New Ecclesfield Red Rose 1915 manager Jon Wragg plans to build on the outstanding legacy left by his predecessor Matt Griffin.
Griffin is taking a break from football after three hugely successful years in charge of Red Rose.
Under his guidance, Ecclesfield have gone from EV2 Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League Division One obscurity to becoming the top Step 7 side in Sheffield due to breaking into the top five of the Premier Division.
Wragg was Griffin’s assistant and he is stepping up to be the top dog with twin brother Matt and coach Ryan MacDonald acting as his lieutenants.
Clearly Griffin will be a hard act to follow, but Wragg believes the club is great shape to push on thanks to their now-former manager.
“I found out about week ago that he was wondering whether he would carry on for another season and I spoke to Griff and told him that my preference was that we did another year as we have put a good squad together,” Wragg told Non League Yorkshire.
“But I respect his decision. I’m really good mates with him and he was quite happy when he stepped down that myself, Matt and Macca are carrying on.
“I went with Griff to the interview when he got the job three years ago and he has left the club in a really good way and looking forward we won’t need change too much as he’s left a really competitive squad.”
Ecclesfield won an unexpected promotion in 2019 in their first season under former Parkgate defender Griffin.
He then established them in the Premier during the two aborted seasons and Wragg agrees the whole picture of the club has changed in three years.
“I love the lads we had in that first season,” he said.
“A lot of them are Red Rose legends as they had been at the club a long time.
“But the club had been in Division One for about five seasons and before that they had struggled in the Premier for a number of seasons.
“So they had been in the wilderness for a long time.
“The club had committed lads, but they needed some new lads and fresh ideas.
“The team we had to what we have now is like the difference between night and day.
“We had some great lads who got us out of Division One, but some of them were getting old and they playing with knee braces and they’d had ACL injuries. But they were keeping the club going.
“We went into the Premier Division looking to stay in, but we have managed to really establish ourselves in there and pick up some good results against some of the top sides.
“Now looking at where Griff has left it with the County Senior League Cup (semi-final appearance), the profile of the players are a lot younger, technically better and more fitter.
“Massive credit goes to Griff for putting that sort of squad together.”
Wragg has to wait until the 4th September for his first competitive game in charge and he’s hopeful he’ll have most of Griffin’s squad starting the 2021/21 season with Red Rose.
“I spoke to pretty much all the lads a couple of days ago after it was official that Griff was standing down,” he said.
“One of the conditions to me taking it on was that the squad was going to stay together.
“I think 90% are staying based on the conversations I’ve had which is a real bonus.
“We’ll look to bring one-or-two in, but it is not going to be a massive rebuild. I wouldn’t have wanted to take the job on if we had been on that footing.
“We have got quite a few players who have attracted interest from Northern Counties teams, but a couple have come back and said they love it at Red Rose and want to stay.
“We have got a couple of lads who are going training with Northern Counties East teams which is fine with us as we want to progress players.”
Wragg and his brother Matt are best known for playing with Jamie Vardy in the famous Stocksbridge Park Steels reserve team in the County Senior League during the mid-2000s.
They went onto play for Dinnington Town under Steve Toyne as well as the likes of Hallam and Maltby Main in the NCEL.
So they are well-placed to give advice on when the time is right to step up to the NCEL from the County Senior League when approaching young players with a view to signing them.
They also have star striker Kenan Mckenzie Grey as their poster boy as to why signing for Red Rose is an attractive club for youngsters to sign for.
“We’ve got some good links with (Andy) Dawson at Parkgate and some of the other local managers,” he said.
“Dawson has sent a couple of players including Kenan Mckenzie Grey who did absolutely brilliantly for us.
“He was at Parkgate but couldn’t get in because they had some experienced forwards like Bruno Holden.
“We were brilliant for him as we gave him a platform to get noticed and he’s had a lot of interest from clubs.
“I think he scored 20 goals for us. He was literally scoring a goal a game for us.
“We haven’t got a reserve team or under 19s so we haven’t the conveyor belt of players coming through like other clubs so the management team has to bring players in.
“A selling point to young players is ‘look at the links we have with various Northern Counties managers, if you’re good enough we can facilitate the step-up when you’re ready’.
“Myself and Matt are also in a good position as we played in the County Senior for Stocksbridge until we were 25.
“Some people were saying we played in it too long. For me we went at the right time.
“We made so many friends and memories at Stocksbridge and when we did move up we were men.
“We walked into the Dinnington dressing room and we weren’t fazed because we had a good grounding in the County Senior. We knew our game and we got success as we won the league.
“Sometimes lads can get impatient at 19 or 20 and want to move on. We have that experience to say that it is not going to hurt them to stay in the County Senior and dominate at that level before moving on.
“But equally we’re never going to hold onto players if we know they’re too good for us. We’ll pushing them to go.”
The Ecclesfield job is his first as a number one and Wragg certainly has a plethora of highly-regarded managers from his playing days to use ideas from.
But who will be his main influence?
“The answer is probably one you’d expect, I’m going to say a variety of all of them,” he said.
“Graham Furness, who is the Stocksbridge chairman now, was one of my first managers in the County Senior and he made you feel that you were a 10/10 after every game.
“He was such a good man-manager and he made you feel ten feet tall before you went out.
“Griff played under him and he is very similar.
“I spent a long time under Steve Adams at Maltby and Parkgate and he was totally different.
“If you hadn’t come in at half-time without your nose covered in blood he wanted to know why.
“He was hard but fair and a good chap to play under.
“Steve Shutt managed Stocksbridge reserves for 15 years and you have to admire the dedication to do it for so long.
“Macca (Ryan MacDonald) who is on our coaching staff was his captain for a number of years and I know the influence Steve Shutt had on him.
“We’ve brought the standards of all these guys into the Red Rose dressing room.
“Julian Watts is another. I didn’t play for him for very long at Hallam, but when he came as Steve Adams’ assistant at Maltby you knew straightaway that tactically he knew his stuff.
“He got us organised and got us in a strong defensive shape and we went on an unbelievable run the season he came. He was also a good man-manager and a man you wanted to play for.
“I played for some good managers so hopefully I can take a little bit from all of them.”
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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.
Our work is playing an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
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