Birtley Town
We knew it wouldn ’ t be a walk in the park , so to speak , but we would obviously have liked to have finished higher up the table than our final position of 8th showed . Our main highlight of last season was when we progressed to the League Cup Final where we narrowly lost 1-0 to Walker Central who have since folded so we are fully aware of how careful we have to be so that we don ’ t suffer the same fate .”
2017 / 18
“ Our plans for this season are pretty simple too ; to make sure we retain as many of the players we had last season but to also add squad depth and improve in areas we struggled with . Hopefully a decent start to the season will put us on the right foot .
Off the field , we plan to finally have our own bar in the clubhouse as well as further strengthening our ties with both our junior setup and the local community ... something which hadn ’ t really been done before the merge . By doing this , we ’ re hoping that it will attract more people down to the club to support us .”
Youth
“ Birtley Town Juniors are in simple terms , the future of our club ! We made massive improvements last season in how we involve the junior players and had many of them as home match day mascots as well as a full team of mascots for our League Cup Final in April .
Having mascots at our home games is something that will continue indefinitely . Where a lot of junior and senior sides are run separately , our overall aim is to work together as much as possible for the benefit of the club as a whole .”
Community
“ We are definitely a community club . We would love to see more people taking an interest in their home town football club . We would love nothing more than our local community to get more involved with the club whether it be through volunteering / supporting us on a match day or by advertising their businesses as a club / player sponsor . We share what is going on within the club via our website and social media pages as well as in the Birtley specific pages on Facebook .”
Challenges
“ Income is probably always going to be high up on the list of answers to that question as it will with many clubs . Volunteers are another . On the income side of things , our Commercial Manager has plenty of irons in the fire so if they all come to fruition , it should hopefully put is in a much healthier position with something to build on .
Volunteer numbers are also on the up but we can never have enough people helping out . Many hands make light work as they say so if anybody is interested , please get in touch . We don ’ t pay our players either as we simply can ’ t afford to at the minute so being able to keep who we have as well as strengthen the squad is a great achievement . You never know what might happen in the future though , but for now , it ’ s not possible . We have a structure in place for the next few years so if that all goes to plan , it ’ ll benefit everyone connected to the club .”
Ambitions
“ The overall aim for the club is to get ourselves back into the Northern League and build on it year on year . It may or may not happen this year , it ’ s far too early to tell , but improving on the previous season is always one of the first aims .
We ’ ve practically started the club off again too - both on and off the pitch so raising awareness of the club within our local community and through player recruitment is crucial . It ’ s not going to be an easy road as our league has some very good sides in it but we ’ re pretty excited by the challenges we will face .” www . footballfocusmag . com 63