Interview by Julian Tyley
After an evenly matched first half, Whitley secured a comfortable 3-1 victory over Whickham, their first win on home soil this season. It was a result that obviously pleased manager Jay Bates. “I think it’s been well deserved tonight. It’s been coming, it’s been a struggle to get there. They weren’t a bad team, they’ve signed a lot of players (in the last few weeks) . They’ve got in two from Ryton, one is their best player so we knew they were improving in squad depth; and you could see from a few weeks ago when I went to watch them to when they beat Birtley in the Vase. They’ve come out, they’re fit young lads who are very quick athletes. They play together all week and know their patterns of play so they’ll be tricky for a lot of opponents this year.
“There was nothing between us first half. It was a very fast pace, They made it into that kind of game because they’ve moved it quite quick. Unfortunately we had to take Erra (Jack Errington) off at half time because their left winger was that quick, pushed the ball past him and was gone. He knew he had him for pace so we thought we’ll change it up a little bit and put Jamie Storey out there at right back for the second half, and I think it worked.”
Scoring early in the second half was a key moment in the game as Jay explained. “It breeds confidence, the first goal. When we get one, we get two, then we get three. We’ve just got to start getting them a bit earlier and take leads in games. After that goal, I think we were quite well in control. We could have had 4 or 5 opportunities but had to defend as well, like a good block on the line by Lennox.
“It was a good performance and everyone got what they needed. We managed to rest a few people and we got a few subs on which we haven’t done for a while and we managed to have a full bench to be fair.”
Mackenzie Sharpe scored a hat trick in just over 25 minutes during the second half and Jay commented. “Macca when he’s in his second half form there’s no one better in the league and that’s being brutally honest!”
However he could not hide his frustration at the late own goal that denied a first clean sheet of the season. “I don’t understand it. We’re 3-0 up with five minutes to go and we just need to see games out but I don’t know why it happened. “Micky’s played it out to Jamie and Jamies played it back to Mauro, but he’s not there because he’s putting his water bottle away! But we need to get that off our back( our first clean sheet), I did emphasize that clean sheets are important, unfortunately we didn’t get one again tonight by our own individual error.
“But it’s four games unbeaten and they weren’t easy games, Redcar and Kendal away were tough and Whickham are much improved. It’s starting to show now we’re beginning to get players back, but Saturday’s going to be a tough game against Easington. They’ve won again tonight and are lying second in the league so they’ll be full of confidence. That won’t be an easy game but we owe them(after the FA Cup games)
Referring to Whitley’s injury list, Jay told us Luca Shilling, injured at Kendal, “should be back in on Saturday. He’s just been assessed by physio Jacqueline after a slight hamstring injury. Josh Stewart trained tonight and will train again on Thursday, Mikel Thompson is two weeks away from returning, same as Jakey Forster but the others are more long term.”
