Evo Stik Division One North
Ossett Town manager Grant Black celebrates the first anniversary of his appointment next month. Picture: Mark Gledhill
Teams are now upping their games at Ossett Town, according to Grant Black.
Ossett’s brilliant first half to the season has turned them into surprise play-offs contenders, but at a cost.
Their most recent opponents Colne celebrated their victory at Ingfield last Saturday like winning a cup final.
“The lads have got to adapt and start learning that they are a scalp now,” Black told Non League Yorkshire.
“Teams are coming to us and they are putting in an extra 10% as we have seen. That’s because we are there to be shot at. The lads have got to get that mentality in their heads.
“Teams are coming in kicking doors, screaming, singing like they have won the league because they have got three points at Ossett Town.
“That’s the mentality now. We’re no longer a gimme and we have to get used to that.”
Despite collecting only one point from their last three matches, Ossett are still flying high and they sit in third and Black is urging his players to not throw away all their hard work in the final months of the season.
“We have been quite lucky in that teams around us have been dropping points,” he said.
“Trafford have drawn a couple of games, Scarborough have lost their last two. Lancaster have kicked on a little bit in the last couple of weeks.
“We just need to keep on everyone’s coat-tails in the top eight and see where it takes us. We’ve done the hard work to get to where we are and if it was a race we would be 200m into it.
“We don’t want to fall at that last 100m and we will be doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t get away from us.”
Regardless of where Ossett eventually finish, Black can be still very proud of himself.
The up and coming manager celebrates his first anniversary in charge at Ingfield next month, a year in which he has completely changed the landscape at the club.
“It was a sinking ship when we came in and no-one gave us a sniff of staying up,” he said.
“But we did our jobs our and kept the club up. That’s gone and we wanted to compete and not be whipping boys this season and credit to everyone we have done that.
“Results-wise it has been a good year.”
Ossett visit Goole AFC tomorrow.