Luke Forgione has hailed his never-say-die Worsbrough Bridge fledglings following the 2-2 draw at Penistone Church on Tuesday night.
Owen Wildblood’s ‘worldie’ with the last kick of the pre-season friendly secured a stalemate and made Forgione a proud man.
“Going back to last season there were questions about our character and resilience, but I think the lads have shown that they are willing to fight for each other,” Forgione told Non League Yorkshire.
“With it being a brand new team I’m just really pleased the lads stuck in the game at 2-1.
“The changes gave Penistone the opportunity to be on the front-foot and dominate the game, but we stayed in it and if you stay it until the end there’s a chance you’ll get one chance to score.
“I can’t fault the boys.
“Ian (Richards) is someone I respect because of what he has done for Penistone and he has a system and style of play that is really effective and we set up in the first half to try and combat that.
“I thought first half we did do that and we caused them problems in the first 20 minutes.
“They grew into the game and their quality showed with (Jordan) Coduri’s goal.
“I thought Penistone from there on had the better of the half, however you would expect them to with them being a league higher.
“But you can’t fault our lads, they were disciplined and they did a great job.”
Only two weeks remain until the new Toolstation NCEL Division One season kicks off and Worsbrough’s two results in pre-season – the 5-3 win at Kiveton Miners Welfare and the draw at Church – have made Forgione’s job of finalising his squad hard.
“At the moment we have signed quite a few lads on and there’s a few trialists within the squad,” he said.
“We have probably 25 lads – some who weren’t at Penistone and will be part of the first team squad moving forward.
“We’re in dilemma as everyone has done really well in the last two games and they’re putting me in a difficult situation when I have to start picking a squad for two weeks’ time.”
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.
Our work is playing 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.
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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.
