Gary Allanson believes that his young Bridlington Town charges have become men this season
Gary Allanson believes his young Bridlington Town players have become men this season.
Bridlington made the radical decision to re-shape their squad last summer to focus on developing young talent and it has paid dividends as the Seasiders are set to finish in the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division top ten.
Allanson and his assistant Andy Foster signed players such as Chris Adams, Conner Harman, Ombeni Rhuanduka and Benn Lewis from Hall Road Rangers and they have all been instant hits.
“We made a big decision in the close season that we needed to change things and we needed to bring in some young lads in and week after week they are getting stronger,” Allanson said.
“The team is getting better and you can see now the results are now starting to take place.
“They’re really switching on for what we want from them and they’re in the real world now.
“They’re in the man’s game and now they’re starting to man-up if you like and really take things on board.
“At the start of this season we were looking at bringing 12,14,15 players in.
“A the beginning of next season we can look at bringing in two or three because we’ve got a great nucleus now where we can really go and push on from.”
Allanson was speaking after the 2-1 win at Albion Sports on Wednesday night – their league win on the bounce.
His side arrived late at the ground, but according to Allanson, the performance was an improvement on the 3-2 win over Athersley Rec last Saturday.
“If you’d seen them on Saturday and you looked at us tonight it’s a totally different team,” he said.
“It was an awful game on Saturday and I don’t want to disrespect the opposition but they didn’t let us play football and they was in our faces whereas it was a really good football match tonight.
“The good thing from our point of view is that we’ve shown we can play football and battle and get the result, so we’re really pushing forward.
“We wasn’t the best circumstances arriving at quarter-past seven because of traffic and that warm-up wasn’t right so everything that we had to do was against us really.
“I think they was at full strength and we had three eighteen year-olds and a seventeen year-old playing.
“We had had two more eighteen year-olds on the bench so everything was against us really.
“But we’ve said to the lads we’re on a great run, confidence is high and as we match the work ethic and work hard we’ll always have a chance and I think we’ve done very, very well.”
Brid face Cleethorpes Town tomorrow at The Bradley Football Development Centre and Allanson added: “Again it’s going to be difficult, Cleethorpes are flying, they’re doing really well.
“So you know again we’re full of confidence and on really good form at the moment and if we keep that going and the lads are really playing for each other, that’s what we’re looking for.”