.”
Stocksbridge lost 4-1 to a strong Rotherham side before drawing 1-1 with lower league opposition Nostell. Scott Ruthven was the scorer for Steels in both games.
Steels travel to Penistone Church on July 26 and host a Sheffield Wednesday X! on Saturday August 4 at 3pm at Look Local Stadium.
