Darren Holmes admitted he could not really fault of any his and Lee Vigars’ Glasshoughton Welfare players after the FA Cup extra preliminary round penalty shootout defeat to Knaresborough Town.
Glasshoughton matched their Toolstation NCEL Premier Division for long periods in the 1-1 draw and were very unlucky to lose on spot kicks.
“Yes and no (that we can’t be too downbeat),” Holmes told Non League Yorkshire.
“Because of the money side of it, a club like Glasshoughton needs every penny it can get.
“Performance-wise, if we play like that week-in-week-out we’ll do alright. It was a pleasing performance. We have played Knaresborough a few times over the years and it has always been a tough game.
“They always seem to play a similar way every-time we play them. They have some big lads at the back and they are good from set-pieces and they try and hit the diagonals to the wide men who are usually quite quick.
“They have tried to do that tonight and to be fair to our lads I think we’ve played well tonight. We held our own against a team which is from a league above and in patches we played quite well.
“We battled hard and unfortunately lost in the worst way possible.”
The Glasshoughton line-up contained many of the familiar faces from last season’s squad which surprised many by mounting a promotion bid following a disastrous start.
Ruthless striker Nathan Perks is the notable name missing from their team as he has moved on to Pickering Town in the Northern Premier Division.
Holmes has neither ruled out a new replacement for Perks or any further signings.
“Managers would be lying if they said they weren’t always looking to strengthen,” he said.
“We are certainly in a better position than we were last year and we have retained the majority of the lads from last year.
“Obviously Nathan (Perks) has moved on up. We are going to keep looking and seeing who’s available, but the lads are working hard.
“We are quite happy with what we have got at the minute, but if anyone does come available who takes our eye then we’ll have a look at them.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams so now as we slowly return to ‘action’, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and because of the cancelled Lucille Rollinson Memorial Tournament, we are down on projected income for the year and we have incurred losses in the last few months.
We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without worries over the organisation’s finances. Several of our players are suffering from effects of the lockdown and we are determined to be in the strongest position possible to provide services for them.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.
