MICHAEL
DUNWELL
I
GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME TO THE MAP GROUP UK STADIUM FOR TONIGHT’S FA CUP GAME AGAINST SHILDON
’d like to start off by welcoming you all back to the MAP Group UK Stadium for the first competitive match in six months. I never thought it’d happen and that we’d have such a break from football to be honest. It took the team a while during pre-season, but in the last two games against South Shields and Whitby Town, we got back to where we want to be at, especially where we finished back in March before football came to a stop. We had a long pre-season, we normally only have four or five weeks, but we’ve had eight or nine this summer, so it took a while to get the players motivated, we saw it in the pre-season games, but in the last couple of weeks they’ve really hit the ground running and got back to where they were last season. It is a bit strange to have football back, but also because we aren’t allowed to have more than an allocated number of fans in the ground too. It is a bit difficult, but it is just good to have fans back. Those first three pre-season games were more like training games because there was none or very little fans in. The pace wasn’t there, but the last two games, especially at Whitby with there being 300 fans and on a good pitch, it was a good game and the players stepped up to that. They’ve done that over the last few performances and hopefully that’s a good sign of what’s to come, especially for tonight’s match. In those two games, we saw a lot more work rate compared to the other games, we were getting the ball forward a lot quicker. We worked on that in the sessions before the South Shields and Whitby games. In and out stockton_townfc
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“IF YOU PRIORITISE ONE COMPETITION, YOU LOSE THAT CONTINUITY OF WINNING GAMES, SO WE WANT TO WIN EVERY GAME.” of play, the players were working a lot harder and that’s just with the fitness coming. They look a lot fitter than what they did at the start, although they did come back in great shape. There’s been some real positives this pre-season, the squad is strong. This is one of the toughest draws we could’ve got in the FA Cup, they were out closest challengers in the league last season. We done well in both games against Shildon last season, won both home and away, so looking at that, we will go into the game with confidence, but it’s a one off cup game, there’s no extra time and no replay’s this year, straight to penalties. We haven’t been in this competition for that many years, so it’s a special one for us. Last year we had a great run in it and we were unlucky to get beat of Guiseley, who were three or four leagues above us. We were unlucky not to take it back to a replay, but we had some good away days. We played away at Liversedge and I think we took four or five coaches down there and the same with Guiseley. Although the fans might not be able to do that anytime soon, if we get through then we’ll be playing against Billingham Town away. Winning breeds confidence and we are going into every game wanting to win.
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