Toolstation NCEL Division One
Alex Nightingale is thrilled to see his Swallownest youngsters thriving in the first team.
Swallownest – who host Ollerton Town tomorrow – have blooded a number of teenagers so far this season – including striker Jack Appleyard who has scored in the last two matches.
Nightingale, also the youngest manager in the league at 26, is overjoyed with the youngsters’ progress.
“The lads are growing in stature and we have four or five 18-year-olds,” Nightingale told Non League Yorkshire.
“There’s a couple of 19-year-olds so we are a very young team.
“I’d probably say looking at the other teams that we’re probably one of the youngest, if not the youngest team in the Division.
“Look how far they have come in five games.
“They have earned the right to play in this league and they’re all stepping up.
“Huge credit goes to all the young lads.
“They are all impressing.
“Jack Appleyard and James Woodhouse are both 18.
“Jack is scoring goals.
“I signed him from City Knights in Sheffield.
“He was doing well there so I went to watch him and he impressed me so I signed him.
“Jack Henry is a young lad so is the goalkeeper Owen Evans.
“You have Taylor Nicholson who has been in the squad all the time.
“Cole Starkey and Jamie Goldenburgh have been in the squad.
“Some of them have come from our under 21s which is a huge credit to our under 21s managers.
“Fair play to them because they’ve brought them through and they’re doing well in my opinion.
“Why not give these young lads an opportunity?
“That’s what we are about, giving young lads opportunities to progress.”
Swallownest certainly stood up to be counted in midweek.
‘Nest finished up with nine men but somehow managed to claim a 1-1 draw at Glasshoughton Welfare – leaving Nightingale a proud man.
“As a manager you can’t ask for more than what the players have done in the Glasshoughton game,” he said.
“The heart, desire, passion, determination, togetherness – things that you can’t buy.
“It is something that comes from the lads buying into everything.
“It takes time to build that but the lads are starting to come together.
“It is not going to be there all the time but when we went down to ten men they dug in as a group.
“When we went to nine we could have capitulated and crumbled – but fair play to every single one of them, I’m very proud.
“In my honest opinion we had chances to win it with nine men.
“Right at the death, if our lad had stayed onside we do go on and win the game.
“We had chances with ten and we hit the post.
“We were unlucky not to have taken three points but again you can’t knock it.
“We got a point away at Glasshoughton after playing 60 minutes with ten men and ten minutes with nine men.”
The draw at Glasshoughton is the latest good result during a positive two-week period for ‘Nest.
The season began with the horror show in the 3-0 defeat at Harrogate Railway on the opening day but Nightingale believes that loss has been a blessing in disguise
Although a loss at Parkgate followed, ‘Nest have since beaten Dronfield Town and drawn with Worsbrough Bridge and Glasshoughton Welfare.
“We made a couple of subtle changes (since the Railway defeat),” he said.
“We’ve changed personnel and a change in shape at times.
“We decided that our set-up at Harrogate was maybe wrong.
“We didn’t know what they were going to be like so we set-up thinking what they’d be like and they were a bit different.
“I look back to the Harrogate game and see it as a positive.
“It is probably a good thing that we lost that game and the Parkgate game because it showed us what we weren’t good at.
“At that time we weren’t good at dealing with set-pieces and we weren’t bright or quick enough and we didn’t press.
“All those things we are really good at happened because we learnt from those mistakes.
“We have grown in character and in our performances and our last two opponents Worsbrough and Glasshoughton have both been flying.
“In both of those games we have been disappointed that we haven’t taken all three points.”