Manager (Page 7)

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Yeovil Town boss Mark Cooper has said his National League South title-winning squad must evolve if it is going to be competitive next season.

The Glovers finish their campaign with a long trip to already relegated Dover Athletic this weekend with the boss saying it will be “a big jump” back in to the National League Premier next season.

Ebbsfleet United, the team who Cooper’s men replaced as champions, are still not quite safe and could do with something from their final game at fellow strugglers Boreham Wood this weekend, whilst last season’s play-off winners Oxford City finished bottom with 33 points from their 45 matches to date.

Speaking to Three Valleys’ Radio’s Si Thyer on Thursday ahead of the trip to Kent, Cooper said: “This is the first step. All we have done this year is do what we should have done. We celebrated over the weekend and it’s now about next season for me and wanting to go again.

“When you taste success you want every season to be like that, so as a group we want to put things in place which means we have a chance to do that next year.

“But, we need to give the owner (Martin Hellier) a chance to get the finances in line as to what money we have to use to try and help this really good squad we have got.

“I do not think we would have got relegated, but looking at the teams who came up from the South last year, Ebbsfleet are just about safe, and Oxford City are relegated.

“You have to strengthen because there is a big jump. We have to be ruthless and make sure we improve and, even more importantly, bring in the right characters.”

Super Cooper’s Greens are gunna blind you…
📸 Gary Brown

He suggested that there will be exits as well as (hopefully) arrivals at Huish Park in the summer, but praised the spirit which has been forged between his players this season.

The boss added: “You can’t win a league without the squad without the team spirit being really tight. Even when we have had a couple of little blips along the way, they have remained tight and navigated it without too much trouble.

“There has to be evolution and as will happen at every club, some will move on, some will stay, but the ones that move on leave with a promotion on their CV. That gives them a better opportunity to get a better club next year.”

One of Cooper’s former clubs, Forest Green Rovers, who he led to promotion to the Football League via the play-offs in 2017, were relegated back to non-League this week, and the Glovers’ boss expects the Gloucestershire side to be among those challenging at the top next season.

He said: “It is sad that Forest Green fought so hard to get out of non-League. I think they were the longest-serving members of the National League when they got promoted. It looks like they have spent a massive amount in the last two years and got relegated twice.

“There will be a lot of frustration and anger and they will be looking to bounce back, so I expect them to have a top budget for the level. Straight away they will be favourites and it looks like Sutton and Colchester for the other team coming down.

“What we have been looking at is the logistics because it is a heavily southern-based feel to the league next year which is good for us. Looks like there could be 16-17 southern-based teams which is great for us.”

It was a brace from on loan Exeter City striker Sonny Cox which sealed a 2-0 win over Dover at Huish Park in November.

The trip to Dover appears the most dead rubber of any dead rubber match with the visitors already having their hands on the league title and the home side consigned to relegation three weeks ago.

But you’ll not be surprised to hear Cooper is looking for three points which would see Yeovil finish the season with 95 points and 29 wins – which would be one more than Gary Johnson’s Conference-winning side managed in the 2002-03 campaign.

The manager said: “I will be picking a team to win the game. I will not be handing out minutes for the sake of it, it will be players that I think can win us the game.

“I want to go out with a win, the players want to go out with a win. In my first press conference this season I said ‘whether we are playing in the car park, on top of a mountain, on whatever surface, whether it’s three-a-side, five-a-side, Tiddlywinks – we want to win every competitive battle we go in to and Saturday will be no different.”

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Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper said he always had confidence he could build a squad capable of getting promoted back to the National League Premier at the first time of asking.

The Glovers’ boss saw his side win 3-1 against a Dartford side which headed out of National League South on Saturday and then lifted the division’s title on the pitch in front of a crowd of 5,701 at Huish Park.

He said he believed the squad needed to add “five or six really good players” if they wanted to compete in the top tier of the non-League game next season.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins and our own Ian Perkins after the game, he said: “Talk is cheap, but I knew if someone would give me the opportunity to put a squad together I knew I could do it. I have done it at every level in the National League. The owner (chairman Martin Hellier) came in and backed us to put a good squad together and we have done that and it just shows if people come to a club and you trust people who know what they are doing, not trust people that do not, you have a chance to succeed. If you get it wrong, you get relegated.”

Brooklyn Genesini 📸 Gary Brown

He added: “It means a lot because I felt a real sense of responsibility for the players that were here last season. I wanted a chance to build the club because I liked what I saw even in the dark times, I knew it could be a good club if we had the opportunity to build it. The owner put his money where his mouth is and has given us that chance. Those dark times have been lifted by the tremendous achievements of the players and fans, they have been amazing.

