Staveley MW's joint bosses keen to keep players' feet on the ground amid fine form

Joint-managers of Staveley MW, Pat Lindley (left) and Jon Froggatt. Photo by Jason Chadwick.

The Trojans have won their last five games, all of them without conceding, and climbed up to sixth place in the NCEL Premier Division standings.

And while the run of form may ultimately prove to have come too late to mount a promotion challenge in this campaign, Froggatt believes some fine groundwork is being laid down for the future.

He said: “When Pat and I took over we had a look at things, worked out where we needed to improve and altered things accordingly.

"That may have meant things like playing players in their best positions or weeding out those in the squad who weren’t working as hard for 90 minutes.

"We’ve also worked on being much more solid defensively too which has shown in the recent results.

"We’ve now got a team of willing workers who will keep running for 90 minutes, and given ourselves a good back bone and platform from which the forward players are also scoring goals.

"The players are enjoying playing in every game and the confidence is sky high. They look around and have so much belief in each other. We just need to make sure nobody gets carried away and starts expecting to win without putting the necessary effort in."

Froggatt and Lindley took over from Brett Marshall in December, their predecessor having spent six years in charge at Inkersall Road, and Froggatt believes a fresh approach has done wonders.

He said: “You can’t underestimate how important Brett’s impact was and he remains one of the best coaches I’ve ever worked with.

"But he obviously got frustrated with certain things and some lads not giving their all. Sometimes things need freshening up and at the moment we’re reaping the full benefits of having been given the chance to do that.”

What lies ahead in terms of the club’s future and that of Froggatt and Lindley remains to be seen, but for now Froggatt is keen to take things as they come and finish the season as strongly as possible.

He said: “We had no targets when we took the job on but given how things have gone, we now want to keep winning games and giving ourselves a good platform for the future.

"The top two places might be out of reach with those teams ten points clear of the rest, but we want to keep winning and finish as high as we can and take things from there.”