Tadcaster Albion manager Paul Marshall hopes 93 points will be enough to win the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division title
Tadcaster Albion manager Paul Marshall believes the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division title race will go to the death – just like it did in 2005 – and has targeted reaching 93 points, writes James Grayson (Twitter: @jamesAgrayson).
Marshall won the Division as the boss of Goole AFC in 2005 with 79 points, two more than Selby Town and the Taddy chief sees many similarities.
Three teams missed out narrowly in 2005 and currently in 2014, as many as seven realistically could be crowned champions and earn promotion to the Evo Stik Division One North.
Marshall claims Brighouse are the “favourites” for the league, but says their fixture backlog could count against them.
“This title race is very similar to that one because there are a lot of good teams still in it,” he told Sports Performer.
“Then it was us (Goole), Selby, Pickering, Sheffield, there was a load of good teams and we lost a game at Thackley on Easter Monday and everyone thought we would lose the league.
“The following week we beat Sheffield and won our last few games and Selby lost. I think it will go to the wire again this year. I think it will be exactly the same.
“I’ve said we need nine wins before the win over Garforth – 93 points – might be enough or might not be enough. 93 points is the target. We didn’t have any points targeted for the Brighouse game.
“Brighouse are still the favourites because they have the best team. They have a great team, a good manager and the only thing what is going to be in our favour is that they’re going to struggle to get all their games in.
“They’re going to end up playing Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, there’s no other way.
“The league has got to stop on the Saturday 26th this season. When we went to Shaw Lane a couple of weeks ago for a meeting about fixtures they (the NCEL league) said there would be no extension.”
Tadcaster’s current position at the top of the table is even more astonishing when you consider how the club began the season.
Chairman Rob Northfield resigned for personal reasons just days before the campaign opened and Marshall even had to step in as acting chairman.
The season did not start brightly until they went on a 24 match unbeaten league run which has put them in the title reckoning.
In November, i2i Sports, led by new chairman Matthew Gore and directors James Gore and Kent Mayall, became the new owners and Marshall is delighted about how far the club has travelled in just six months.
“You look to where we were when we played Garforth in August when I upset a few people for saying they were poor and we were worse,” he said.
“We then went to Parkgate and we were awful in that game and to think where we are now with the loss of Rob Northfield and not knowing where the money was going to come from to pay the players.
“It is just a remarkable story and i2i Sports have come in now and taken us to a different level. They want us to be professional as possible. They’re also talking about building a new stadium.
“We got 308 on Saturday for the Garforth game and six years ago when I came here, there were 30 men and a couple of dogs watching.
“To look where the club are going, it is immense. We have just got to do it on the field now as they are doing it behind the scenes.”
Weather permitting, Tadcaster are due to travel to Maltby Main tomorrow.