National North
The signs did not look good at Farsley Celtic 45 minutes into the new season.
The trip to Leamington represented the perfect chance to start on a high note.
Yet they found themselves 3-0 down at the interval, ultimately losing 4-0.
Alfreton Town, AFC Fylde and Brackley Town were up next. A betting man would have put money on three defeats.
But the response has been outstanding with four points from a possible nine collected.
Russ Wilcox, the ex-York City and Scunthorpe United, has seen it all during his long career so he was never going to press the panic button.
“It just tells you in football you have to keep going,” Wilcox told Non League Yorkshire.
“it felt horrendous after the Leamington game.
“You build up to a new season and everyone wants to start well and we got the worst result on the day which bangs us straight to the bottom of the league.
“I just said to the players to not look at league tables at this stage of the season because it can change overnight and all you need is a couple of wins.
“The group has stayed really positive.
“We know it is going to be a tough season because it is a difficult league and a mixed bag with your full-time teams and hybrid teams and the bigger budgets.”
Farsley have one of the lowest budgets in the National North and that’s widely known.
Even then the opening day nightmare was a shock to the system for Wilcox.
“I felt we had a decent pre-season but I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of pre-season because you can get led into false positions or false sense of security where you think you’re going well,” he said.
“Maybe that happened to us a little bit.
“We had a good result and performance against Halifax and then good performance against Scunthorpe.
“You go to Leamington and no disrespect, someone who are going to be similar to us.
“There was an opportunity there for us to start the season well.
“Credit to them they blew us out of the water in the first 45 minutes. It was a tough one to swallow.
“You look at the next three, Alfreton, Fylde and Brackley and say ‘wow we have just been beat 4-0 at Leamington, we need to show much improvement’.
“We got a really good 0-0 draw against Alfreton when the lads dug deep in the high temperature.
“Our best performance was against Fylde. The difference was in the benches. They could make the key changes at key moments in the game and they did around 70 minutes.
“Saying that, I felt we deserved at least a draw. I was disappointed to come away with nothing.
“Then Brackley away and you think you have to be positive with the group but you know it is a really difficult start to the season.
“I don’t think there is any easy game.
“You only have to look at the promoted sides, they are nearly all up there at the top end of the league.
“It tells you that it is going to be a tough season for us but the lads are showing good fighting spirit and (Brackley away) we showed a lot more quality to our game which I’m looking for.
“I don’t want us to think we’re Man City but I do want us to play more football when we can and we did on Saturday really well.”
To the rest of the league, Saturday’s victory against fancied Brackley, who finished second in the league last season, was an upset to say the least.
Wilcox though points out that luck was on Farsley’s side.
“You have to delve a bit deeper because they had a man sent off after six minutes which did help our cause, you can’t hide away from that fact,” he said.
“I suppose you can only beat what’s in front of you after that.
“Another key moment was the penalty save just before we scored.
“We played a lot better in the second half and we understood about what was needed to be done against ten men like moving them around the pitch and switching play.
“We scored three excellent goals.
“It was great to see Jimmy Spencer get off the mark.
“Kian Scales has come from Bradford City and I introduced him at half-time and he was excellent.
“He scored a really breakaway goal. He ran from the halfway line and he had a lot of thinking to do.
“He was one-on-one with the goalie and he kept his composure and slotted it away really nicely.
“First and foremost it is so important to get the first win of the season.
“You get that monkey off the back and every manager needs that to have that confidence around the group knowing that you can win.
“I think to do it away from home and get clean sheet against the team who finished second last season with the best defensive record in the league is a really good way (to get the first win of the game) and it gives the squad a big boost moving forward.:”
Former Farsley manager Adam Lakeland brings his Curzon Ashton to The Citadel on Saturday and Wilcox added: “I think (there’s confidence in the group).
“We had a good win at Curzon last season.
“I know they have made changes to their squad, you have the ex-manager coming back.
“Sam Walker and Will Hayhurst are coming back too.
“They played a huge part in us staying up last season.
“They are two great pros and great lads and I wish them all the best, obviously apart from Saturday.”