Open Forum - Feedback Part 2

[RobYeltz]

The second part of the forum began with Colin introducing team captain Joe Hull and asking him to explain his career so far..
Colin was of the opinion that the captaincy, and the additional responsibility in particular has improved Joe's game. Even managing to get on the score sheet quite regularly recently.
JoeH: Began his career at Kidderminster and then moved on to Redditch playing at the age of 18. He is actually 22 today. He spoke of the injuries he has picked up, mainly his shoulder which has been operated on three times in the last three years. He said he was happy at Halesowen and in particular was happy to be captain, agreeing with Colin that he felt the responsibility was helping his game. He said the players were great to work with and enjoyed the work with the coaches.
Colin asked Joe if Brendan helped his game and Joe agreed it had. Colin again spoke of the strength of the defenders with good mix of the 'Young and the old'.
Colin felt that much of the reason why we were doing so well was because of the strength of the defenders. Without Ben's goals it was more important to keep clean sheets to try and nick results. Colin quoted Bill Shankley from his autobiography stating that 'goals win games, clean sheets win titles'. Colin explained if we have to go away from home and keep a clean sheet and nick a goal then so be it. Colin was quick to praise the players in that as much as we have missed Ben since his injury, the players have still gone out and scrapped for every point getting 46pts from 21 games. On one occasion there was 30 goals scored this season from players not on the pitch. With the players we've had missing (Ben, Laity, JMG) we have to be realistic on the type of football we play. Colin praised the great job JH, Trev and Kev Barry have done so far this season. The first half of season has been great and in particular the last couple of months without Ben, the squad has shown a togetherness and Colin believes it is the closest bunch of players he has seen in 20 years at the club. It isn't the best team he has seen but it is the hardest working, particularly when not in possession of the ball. There won't be many teams get a 0-2 and 0-1 away win on that surface like we did last week in Sutton.
Colin mentioned the two games in Sutton saying they summed up everything that is Halesowen Town at the moment. Organisation, teamwork and the players are giving every ounce for HTFC. JH is working on one of the lowest budgets in years. Colin spoke of the hard work going on behind the scenes of Mike, John and Steve to try and generate funds to help the cause. You wouldn't believethe work going on behind the scenes. He admitted that the football might not always be pretty, but bear with us as hopefully, it might be as successful a season as we've had in a good while.

Question 1

Regarding tactics, or an explanation really on why, when we have a goal kick does it appear that great big blanket could be thrown over 20 players all standing narrow on the pitch, why is there not a wide player staying outside?

JH: If the wide players start out wide, in effect we're 4-2-4 and not in possession of the football. Should we not win the first, or the second ball we would have too many players the wrong side of the ball. We ask the players to stay narrow, and then break out. We stay narrow to protect what we have, and then we break out. We want the players to express themselves in the right areas of the pitch but we want to get hold of the ball first.
JH commented now that few teams play with wingers as many teams play a variation of 4-2-3-1 with the width coming from the full backs. Football has become a more narrow game and the expansive midfield players have come more to light recently. JH spoke of the fact that maybe we could do with a little more flair but it comes at a cost. He believed that we start with a point and we should hold onto that first and build from it.
Trevor commented that every player knows they first and foremost have to put a shift on, whether they're a flair player or not. As games go on we know we're one of the fittest teams in the league in the last three games alone we've scored six goals in the last 15 minutes of games. Our concentration levels are good behind the flair players like Michel, but our flair players have to work too. Every player knows their job, and if one player isn't doing their job it has a knock on effect. Some players have might come to our club and do what is expected of them and move on, often you can see the difference in a player who hasn't had a HTFC pre season.
Trevor mentioned Tonksy, stating people have various opinions of him, throw ins and all, but the shift he puts in shows what we are all about, he plays in pain where some other players wouldn't even start a game. If he was phoned to come and train at 9pm tonight he would be there.
The more clean sheets we have, the more other teams value scoring against us as they see a goal against us as a big thing. Sometimes they'll push on too many players and we can hurt them. Success will bring on attractiveness to our game. When we first came here we had 85-100 watching us, now we're up to 300 and we take more to away games than we used to have at home. The players are enjoying it and there is a good feeling about the club right now. We're halfway there and we'll get there eventually.

Colin mentioned how superb the fans have been this season home and away and we're currently up 23-24% on last season. At the end of a home game when the fans wait to applaud the lads off the pitch in the shed it is brilliant. Thank you on behalf of the players.

JH came back to the point of more expansive football, and felt if we were more expansive in our play we wouldn't have won so many games. Mickleover came and played the majority of the football and lost the game.

NM mentioned the first 20 minutes against Gresley where they passed us off the park but we battered them 5-0. We did a complete job on them. Our front two tore them apart and we played to our strengths.
BK mentioned then that JH received contact from two Gresley (one of the arguably their best player) players a few days after the game as they wanted to join us. Teams historically who have got promoted from this league haven't always been the best footballing teams in the league. When we train twice a week, we all know our jobs. Not many teams can breaks us down, we've scored some great team and individual goals this season.

Ben injury update to follow in Part 3