Nuneaton Borough Reserves Bench Talk

A warm welcome to everyone from Nuneaton for tonight's fixture here at Tally Ho! I am sure they will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the surface they will be playing on which is a tremendous credit to the ground staff of Parkway Grounds Maintenance Services (PGMS).

I am not certain if this is the first ever visit of the Borough lads but I do know that their first team has been here in the distant past. This is the first season of this Midland Floodlit Cup and we will both be seeking to make a good start in the competition.

Paul Webb, Jamie Evans, Lyndon Price, Darren Wilkinson, Pete Lee and Dayle Speed are all unavailable due to work or injury and on top of that Ollie Latchford is missing due to domestic commitments.. Neill Hornby won't play again this season due to his unfortunate knee injury, which was operated on last Monday. We wish him all the best. They have repaired his medial ligament and cartilage but he will have to suffer another op in 12 weeks time to repair his cruciate. Mark Bellingham had his knee flushed out on the same day and we are hopeful that this has cured the problem and that we see him back in a shirt after the New Year.

Mike Mason is probably about three weeks away from playing providing his rehab goes according to plan and Ian Millward is about a week away from resuming training after opening up a wound in his knee. I am still awaiting a medical update on Carl Hancox and Mark Langley made his first tentative steps to challenging for a first team slot when he turned out for the reserves last Saturday.

Despite all this we keep hanging in there and make the games competitive. Two bad defensive errors cost us the game on Saturday. Whilst we struggled in the first 30 minutes of last Saturdays game against Coventry Marconi we had the better of the last 15 minutes of the half and then dominated most of the second period without it ever looking likely that we would score until Mickey Hart struck home a 35 yard into the top corner to bring us back level. Unfortunately, sloppy defending five minutes later cost us. I can't fault the effort and commitment of the lads and we have just got to hang in there and hope that we start to convert some more of the chances that come our way. Having said that the responsibility for goals lies with the whole team and not just attackers.

We hope that you enjoy the game.