Young Ben Rhodes has broken into the Stocksbridge Park Steels first team this season
Chris Hilton believes the emergence of Ben Rhodes and Louis Shaw underlines his commitment to give young talent a chance at Stocksbridge Park Steels.
Rhodes played a role in the shock FA Trophy victory at Northwich Victoria last week and has been featuring on a regular basis for the Steels.
Speaking initially about Rhodes, Hilton told Non League Yorkshire: “It is marvellous because he has come through the system and it shows that it works.
“In terms of Ben his attitude is absolutely spot on. He wants to learn, he wants to work and he wants to get better.
“He takes everything on board and he is a pleasure to coach. It is nice to see a lad come through.
“We also have Louis Shaw and he’s another one for the future.
“Both trained with us in pre-season and we have known about them since last season through the second team, who use under 21s players.
“We trust them because they have brought the likes of Jamie Vardy through.
“I’ve always said that if they have any lads, no matter what age they are, I’ll play them if they’re good enough.”
Stocksbridge return to Evo Stik Division One South action tomorrow with the visit of Loughborough Dynamo to Bracken Moor.
The Steels are chasing their first league win since mid-September and Hilton hopes the Northwich victory can provide the springboard.
His squad is boosted by the returns of Andrew Fox and Richard Patterson.
“The Trophy win was a massive boost because Northwich are one of the favourites to win the North Division,” he added.
“We went there and beat them at their place. Clitheroe are sixth in the North Division and we beat them at their place with ten men for half an hour.
“It shows that we can do it. The problem we had all season with young lads playing is the consistency.
“If we can get consistency then we can match any team in our league and hopefully go on a run of four or five matches.
“We need to get back to winning way in the league because it is now five games. We have stopped the rot in terms of losing games as we have had two draws.
“We got over the finish line at Northwich so hopefully we can over the finish line tomorrow.”