Dereham Town on the up under Adam Gusterson

By Hugo Varley
Adam Gusterson has put Dereham Town‘s recent revival down to a new entertaining style of football.
The Magpies were rooted to the bottom of the Bostik North table until the middle of January following a torrid campaign, beset with a string of defeats and a controversial points deduction.
But before Saturday’s clash with Brentwood, they had picked up maximum points from their last four games,
scoring 18 goals in the process to lift themselves off the bottom and out of the drop zone.
The catalyst for this remarkable turnaround in fortunes appears to have been the arrival of new boss Gusterson at the beginning of last month, who enjoyed an extremely successful spell in charge of Step 6 club Harleston Town.
“I couldn’t really have wished for a better start!” the Magpies boss told The NLP.
“To be winning and scoring as much as we have in recent weeks is absolutely brilliant and has helped to create a fantastic feeling around the club.
“My first three games were all against teams in the top 5 but I was impressed by what I saw from the lads and we managed to pick up two points, which gave us a real sense of confidence.
“The next four matches were ones that we knew we could win if we played to our potential and I am delighted that we have done just that.
“We have tweaked the way that we play a little bit and are looking to attack more.
“It creates a faster paced, entertaining style of football, which I hope the fans will
buy into.”
While he is currently revelling in his new job, Gusterson admits the decision to depart Harleston was one of the
hardest of his career.
In his three years in charge at Wilderness Lane, the former defender guided Harleston to the Anglian Combination title, before leaving the club seven points clear at the top of eastern Counties Division One North.
“Moving on was really tough,”?he added. “I had so many great memories at Harleston and we were
enjoying a superb period in the team’s history.
“However, Dereham is a club with huge potential and I felt that if I didn’t take the job, it would probably have been something that I would have looked back on and regretted.
“I didn’t want to be caught up thinking ‘what if’ so I decided to throw myself into the challenge and take up the offer.”
Although survival remains the sole objective this season, Gusterson admits he already has one eye on the future.
“If we can retain our status in the league this year, then I am really excited about what the next campaign may bring,” he said. “The club has been at this level for a number of years and we all have aspirations for a potential play-off push next season.
“There is a great youth structure here and if we can keep hold of some of the current first team players and continue to play an attacking brand of football then the future could be really bright.”