Triumphant boss Mike Thompson has hailed his title-winning Beverley Town players after the Humber Premier League crown was clinched on Saturday.
Beverley were able to get the champagne out after winning 4-0 at third-placed Westella & Willerby, completing a fairytale first season in management for Thompson who left his player/coach role at Northern Premier League bound Bridlington Town to take charge of Beverley last year.
The victory was their seventh in a row since the early April restart and Thompson said the success was down to his and assistant Gary Allanson’s players’ total commitment throughout a campaign filled with uncertainty.
“The boys have been phenomenal and for me personally it couldn’t have been a better start (in management),” Thompson told Non League Yorkshire.
“It has been a whirlwind (first season in management) when you think about how it started.
“We started pre-season in a private park because we couldn’t get into the school where we’d normally train and we weren’t really sure where the season was going to go.
“You look at the year we have had and it has been a strange one with the two stoppages, but the biggest thing for me is when we started again in April.
“We had a longer break than we have for a close season and we had ten days’ notice from the local FA that we were going to start again.
“For the boys to be good to go and be as consistent as we have been since then, I couldn’t be happier as we have a 100% record since we have come back.
“We didn’t even know if we were going to start again. Our last game before the lockdown was on the 12th December and our first game back was on the 3rd April, but the lads knew where we were and what we had achieved at the beginning of the season.
“We lost our second game of the season to South Cave and it is the only game we have lost.
“We made four changes after that game and we won four games on the trot with four clean sheets so the boys saw that something good was happening.
“So when we went into the last lockdown it was very much ‘look after yourselves, we can’t train, but please do things personally’.
“When the guidance changed in March and we could do one-on-one training sessions the boys bought into that. I said I was willing to give up my time on a Tuesday and Thursday.
“We knew we had lads who were willing to go the extra mile and it has shone through when you look at where we have finished.”
Fitness has played a part in their post-lockdown form, but Thompson insists that is not the only reason for their triumph.
“Fair play to the league, they gave special dispensation for using five subs,” he said.
“But I think we have seen in every fixture we have played we have grinded teams down from minute one.
“Before the lockdown we were scoring a lot of late goals when teams were starting to tire. That’s not really changed.
“Post-lockdown, we have scored 11 in one, six in one and four in another. Relentless has been the attitude the boys have shown.
“Going into the restart we were fourth in the league, but we had three games-in-hand over Westella & Willerby and two games-in-hand over Liv Supplies.
“We have come back in April and played seven games and won them all.
“There’s nothing, but praise for the boys. They have been ultra-consistent in a season that has been difficult to get motivated for.
“When we spoke last time I spoke about bringing a mentality of a higher level and about hoping that the lads bought into it. They really have done.
“To a man we have had 16/18 consistently. We have had a back five that has been consistent week-in-week-out.
“We have gelled well and the boys have bought into what we wanted from day one.”
It is the first time Beverley have won the Humber Premier League since the Dave Ricardo glory days in the mid-2010s.
Although no promotion to the Toolstation NCEL will be forthcoming due to the lack of floodlights at their Norwood Recreation Ground home, the club hope they will be able to make the step-up in 2022.
“We have had a really successful time and if there is any positives to take out of the lockdown it is that we had the time to get the application bottomed down,” Thompson said.
“The company who we are working with on it – Abacus Lighting – have done everything for us to be honest.
“We had a public consultation and they put together the bid which went to the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
“The period for support or objections closed on the 4th April and it closed with 100% positive responses. We had no objections from the local residents.
“We had a lot of support from local councillors and community groups who said it would be a great thing for junior sport as well as the progression of the first team.
“The council have come back to us with a date of the 27th May when we will get an answer on it.
“If the answer is yes, the next port of call would be Abacus Lighting and they would then start work and we’d be looking to apply in December to go into the NCEL for the following (2022/23) season.”
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. When we properly 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.
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.