Marsden FC are still top of the Yorkshire Men’s Amateur Division 2. Boss Luke Haigh is confident his team will win the title but insists that isn’t enough. He wants to see his side smash the goals scored record for the division too.
Haigh said: “We are in a strong position to win the league now but that isn’t enough for me. I want us to break the league record for goals scored in this division and that is the challenge I’ve set for my lads. The record is 111 goals and we are on 80 with eight games left to play.”
The first team currently sit at the top of the league after 14 games played. They are on 39 points, four ahead of second-placed North Huddersfield.
On how the last month has gone on the field, Haigh added: “It’s very much back to business as usual for the first team since the start of February.
“We comfortably sit at the top of the table with games in hand after beating our nearest rivals this month. We’ve had something of a keeper crisis for a number of weeks, however this seems to have been put to bed for now and we can finally move forward.
“December and January had been a struggle with injuries and suspensions but it has shown our strength in depth to get through some of the games we have.”
On looking further ahead to next season, Haigh wants to see his Marsden side be promoted to the Championship or Premier division.
He said: “I already have one eye on next season, along with three to four potential new signings coming in pre-season to add to our talented squad.
“I’ve pencilled in some tough pre-season away games too with more to follow. We are looking to jump up a couple leagues next campaign so we have to be ready for the tougher challenges to come.”
Haigh added: “We have now successfully applied for our reserve team to join us in the Yorkshire Amateur League from next season. It’s subject to approval by the league but everything should go through as planned. I have the utmost trust in my reserve team managers Richard Coggon and Steve Charlton to keep pushing the lads along.
“We have weekly meetings about which individuals are doing well and so far this season eight of the reserve team have been called up to the first team and long may that continue. We are very much one club at Marsden and that is how it should be run.
“Regarding the off-the-pitch work we’ve got a number of tasks which we want completed at the ground by the time pre-season starts.
“We, as a club, have got to keep moving forwards on and off the field. So come pre-season we should have a few more tasks ticked off. We are currently applying for grants to help with floodlights and potentially other things as well.”
