Posted by the leg
on June 8, 2012, 6:15 pm, in reply to "Re: news from around the league"
86.129.168.39
Rovers boss Clive Jones had a big request of chairman Mike Mitchell in terms of his agreeing to steer the good ship Willand Rovers through another season in the Toolstation League in 2012/12 – a par of size eight Puma football boots! The long serving Silver Street boss has never been one for lengthy discussions on personal benefits – Chairman Mike would be the first to confirm that – and so it seems his demands prior to agreeing to take charge again are well within the club’s budget! The Rovers boss said: “I was particularly keen to get a new pair of boots for the coming season and when Mitch (Rovers chairman Mike Mitchell) asked me what I was personally looking for I told him a pair of size eight Puma multi stud boots! He seemed quite happy that the club could manage that! But also I needed to speak with the chairman to see if the club were going to be happy with my thinking, ideas and indeed logic about next season. I needed a break of a couple, of weeks after the trials and tribulations of last season, and I managed to get that break. Now I have the bit between the teeth again and I feel ready to hit the start line for another big race.”
Jones, speaking prior to his annual visit to watch Test Match cricket – this year his trip with a regular group of leather-upon-willow mates is to Edgbaston to take in the 3rd Test between England and The West Indies, the group drive up in a hire car on Friday afternoon, take in day three of what has so far been a seriously rain-affected match – and then journey back by train said: “We have rain jackets at the ready. I love this particular weekend each year, cricket is a real pleasure of mine and so I am hoping we do manage to see some action. I feel for the poor folk who have had tickets to see day’s one and two – that is so frustrating when the weather bites into the game like this.”
Jones continued: “I am delighted that my talks with the chairman went so well. I was concerned that the club may not like the direction I was looking or us to go in. The game is changing and it’s a case of we simply have to change with it. The finances that were there previously are not, in the majority of cases, any longer at the table and we all need to adapt to it. In the past we have been very fortunate at Rovers in as much as we have found it easy to pull together a pool of players who are playing as much for the club and the group than for their own ends. Finances are tight everywhere – just getting teams to fixtures costs the club an arm and a leg these days and so players need to be realistic as to what they are looking for and I am sure everyone who is as passionate about the game of football as I am shares the belief that we must all look to make alterations to slot into the changing dynamics of the game.”
So what are your plans for the coming pre-season? “I am working with a clean canvas. I want to make this very plain – last season was, in the whole part, not good enough. Now, within that statement let’s also be clear that within the season’s squad there were players who CERTAINLY gave their absolute all for the cause and with them I have not one grumble. There were however, some players who cannot say they gave as much as they perhaps could have done. That said I am happy – indeed looking forward to, welcoming back to this pres-season everyone of last years squad in the hope that they will show me, come the first Tuesday in July, that they are ready, with renewed vigour and bounce to give their very best for the club. Okay, last year we came up short, not by a lot for, in early December we led the way and we did get to the final of the Les Philips Cup and of course once again maintained our splendid record of having never finished outside the top flight, top six! So based on the fact that we were close this is not about building a whole new team, far from it – but it is about bringing in the three, four or even five new faces that I feel (and it’s a vision shared by the man who matters most – the chairman), to help give the squad a better chance of achieving what we were not too far away from doing last season. I have a commitment from last years players – to a man – that they are up for the scrap – and if we can bring in those new bodies it will freshen things up, increase the competition for places and make the pre-season an interesting time for all.”
Do you know your targets specifically?“Indeed I do and once I get back from my cricketing weekend I can assure the Rovers faithful that my phone will get used plentiful as I begin to make calls to see if the players I want to bring in are coming to give us a go. I am also throwing open the doors to Silver Street for our pre-season this year in the hope that we might just find another Joey Hawes who of course came to us out of the blue a couple of summers back and had a marvellous season, scoring twenty plus goals. I’d like to think there are other such hungry young players out there who are looking to play at this level – of there are then they need do no more that get along to us on the first Tuesday of July and we’ll see what they are made of.”
Rovers Chairman Mike Mitchell said: “I can’t understate how much good news for the club this is that we are able to continue with Clive in charge. I was concerned that he might have finally had enough but that has proved not to be the case and I am already feeling very upbeat about next season. What Clive had to say to me was crystal clear. He is going to once again work his oracle to put out for us a team that we can all be so very proud of at Silver Street and he knows that I will do everything in my power to back him every step of the way”
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