New joint manager Scott Briggs has hailed outgoing chief Steve Lenthall for leaving a lasting legacy with Penistone Church Reserves.
Club stalwart Lenthall stood down from running the reserves last week and passed the baton onto former Penistone first team players Briggs and John Whitehead.
Lenthall holds several positions with Church and is critical part of the junior section.
Under his guidance over the past 12 years the reserves have gone from strength to strength and he has established them as a leading Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League Premier Division side.
“There is massive boots for me and JB (Whitehead) to fill,” Briggs told Non League Yorkshire.
“Everyone knows Lenny and it just shows you how well-regarded he is with the credit he has been getting from other managers on Twitter and Facebook.
“He’s still going to be around, but not as much, but he’ll be behind the scenes.
“The reserves were in the second division when he took it and now they’re in the Premier. The players have improved tenfold and the team has improved a hell of a lot.
“He has dragged the second team up to where they are, along with Wetts (reserve team coach Mark Wetton).
“People have forgotten about Wetts and what he has done for the club, but both Lenny and Wetts have done a great job.”
Cousins and life-long friends Briggs and Whitehead were centre-half partners in Ian Richards’ Penistone side which careered into the Toolstation NCEL in 2014.
They have been helping Lenthall and Wetton run the reserves for a while.
In Briggs they also have a devoted clubman who has served Church since the age of six – and someone who could be a potential ultimate nightwatchman in the future!
“I can’t speak for JB (Whitehead), but I’m over the moon (to take job),” he said.
“It might be a little thing for some people, but for me it is a big honour.
“The club means a hell of a lot to me and as I’m talking to you now I can see the floodlights.
“I live that close to it. The club is a big part of my life.
“My association goes back as far as I can remember.
“I played with the nines, tens and all the teams up to the 18s.
“I may have been 15 when I started playing adult football and I went into the first team and we got promoted into the North East Counties.
“That brings other people in doesn’t it so I ended up going to Stocksbridge for a couple of years to play in their reserves.
“Then I had some family time, but I missed it so I went back to Penistone (around 2019).
“I did the pre-season (with the reserves) and thought I was going to struggle to get in the side.
“Then in the first match of the season we had two centre-halves on the bench and me as a centre-half on the bench so I knew I was only going to get on if two people got injured.
“I turned to Lenny and said I was missing my family time to do this, but I didn’t want to do it if I was sitting on a bench.
“That’s when he said he had spoken to Wetts and he said there was a player/coach role available and I jumped at the chance.”
As a player who has been a beneficiary of the pathway from juniors to the first team, Briggs has the opportunity to help others replicate his own achievements.
But what would count as a success story for the reserves – trophies or seeing reserve team players make first team debuts?
“It is hard to say really because everyone wants to win leagues and trophies,” he said.
“It has got a lot tougher to win things, but like you say it would be nice to bring a young one through and watch him progress to the first team or even higher than that.
“We have got Steve’s lads who will be under 18s next season and they’ll be knocking on the door of second team football.
“That will be a big step for them, but if they can make the transition from the under 18s to men’s football, maybe they can step up again.”
Briggs is also well-placed to comment on the incredible Penistone success story which has seen the first team go from County Senior League obscurity to the brink of the Northern Premier League.
The place is transformed totally from the club’s County Senior League days and Briggs has seen it spectacularly evolve.
“Oh wow, I look at photos what people put on the local Facebook page and you’re like ‘I can remember that’,” he said.
“You’d be playing for the first team and there’d be three people and one bloke walking his dog on the side.
“Now there’s two hundred people plus watching.
“When I was in the first team we were the second team is now (in the County Senior League) and like I say we were getting two or three people watching.
“Our second team now get 30 or 40 people watching us which is absolutely brilliant.
“The standard of the club and the amount of volunteers we have now is absolutely brilliant.
“The way the club has progressed is unbelievable and everyone in Penistone talks about the club now.
“The ground is unrecognisable to ten years ago. I remember the pitch and it used to be sand and it was horrible. Now people come and they want to play.
“They walk up the drive and see the floodlights, the seats, the changing rooms, the nets and think it’s Wembley which you couldn’t say 15 years ago.
“It is astronomical where the club has gone.”
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