“If you looked at our team at Braintree and Slough, the team on the pitch would be in a bottom tier budget. Without the likes of Alex Whittle, Jake Hyde, Rhys Murphy, Michael Smith, we had a lot of young players like Jahmari Clarke, Brooklyn Genesini, there were a lot of young players on the pitch. People will talk about our budget this season and it is alright having loads of money and being the favourites like Torquay were, but you have to make sure you use that money wisely. I think that is what we have done.”

Asked about how he felt about next season, he said: “It is a tough league. We have the nucleus of a good squad, I have had to be ruthless at times and do the best thing for the club. We need to sign five or six really good players that are going to complement the group we have because they deserve that.”

On Saturday, Yeovil fell behind to an early goal from Dartford captain Luke Coulson, but were quickly back on level terms when Sam Pearson equalised before an own goal from the visitors’ Ronny Nelson and a second half tap in from Alex Fisher sealed the win.

Cooper said he was never worried despite going behind early, saying: “The goal was probably the best thing that could have happened, but I was never worried or panicky. I just trust the players implicitly to get it done.

“It was an incredible football performance and we are going to play a lot more football if I have anything to do with it, I just think that is the way the game should be played. I do not want to make it a lottery, of course we are going to give balls away in rubbish areas at times but you see the amount of chances we created, we should have scored ten.

“It was nice to go out with a nice, convincing win in our final home game and the scenes at the end I just said to the boys ‘it is a shame it is not like this every year, but let’s try and make this the thing.’”

For Fisher, it was another chapter in his fairytale return following a horrific double leg break he suffered almost exactly a year earlier and the manager was full of praise for his striker. 

He said: “Fish has come back and scored some goals to get us over the line. He’s a great bloke, an experienced professional and he will enjoy that first promotion in England. These players have crossed over the line today, a lot of them have a (C) on their CVs which, as a manager, you look at these things when you ask ‘is he a winner?’ We know we have a few that can whether it is here or elsewhere that they do it, you can never take this promotion from them.”

The Glovers finish the season with a long journey to already relegated Dover Athletic on the final game of the season next weekend and Cooper is going to win.

He said: “I said on Thursday night (after the win over Truro which sealed the title), we were desperate to win this game and go out in style. We did that and we will be desperate to go to Dover and get three points. We might have an opportunity to play a few of the boys who are coming back from injury and freshen it up because you have some boys in there that ran 13km on Thursday and did it again today. We have some warriors in there, and we need to add to that in the summer, add wisely and get the right characters.”

 

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Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper paid tribute to his players, the club’s supporters and chairman Martin Hellier as he tasted promotion at the first attempt with a 2-0 victory against Truro City.

The boss was soaked in champagne by his players as he gave a raft of interviews at the side of the pitch having watched the game from the stands at Gloucester City’s Tigerturf Stadium, part of a touchline ban for his recent FA charge for picking fault with a Hemel Hempstead player trying to break his son’s leg.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the match, he said: “It’s a fantastic achievement for the club, the owner came in and gave us a chance to put this remarkable team together and get a bit of soul and heart back in the club and we have done that. We have done that, the players have done that and it is a brilliant night for the football club and one we should enjoy.

“It feels so sweet. We proved everybody wrong and we went and we enjoyed the plastic and we look forward to next season now.”

Cooper has spoken on many occasions about the desire to remove the stain of last season’s relegation to regional football during a turbulent period at the club, and admitted he always wanted to stay on to try and guide them back at the first attempt.

Asked how he felt about his decision to stay, he said: “I am delighted, but I did not have too many options, to be honest! I just felt there was the nucleus of a good team and I wanted to get rid of that relegation or make it look better on my CV.”

Next up, Yeovil return to Huish Park with relegation-threatened Dartford coming to town on Saturday when the National League South trophy will be presented and the manager said he was looking forward to celebrating with the club’s supporters.

He said: “We hope to have the chairman there. He was not here tonight, he has gone away for a much deserved break, but I am buzzing for Saturday when we can have a party together with loads and loads of Yeovil fans and get that feel good factor back. We have to enjoy these moments before we start thinking about next year.

“It is amazing support, for the level we are at. It should be a great football club and we want to try and build that and make it great again.”

On the pitch on Thursday night, goals from strikers Rhys Murphy and Alex Fisher sealed the three points which clinched the title. But, the game was not without adversity with winger Jordan Stevens coming off after just nine minutes with a reoccurrence of a hamstring injury, before Murphy limped off seven minutes later.

Cooper added: “If you had asked me which one of the player would not have broken down, it would have been Murph (Rhys Murphy) because he has trained for two weeks, he’s played decent minutes and looked really strong and then he’s just pulled it. Then Jordan Stevens again, so we had to keep a substitution back just in case. It was not great for those boys but we got it done.“