United remain top but ‘there’s a long way to go’

WESTBURY United remain hopeful for a good season as they top the league heading into December, but there is a long way to go and players need to keep up the momentum, says manager Neil Kirkpatrick.

Speaking to White Horse News Neil said, “First of all, they don’t hand out prizes in November. The season still has a long, long way to go, with a tough month ahead of us as we will be playing our closest rivals – Chedder and Keynsham Town.

“Of course, it is nice to be at the top rather than chasing for it. It’s good that people are aiming to beat us. But, recently we have had a bit of a wobble that hopefully we have overcome. We have struggled with injury recently, but it is nice to see the boys playing well again.

“We have some great players in the team, but we still have to earn every game. The lower teams have caused us some issues as we are expecting to beat them and we have struggled, but it just shows that the lads are working hard and the other teams are pushing to beat us.

“Chedder and Keynsham town are our nearest rivals and they are two good teams, both narrowly missed out on promotion last season. It’s a bit of a football cliche but we just have to take one game at a time. If we get 1 point a game or 3 points, by the end of the season we hope that they add up to enough.

“We have quite an even spread of goalscorers with Ricky Hulbert, Dan Kovacs and Mark Robinson, but it’s a complete squad effort. Defensively the team has been good all season, especially during the great result we had last week in the cup game against Bradford Town. Bradford have a bigger budget so hopefully this win will give the boys momentum to carry on in the next games. It was an exciting local derby that has progressed us on to the quarter-finals of the Senior Cup where we will see either Chippenham or Salisbury.

“It would be great for this success to continue. We always like to remain confident in our team that we can do well.”