Evo Stik South
Stocksbridge Park Steels manager Chris Hilton has achieved a lot in his four years in charge at Bracken Moor
Chris Hilton wants to extend his Stocksbridge Park Steels reign to a fifth campaign and he plans to outline his vision for next season with the club’s committee very soon.
Hilton, the sixth longest-serving Non League manager in Yorkshire, has also warned that there will be changes to the playing personnel, if he is given the green-light to remain in the Bracken Moor home dugout.
“My contract is up at the end of this season and I’m going to sit down with the chairman and see what the club want to do and where they want to go,” Hilton told Non League Yorkshire.
“Those talks will probably start in the next couple of weeks I would have thought.
“My hunger and drive to push this club forward is still there. I think I can achieve things here.
“As far as I’m aware the chairman Allen (Bethel) wants me to stop.
“All being well I’ll be here next season and we will start rebuilding. It is definitely a rebuilding project because we have had our four-year cycle.
“We need some fresh legs in, but while we will lose players to work commitments and moving up Divisions, I wouldn’t say it will be a big overhaul.”
The former Worsbrough Bridge manager has done a magnificent job at Stocksbridge since taking over a relegated club in June 2014.
After steadying a sinking ship in his first year, Hilton has taken the Steels on two magical rides in the FA Trophy and to the Evo Stik South play-offs.
He also led the development of Harrison Biggins who was to League One outfit Fleetwood Town last summer.
His fourth campaign is a blip compared to the rest as Stocksbridge have failed to break into the play-offs.
Reflecting on what has gone wrong and insisting that the season is not over, Hilton said: “We still want to finish as high up the league as we can and get as many points as we can.
“We’re not taking the foot off the gas and we’ll be reiterating that as a management team. I want a top ten finish and finish as close to the play-offs as possible.
“The play-offs aren’t to be this season, we’re nowhere near. There’s a number of factors why they aren’t.
“The fine lines have not gone our way, like they did last season and the season before. We have not finished teams off when we have been in front.
“It is about making the correct decisions in each third of the pitch. We have been caught out plenty of times this season not making the right decisions. We have been punished numerous times.
“This side isn’t consistent enough to be in the play-offs. If you want to be in the top six you have to be consistently doing the right things for the full game and we haven’t been doing that.
“You could look at some games when we have lost and the officials haven’t been very good and look at games when we have had players missing, but it is all excuses.”
Those fine lines were on show again during the 1-1 draw with Lincoln United on Saturday. Joe Lumsden’s first half goal was enough for the Steels until the visitors were awarded a second half injury-time penalty.
Hilton admitted the late equaliser is the story of their campaign.
“Lincoln are the team of the month and they put us under a lot of pressure in the second half,” he added.
“They put a lot of long balls into the box and I thought we dealt with most of them. We did sit back a bit deep and invited pressure on. That shows the lack of confidence with losing three on the bounce.
“We started to panic, but I thought we had got over the finish line until the penalty. We should have held on. The lads are disappointed, I’m disappointed.
“Three points was there for us. We got our noses in front and when you defend like we have done for 90 minutes, it is disappointing. It is even more disappointing that when David Reay saved the penalty and then the rebound that we didn’t react to the second rebound.
“We have to learn from it, but that’s how it has gone for us for most of the season. I think it sums us up.”