Hartpury University manager Martin Longworth expects Tuesday’s clash with Pershore Town to be a ‘competitive’ one as the two teams battle for the league title.
The two sides have been tussling at the top of Hellenic League Division One after an exciting first half of the season, with Pershore streaking ahead by 11 points in the title fight.
But boss Longworth is hopeful they can pull together a result when they take on the Plums on Valentine’s Day after beating them last time out.
“We never go into a game thinking we can’t get anything from it,” Longworth told Park Life Sport.
“We’ve played a variety of teams at different levels and we’ve always gone into it thinking we can get something from the game on our day.
“I see Pershore as a step five team playing in a step six league with their staffing and infrastructure.
“It’ll be a great chance for us to go and prove ourselves.
“In terms of confidence, that shouldn’t be something we need to instil into the players they know they’ve got the trust of the staff.”
Longworth also admits it has been a difficult few weeks after consecutive 1-1 draws with Long Crendon and FC Stratford respectively haltedtheir momentum towards the top of the division.
“We need to put right what’s been four points dropped in recent weeks,” Longworth said.
“But in those games we still we played some of the best football that we have this season.
“For us we need as many points as we can between now and the end of the season, if that means we’ve won the league, brilliant.
“But we just need to keep putting pressure on, if we finish second we’ll get a home semi final.
“It’s an accumulation of points we’ve got 13 games, 11 of which are at home we just need to get points on the board.”
Hartpury also have the small matter of playing Newent Town on Saturday who they beat 6-1 last time out.
GAME OFF 🚨 Unfortunately this evenings game against @clannyfc has been postponed due to a frozen pitch. Information regarding the rearranged game will be communicated in due course
— Hartpury University FC (@HartpuryUniFC) February 7, 2023
We are back in action at home this saturday against Newent Town#Acorns 🔴⚫️ https://t.co/Do9WK5p4Aq pic.twitter.com/l5CattNWEI
But Longworth remains frustrated after their game with Clanfield was called off due to a frozen pitch, but he was pleased that a few of his players were able to keep their fitness levels high by playing for the under-19’s side.
“It’s frustrating, we train on a Monday morning so we always do a matchday minus one training session for our preparation,” Longworth said.
“We spent that time working on a couple of things. We’ve had a couple of draws recently away from home.
“There’s a couple of things we wanted to tweak after Clanfield who are an excellent side.
“The game being called off because of a frozen pitch, I think every other game in our league was called off too so we go again, a lot of the lads played yesterday for our under-19’s in Bucks.
“They’ll be back in tomorrow morning ahead of the weekend,” Longworth added.
