Dabbers delight at latest fair play laurels

Nantwich Town chairman Jon Gold wants November's EVO-STIK Northern Premier League Fair Play honour to inspire the club's youngsters to continue striving to play the game in the right spirit.

Proud Gold is pictured collecting last month's Premier Division accolade from EVO-STIK NPL operations manager Alan Allcock before last Tuesday night's 2-0 win for Danny Johnson's side over Barwell at the Weaver Stadium.

The Dabbers were unveiled as the top flight's winners alongside Northwich Victoria in First Division North and Stafford Rangers in First Division South and Gold is delighted that the club's efforts to instill the right values have been recognised again after their triumph at the Football Association's 2013 Respect and Fair Play Awards when they were named as best behaved side in Non-League at Steps 3-4.

Gold said: "I’m over the moon. Nantwich always play in the right spirit. We try to have the same spirit in all our teams, not just the first team, and that is why we won the national respect award two years ago because we attempt to play fairly. I think that has been recognized yet again by the league.

"We want to win fairly and the main thing about Nantwich Town is that we have 24 youth teams. The youth teams have to be coached the right way and if the first team isn’t playing with the right spirit and the right manner then it reflects on the junior teams.

"That is something we don’t want to encourage. So if the youth team can see the first team doing well and winning fair play awards then that is great."

Like the Dabbers, who collected just two cautions in four league games, the Vics and Rangers will be presented with an inscribed certificate to mark their achievements and a bottle of Pol Roger champagne after topping their respective divisional fair play tables.

They are based on EVO-STIK NPL fixtures played divided by points for yellow and red cards. Where clubs are tied on points, marks awarded by referees over the month for behaviour in the technical area are taken into account.

To view the latest Fair Play Tables click on the 'League Info' button on the home page and then the 'Press Releases' under the downloads tab.

Image courtesy of Simon J Newbury Photography

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