THIS Olympic Games-inspired, Corinthian spirit seems to be catching, as the teenage girl sitting with her family in the front row of the main stand at St Neots Town‘s spanking Rowley Park so innocently pointed out.
?Mum, did you see that? A green and a blue player got up holding hands. That is so adorable, cooed the young lady as home captain Stefan Moore and Hitchin’s Callum Donnelly helped each other back to their feet after a crunching tackle, late on in a rip-roaring Southern Premier clash on Tuesday.
After successive promotions under Dennis Greene, this was the Saints’ Step 3 debut at the 6 million pound home they got built for free by developers in 2008, and although they lost by the odd goal in five to leave them with zero points from two games, it was a love-in all round for 390 of us to witness.
It has been well-documented that Greene left the Cambridgeshire club at the start of pre-season after a run-in with chairman Mike Kearns, who used his programme notes to briefly explain the ?disruption”.
He wrote: ?We did not have a disagreement about budget, lack of it or players he wanted to sign. His position as manager became untenable and that is it.”?
But that was as spiky as things got, with new boss Iain Parr describing how his appointment ahead of 72 applicants was “a dream fulfilled” for a former Saints player, Under-18 and reserve team coach.
?Well here I am, manager/coach of the club I support and the town I live in,” wrote Parr. ?I feel very proud and honoured to be offered the opportunity to take charge of my local team playing at such a high level in the Pyramid.
?I have played and coached at various levels at the club and now have the chance to build on a fantastic foundation. I would like to thank Mike for giving me this opportunity.”
As a UEFA A-Licensed coach and former member of Peterborough’s youth staff, Parr was asked by Kearns to rebuild Town using his contacts to snap up recently released young pros, as well as youngsters with experience of Step 3 football and above.
Their starting line-up showed four additions to the Southern Central championship-winning side with full-backs John-Paul Duncliffe and Declan Rogers, centre-half Arthur Lee and central midfielder Charlie Dove having been brought in by Parr.
But one permanent signing, who had initially arrived on loan from Bishop’s Stortford last season, really stood out, as ex-Histon and Hampton man Callum Stewart struck two fine goals from the middle of the park.
The first was aided by a wicked deflection off his namesake Laurie, my former Ware team-mate who impresses more and more each time I see him at the heart of Hitchin’s defence. But the second, a scorching 25-yarder into the roof of the net, was an early contender for goal of the season.
A banner among “The Rabble”, as their more vociferous fans behind the goal are affectionately known, proclaimed that “St Neots Town Football Club” are “Building For The Future”.
And as well as a new 300-seater stand behind the dugouts to help bring the already-superb stadium up to Conference standard, that future, according to Kearns, involves taking ?two very huge steps to get to the pinnacle of Non-League football”.
We hear of clubs’ five and ten-year plans, and can usually take them with a pinch of salt.
St Neots have so far come up against two well-drilled Step 3 sides in Chesham and Hitchin, and come unstuck. But as I first sensed when I went for Steve Lomas’ unveiling as manager in March 2009, they are definitely a club on the up, now chasing a hat-trick of successive titles.
Kearns says he never expected them to be ready for the start of the season after a summer of discontent. ?We’ve got three or four new lads in the pipeline, and we will get better, he promised. By Friday, centre-half Ollie Thorn and midfielder Jay Davies had arrived.
And with an all-out attacking policy and a fearsome front four of strikers Moore and Ben Mackey, supplied by wide men Dan Jacob and Lewis Hilliard, you wouldn’t back against a recovery to shoot them alongside local rivals Cambridge United and Histon in the Conference set-up.
