Newark Town Ladies manager Alvin Sheldon on winning the Nottinghamshire Girls & Ladies League Division 1 title
Manager Alvin Sheldon is backing Newark Town Ladies to kick on next season following their title success.
Town ended the season as Nottinghamshire Girls & Ladies League Division 1 champions after a campaign to remember.
They pipped the University of Nottingham by three points to earn promotion to the East Midlands Regional League Division 1 North.
Opponents are set to include the likes of Grimsby Town, Chesterfield and Notts County Development - but Newark are up for the challenge.
“We’re going to come up against some pretty strong teams but I’m incredibly confident we’re going to do all right,” said Sheldon, a former Newark Town men’s team manager.
“We’ll look to add two or three new faces, players from the level we’re going into, but even with the squad we’ve got now, I feel confident we can do well.
“We’re going to go for it. That’s the way we do things.
“For me, success in the first season in the higher division is staying up but I don’t want to just stay up, I want to be challenging again.
“That’s the aim but I have to hold myself back a little bit sometimes.
“It’s a big step up and there’s quite a big gap between the divisions.
“Every game’s a test but we’ve got more than enough to do well.
“I know we’ve got many players in our squad who are more than capable of playing at that level and higher.
“We’ve got these girls from higher levels, we know they can play, but then we’ve got a batch of younger players who are learning all the time that are developing and coming on in leaps and bounds.
“The improvement I’m seeing in some of these girls that are only 18, it’s like night and day from the start of the season to the end of the season.”
Sheldon was invited to get involved by then-manager Julie Roberts in the second half of last season.
He was struck by the talent in the squad at his training session and Newark finished runners-up in both league and cup.
They were ready to take the next step this season and so it proved as Town played their way to the title.
Their attacking football resulted in 17 wins from 22 matches, scoring 97 goals along the way.
Connie Forman topped the scoring charts with 39 goals, 14 clear of her nearest rival, while team-mates Jessica Hogg and Jessica Parker also featured in the top five, with 18 and 16 respectively.
Sheldon started the season as joint-manager alongside club legend Roberts before being handed full control after Christmas.
He named Andrew Curl as his assistant, with Dave Isott also on the coaching team.
“We instilled a philosophy that we play football, we play out from the back and we play to our strengths,” said Sheldon.
“We know how to beat teams, we know how to suss out weaknesses and we do our homework on teams.
“We’re well prepared when we go into games and within 20 minutes we know if what we’ve asked them to do is working or not.
“If it’s not, then we make the changes to make it work.
“These girls want to learn, they want to play football, and that’s our ethos.
“We’re going to play football, we’ll try and play the right way, we press high, we press quick and we play football in what I think is the right way.
“There’s very few teams at the level we were at that do what we do.
“Our keeper rolls it to our centre-half and we start playing.
“It’s a results business but I will never, ever sacrifice our playing style to get a result.
“We want to play football in the right way because I feel that will serve us better as we hopefully push on through the divisions.
“The set-up is good, the way we play football is good and I just want to improve on that.
“I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it this season, the good and the bad.
“There have been times when we have struggled a bit with availability and not putting out our strongest possible team.
“Ultimately, we won the league and I wouldn’t change a thing.
“We dedicated the title to Julie. She’s been part of the club for five years and brought this club on so much.
“Without her, none of this would be possible. We’ll never forget that.”
Newark missed the chance to clinch the title on the pitch as opponents Calverton couldn’t raise a side for the final match.
They were awarded the points, moving them above the University of Nottingham, who had blown their opportunity to take the crown by drawing back-to-back games.
“We won the league without having to kick a ball in anger,” said Sheldon.
“If you’d given me that scenario the week before I’d have snapped your arm off but I was kind of gutted.
“I felt like I’d lost a tenner and found a fiver but ultimately we won it and in two or three years no one will care.
“We won the league and that’s all that matters.”
Newark Town Ladies are holding open training sessions for their first-team and development squads at the YMCA on June 17 (8pm-9.30pm) and June 22 (10.30am-12noon).
Players must be 16 and over. All abilities welcome.
