No regrets, say Gingerbreads

Grantham Town hit the road tomorrow night on their first away trip of the Evo-Stik NPL’s Premier Division campaign at Stafford Rangers with manager Jimmy Albans warning his side to quickly learn the lessons from Saturday’s home defeat to FC United of Manchester.

The Gingerbreads lost 4-2 on the opening day but the manager doesn’t have too many fears. In a preview of Tuesday’s clash joint manager Albans tells writer Graham Cowell there are many positives to focus on.

"I was very pleased with our application, desire and quality on Saturday," Albans said. "None of those things could be questioned. We were a bit naive at times and that caught us out a couple of times. However, I am over the moon with the way we conducted ourselves against one of the best sides in the league.

"We know that performance will stand us in good stead for the rest of the season. We need to be strong and resilient at Stafford, to remove the naivety and concentrate all game. Then we can come away with a result. We will find out all we can about Stafford. Their manager Greg Clowes knows us from Newcastle Town, so he will know what to expect!"

Albans works alongside Waynee Hallcro as joint managers and the duo admit their approach to games last season could be labelled 'gung-ho' but their side lived up to expectations to challenge and ultimately won the Championship. For different reasons, Albans doesn’t see why they need to change their views too much this time around.

"We are going out there for each game trying to get them thinking more about us than we are about them," Albans revealed. "We want to go out and win every game we play. What we might have to do this season is shut up shop at times and settle for what we have late in a game rather than go chasing a win and leave ourselves open to a counter."

Although Albans and joint manager Hallcro have made a few changes to the side over the summer, only two, Emeka Nwadike and Jimmy Lindley, made Saturday’s starting line-up against FCUM. Two were suspended while Karl Demidh made his league bow as a substitute.

Importantly, the hard work the pair have done at Grantham in putting in the foundations for a successful side showed at a higher level and Albans said: "The professionalism in the side and our familiarity with our system of playing showed across the ninety minutes that we are not too far away from being a very good side in this league.

"Paul Grimes gave them a torrid time all afternoon. He played well enough to have got a hat-trick and Ben Saunders, Phil Watt and Rhys Lewis all had good chances as well. All afternoon, we created the better chances but they were more clinical in taking the ones they made."

Albans says he has no regrets despite the 4-2 defeat being the heaviest the club has suffered since they last came up against a fellow Premier Division side. That was against Chasetown in the FA Trophy and Albans insisted: "If you don’t take your chances, you get punished. That is the same at any level of football.

"We had started the second half better than them, but didn’t switch on to a free kick. Once the penalty had been awarded, the referee had to send Jimmy off. Despite being down to ten men, we still looked dangerous. We wanted to get the equaliser, but got caught with a sucker punch."

With no reserve goalkeeper on the Gingerbreads' books, Albans and Hallcro now face a couple of weeks of hard work finding a suitable replacement before Jimmy Lindley’s suspension starts.

"We hope it is just a one game ban," explained the joint manager. "That would mean missing the Nantwich game on September 1 and leaves us with two weeks to get someone in. Going with no sub goalie is still the right choice in our opinion. In three seasons here at Grantham this is the first time it would have been needed. Why would we waste a substitute place for the rest of the 150 odd games?"

Nwadike joined Martin Ball and Rhys Lewis in a midfield trio that Albans says performed well against FC United.

He said: "We played a more conventional midfield three than we have done for the last season or so but it worked for us. We won our headers all afternoon, got our tackles in and dominated them in midfield. We stopped FC United from picking their passes. They had one touch and we were closing them down to make it hard for them and at half time we thought we could go on to win the game."