In yet another highly passionate post-match chat, Yeovil Town captain Josh Staunton has promised that he’ll not give in as the Glovers stare relegation to the National League South in the face.
We at the Gloverscast would encourage anyone to listen to the full eight minutes from the skipper, we’ll post the full YouTube clip below.
On the match itself, Josh was clearly frustrated at conceding two and scoring none: “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s two really soft goals at one end and not putting it in the goal at the other end, to be honest, there’s not really a lot I can say, it was the story of the game and the story of the season, it’s disappointing.”
On the horrible injury suffered by Alex Fisher, Staunton sent the striker his best: “At the end of the day, forget football, that’s not a nice thing to see regardless of whether you’re living your day to day life, when you go down and one of your players is in agony, his leg is clearly in a very, very bad way, it’s rocks you a bit psychologically, it wasn’t ideal as we had players around it, which leaves you in a curious position to try and focus on a game when you’ve just seen your mate and I don’t know if that puts a bit of fear in you. It was important we rallied the troops after and it gave us an extra incentive to try and go and do it. We send our well wishes to Fishy and we’ll be with him every step of the way.”
Now, here’s where Gloverscast Ben wants to use some editorial licence, listen to the skipper talk about the situation and the upcoming seven games, listen to his voice, listen to how every single word means something. Sorry for the long quotes below, but every word was worth reading, typing and understanding.
“Look, I don’t need to sit here and try and save myself for the club, but what can we do? We can either give everything we’ve got – the players that are available, and give everything we’ve got for seven games and see where it takes us and start finding excuses and pointing fingers at everyone else but ourselves, but that’s not what we need to do.”
“I’m not a silly man, this is Yeovil Football Club, we are a massive club at this level and the situation we are in in ludicrous really, it hurts, it hurts me every day, I wake up and come into this place it seems to be a glaring reflection of what we’ve put ourselves into and they (the fans) are well within their rights to (show their frustrations) the fall that this club has had, look I’m part of it, unfortunately, I’m a guilty party, but they turn up, they turn up and support us and when we actually look like we can attack they support us.
“I think, as soon as the second one went in, I don’t blame them for their dejection and turning their back on us. It’s our job to try and get them onside, and I thought we had periods of the game where we played good.”
“To be honest, we don’t actually have to play well at the moment, it’s just that we have to try and find a way to do whatever we can to get a result.
In the last few games we just don’t look like we are capable of that.”
“But this isn’t me resigning to defeat, Jesus, I’ll go down swinging, I’ll take every punch someone has got to give me, there were times I thought we were going to get back in the game, we are just falling on the wrong side of lady luck at the moment, and we are definitely not helping ourselves with our decision making,”
“I said to the boys in the week, as a footballer, regardless of what level you play at or what level you go to play at, you probably wont face a bigger week in your life as a footballer, in terms of, they can make or break your season, and they are pivotal.”
“It hurts me saying it, because we really shouldn’t be in this situation, it really does, I feel like a punchbag, I’ve been smashed to pieces today, to be honest, but we have got a big week, you can either sit there and cry about it, or you can get yourself up for Tuesday and give it everything you’ve got again and show yourself as a character and as a man”
“We’ve got to understand pressure, I said to the boys, two years ago we lost our captain nearly to the day and myself personally, I had a very close friend who we lost three years ago, and they’re real pressures in life, and it’s important that you can’t take the weight of the world onto the football pitch, there’s no need, and I’m trying to relay that message to the boys, you’ll face bigger pressures than this in life, so you have to stand up and show yourself in situations like this, it’s not a time to wilter, it’s a time stand up as a character, to feel the shirt with pride and display what Yeovil is about.”
“You should thrive under pressure, if you want to be a professional footballer, you want to strive to play at the best level you can, you need to learn to strive and to play under pressure – and it brings the best out of you, because if it doesn’t, we all know how that ends.
We can’t hide it forever, there is pressure, players are playing under pressure, it’s not proper pressure – there’s proper pressure in everyday life and you need to open your eyes and realise that.
I understand, but this is 90 minutes of your life where you can express yourself and you have to have the freedom, you have to have the,… urm… balls… to express yourself or the game will leave you behind and we have to find that for seven games, it’s my duty to the football club to find something and I’ll die trying,”
OUR. CAPTAIN.
What an interview after a tough game! We are lucky to have such a dedicated, well spoken captain.
This is pretty much word for word what Josh Staunton used to say when he was part of the Woking team that was about to be relegated. He used to regularly come over to fans at the end of the game and apologise for the performance. All very laudable, and it ensured that criticism of him from the fanbase was muted, but there is a reason why he finds himself part of a relegation-threatened club once again.