A busy old week Im recording this latest Upfront as Im driving back from Telford on a late and cold Wednesday evening, having just attended the Football Conference EGM. Also accompanying me were Warren and Tim Mellor. The EGM is attended by Managers and officials representing the three Skrill leagues and the agenda took in important discussions on various issues. Topics included a proposal to allow the use of artificial pitches. This particular proposal was defeated by 21 votes to 11, meaning that the 2014/2015 season within these three leagues will only allow natural grass surfaces. There will be minutes from the meeting displayed on the Skrill official website for those who are interested. There were various presentations including representatives from the FA, LMA, PFA and Referees. As you can imagine the latter fielded the most questions from the floor of managers! As we had no fixture I travelled up to Nuneaton on Tuesday to gather some information on our next opponents. Nuneaton put in an excellent performance against Aldershot and showed why they have been in and around the play off places all season. Kevin Wilkin has done a fantastic job there and deserves plenty of credit. On Monday we did the analysis of the Hereford game, watched the DVD and looked at where we need to improve as well as what we did well. There were a lot of positives coming from the game. Despite the defeat it was a good team performance and one we can build on. I was pleased with the momentum we created in the last 30 minutes of the game and its important we carry that on this Saturday. If we can harness those capabilities and create that consistency for longer periods of the game I have no doubt we will be successful. Martin Foyle paid us a huge compliment after the game saying we were up there with the best teams they have played this season. A huge compliment from a very experienced manager and the Lads can take a lot of belief and confidence from that. Its been a busy week, before driving to Warwickshire we were invited to Bulford by the army. We did some training on the ranges and it was great team bonding for the lads. We have some closet Snipers in our ranks... I will let you speculate as to who these might be! It was really enjoyable and Id like to thank Captain Lee Roberts and 4 Rifles regiment for allowing us to be involved. They were all top lads and really pushed the boundaries for what we could do. We hope to see them at the Ray Mac sometime soon. I have uploaded some pictures so you can get a feel for what we did! Im hoping that Stuart and Chris will have recovered from injury very soon and can be included in my squad. We also have Ben Wright back from his loan spell at Basingstoke. Saturdays another big game, as every one is and league wise, we are in a good position with games in hand, however in an ideal world you always like to have the points on the board! This league is very tight and and it changes all the time. Our aim is to get positive results from those games in hand but we are not going to get ahead of ourselves. Its about getting a positive performance and result from your next game and thats what we strive to do every time. Ive recently booked on a Sports Psychology Master class with Dr. Steve Peters at St. Georges Park in February. His book The Chimp Paradox is a fantastic read and I would urge anyone interested in psychology to get a copy. (Im not on commission by the way!) Probably, the mental side of the game is of most interest to me - the psychology side. Its mightily important and in my opinion its the difference between winning and being successful and not. Its an area that intrigues me, not just in a football environment but in everyday life as well. I find it amazing how many of us spend a huge amount of time, going to the gym, playing sports and developing ourselves physically but very few of us take the time out to develop our minds which arguably has the most effect on our life. Dr Peters has had a lot of experience and success working with the British Olympic team and Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton all say how much of an impact he had on them winning their gold medals. If I can learn something from this Master class that can help Salisbury City then it will be great. My team are looking forward to Saturday and playing on our home turf again at the Ray Mac. We have a fantastic home record that Id like to continue so please get behind the lads on what will be a difficult game. As always, on behalf of myself and the team we thank you for your brilliant support. COYW The Gaffer Mikey Harris
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:51:24 +0000
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