Wayne Benn admits Saturday night is an opportunity for Hemsworth Miners Welfare to reflect on the club’s recent achievements.
Hemsworth have become one of the most progressive clubs in the Toolstation Northern Counties East League in the past five years and tomorrow night sees the official opening of The Mark Crapper Suite.
The suite in honour of one of the most influential people in the club’s history is the centre-piece of the fabulous clubhouse extension and Benn, who returned to manage the Wells for a second time in October 2012, is thrilled with the club’s continuous progress.
“Saturday is absolutely a marker for how far the club has come in the last few years,” Benn told Non League Yorkshire.
“It is a testament and celebration of two or three-years hard work behind the scenes from various people.
“You’ve seen it with your own eyes, it is a magnificent extension and it has enhanced the club no-end.
“We now house a school for disadvantaged and disenfranchised children and that’s growing week-by-week. That’s been a huge success.
“That provides a bit of revenue to help sustain the building. None of that revenue comes into the football side of things. It is a separate entity and I totally agree with that.
“There’s lots of things happening at this club to make it financially sustainable. We are never ever going to be a club who goes out and spends £100s on players.
“But we are making progress without having to do that. We are improving players who have been with us a while.
“We bring good players into the football club, we play attractive football that people like watching and I hope we are seen as a big club at this level now.
“We’re seen as a scalp and you can see that by the way people celebrate when they take points off you.
“Credit to everyone, the players, the staff, the committee members. It is a team effort here.”
With the official opening taking place on Saturday night, Hemsworth have moved their clash with Paddy McGuire’s Thackley to tonight.
A big crowd is expected, but Benn will be just glad to get the fixture on as the midweek win over Bottesford was only their third game in 24 days.
“It has been horrendous in terms of the fixtures and how things have worked out,” he said.
“It has been far from ideal having almost a three week break between games.
“Getting through in the FA Cup and getting two byes in the FA Vase in a weird way has hindered us because have fallen behind with our games.
“It has been a scratchy stop-start start to the season. We haven’t performed anywhere near the levels at what we can perform at.
“There were signs of it coming together against Staveley last week. I thought we were magnificent for 30 minutes and out-footballed a very good side. We made them change their shape after 20 minutes. The disappointment was we lost a tight game, but that can happen.
“We could have easily won it 1-0. The lads needed Tuesday’s win for reassurance. It was a good win in many ways.
“There is some reasons for why our performance levels have been down and why results haven’t been as we would have liked.
“We have said to the boys that if we get two wins this week against Bottesford and Thackley, come Saturday we will be sat in a good position and it will become a reasonable start to the season.
“We have said all along that we want to be in the mix for promotion. With three promotion spots it has opened it up for 14 teams who realistically think they could nick one of those spots.
“With a bit of natural improvement on the back of finishing fourth last year, you would hope to be in the mix.
“But we have had to have a period of adjustment because we have lost three or four big players and had to replace them.
“We’ll get better as we go along, I’m convinced of that.
“I would guess we are mid-table with our budget, but it is not always about budgets. The people who have the most money don’t always win and that has been proven many times over many years.”
Hemsworth went ahead after 50 seconds against Bottesford before conceding an equaliser.
However, a rampant end to the first half saw Hemsworth lead 4-1. The game finished 5-2 and Benn was satisfied with what he saw.
“We were still a bit scratchy in our play, but we were well worth our 4-1 lead at half-time,” he said.
“Some of our attacking play in the first half was very good. It is something that has been lacking of late.
“At 4-1, it is a case of managing the game. When we score early in the second half to make it 5-1, I’m hoping we kick on and potentially score more goals.
“But the sending off actually hindered that hope because they just sat ten men behind the ball and tried to be compact and hard to beat.”