Holbeach United boss Danny Clifton feels that the club deserves to be playing Step Six football next season after their relegation from the Uhlsport UCL Premier Division North was all but confirmed last weekend.
The Tigers, who haven’t dropped below Step Five of the non-league ladder in their recent history, lost 3-0 at Heather St John last Saturday and will be officially relegated if they don’t win at high-flying Gresley Rovers this Saturday (3pm).
However, Clifton insists that he has long-since accepted that his side will finish bottom of the table and that it being rubber-stamped doesn’t bother him in the slightest.
There is a chance that an end-of-season restructuring of the non-league pyramid could hand Holbeach a reprieve, but Clifton feels that eventuality would harm the sporting integrity of competition.
For the Tigers’ chief, the most important thing now is knowing what league his side will be in as soon as possible, planning accordingly for next season and making Holbeach a club capable of winning games again.
“Relegation wasn’t even on my mind on Saturday,” admitted Clifton. “I’ve long since accepted that.
“As a football man, I do believe in the integrity of competition and earning the right to be in the division.
“This season, we as a club haven’t won a single first team fixture and we deserve to be relegated.
“We need a total reset here and a fresh start. As manager, it’ll be easier to rebuild from Step Six and, in a way, we may be able to attract a few more experienced players that way.
“If I’m a UCL Premier standard player, Holbeach aren’t currently overly attractive because we’re a football club that has lost every week.
“We’d need seven or eight experienced players to add to the youth we’ve got here at Step Five, perhaps half that at the level below.
“Sometimes in football you need to take a step back to be able to go forward again and I believe that we’re in that place now.
“I have a document prepared for the club ahead of next season about how I feel we need to move forward and it has a list of players I’d like us to target, too. But we need to know what division we’ll be in before then, as soon as possible.”
Clifton knows that his views on relegation aren’t shared by everybody associated with Holbeach and he’s also aware of criticism of his tenure from people who are no longer involved with the club.
That’s because of Holbeach’s relatively recent successes under the likes of John Chand and Seb Hayes, which saw trophies won on a regular basis. If that wasn’t possible, the Tigers were usually in and around the top four and have contested multiple cup finals over the past decade.
Fans and former players see the club as on a par with the likes of Spalding United, Stamford and Wisbech Town – but relegation would shift their rivalries to the likes of Bourne Town and Blackstones, at least temporarily.
Clifton regularly fields a team that is packed with teenagers and reckons that any of his critics would struggle to win games in his situation.
“Holbeach is a proud club and we have lots of loyal fans,” he added. “I understand that the idea of relegation isn’t appealing.
“I know it would put us further beneath the likes of Spalding and Wisbech and that it won’t sit well with some people.
“I’m aware that others from outside don’t think i’m the right man for the job, I see a lot of that.
“What I’d say to them is that we’re fielding teams packed full of players that are in their first season of under-18 football, let alone men’s football.
“In an ideal world we bring in an entire new first team packed full of experience and these lads are in the Reserves or under-18s getting valuable experience.
“But the experienced players were leaving the club long before I came and I’ve had to work very hard to get a squad together here.
“I challenge anyone to drop their entire first team and play a UCL Premier fixture with solely teenagers or reserves. That’s what we’re dealing with every week.”
Clifton’s Tigers now face a horrible run of fixtures that sees them play second-placed Gresley (Saturday), third-placed Anstey Nomads (home, April 4) and leaders Long Eaton (away, April 9) on the trot.
The boss says he’ll ask his side to do the hardest thing in football and set up to be “solid and disciplined without the ball”.
