Shifnal Town

View from the Dugout
Good A8ernoon, and welcome back
to the Paycare Ground todays visit of
Shifnal Town, and Darlaston’s return
to the Premier Division.
It was great to see all of the friendly
faces of the Darlo faithful at last
week’s opening game. When
Pershore asked Simon how fans we
expected to travel, I don’t think they
quite believed him when he said
about 50 supporters would be there
to support the players and the
management team. We are all very
humbled by your con>nued support,
especially away from home, you
would not believe the huge
difference it makes to the players, so
on behalf of all of us, thank you.
It seems an age since I last wrote an
ar>cle for the programme, such a
large number of things have
happened since last April, and the
presenta>on evening in May.
Here goes, last season finished on a
real high with us finally geAng that
promo>on spot, when the news
came it was a complete shock. Emma and I were at the club aBending one of the
youth presenta>on evenings with the Vice Chairman Garry Hale and Lynne, when
the news came through, boy did we celebrate. We finished the season unbeaten
a8er 20 games, last losing at home to AllscoB when we were very poor losing 4-1
on 3rd November, so to go six months unbeaten is some achievement. Finishing
runners up is bad enough, but not being promoted a8er the season we had
would have been very harsh.
A8er hearing of the promo>on we had to quickly change everything we had
planned, in an effort to step up to the level required to compete in the Premier
Division. Pre-season was re-planned, and some pre-season friendlies we had
arranged needed to be changed and new opposi>on found. Then there was
player recruitment, we had our wish list, which to be honest didn’t change a great
deal, because the calibre of player we wanted to bring to the club were more
than capable of playing in either Division.
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