NPL Division One East
Dave Frecklington insists Frickley Athletic are not out of the race for the play-offs.
Frickley – who host North East giants Shildon at Westfield Lane tomorrow – are seven points off fifth-placed Dunston and Frecklington believes his men are getting stronger week-by-week.
“(The play-offs) are the aim and you have to aim high,” Frecklington told Non League Yorkshire.
“We feel and the players feel we are good enough to go on a run and I’ve said this before, take the top four out of it, I think the fifth spot is up for grabs.
“We have beaten Stocksbridge, Worksop, we’ve drawn with Brighouse, drawn at Stockton.
“These are teams directly above us.
“We have given the top four close games and that’s with a new team – a team that has been rebuilt since the end of September.
“As we have more sessions with the players working on the shape and pattens, they’re only going to get better.
“We’ll see where we go after the New Year and we feel we’re not far away from been a really good side.
“Whether that’ll be enough we’ll see at the end of the season.
“Certainly going forward we have a lot to be positive about.”
The former Gainsborough Trinity manager is very experienced when it comes to play-off pushes at Step 4 and he knows what it takes.
“When I was at Lincoln it took us three years to get in the play-offs whereas with Spalding we did it in year one,” he said.
“I’m used to getting in the play-offs at this level.
“At Lincoln we were tenth in January and got in the play-offs with two games to spare.
“At Spalding we were in the top two all year fighting with Shaw Lane and I left to go to Gainsborough and (Spalding) lost in the play-off final.
“It doesn’t matter where you are now, it is where you are in the run-in.
“If you stay on the coat-tails and in the New Year if you’re five or six points off, you have a right chance.
“It is not how you start, it is how you finish.”
Play-offs or not, Frecklington sees many positives from a season that has been up and down.
The Blues made their best start to a campaign since 1991 but that was de-railed by departures and injuries – forcing Frecklington to rebuild his squad for the third time in three months.
“I don’t regret anything about the season,” he said.
“There’s no point looking back – you have got to progress and move forward.
“We have had a lot of change which is never great for any club especially so early in the season.
“We won four out of the first five and then we lost seven players overnight – whether through injury, players moving clubs or retirement.
“You look at the top four or five teams in the league, their teams don’t change.
“It is the same team every week.
“I said at the start of the season that the team who is most consistent in terms of the same eleven, 13 players will be right up at the top of the table.
“Those who chop and change will be mid-table.
“I don’t regret anything and you have to take it as a learning process.
“You have your ups and downs.
“It could have gone a different way.
“When we lost the players we could have felt sorry for ourselves and sulked and struggled through the season.
“That’s not in our make-up, we want to do well and be successful and go up the ladder.
“That’s why I have been really pleased with our recruitment and the way our players have adapted.
“We have pace, energy, we’ve dynamic and we’re super solid.
“We have one of the best defensive records in the league.
“We just haven’t scored enough goals – we’re one of the worst for goals for.
“But if you look at the goals for and against, we’re ain’t a million miles away.
“We’re confident of kicking on but time will tell.”
A lot of Frecklington’s confidence comes from the displays in the defeat to big guns Liversedge and Cleethorpes and the win at Stocksbridge in the past month.
“I have been really pleased with the players,” he said.
“We have certainly realised we are a match for anybody.
“If you look at the Liversedge game, for 75 minutes, there was nothing between the two teams.
“We gave away a penalty on 65 minutes and they scored again straight after – a 2-0 score-line doesn’t reflect the game, we were good for a point.
“The Cleethorpes game; we were bang in the game for 85 minutes.
“First half we weren’t so great but second half we were bang at it and to come on the side of the wrong result was disappointing.
“We were excellent in the win at Stocksbridge.
“The levels of our performances have been very high – we just haven’t had the results that the performances have deserved.
“Since October after the 6-0 defeat at Dunston we have been super competitive.
“Now we have a consistent team and a consistent squad we feel we’re on the right track to become a really good team.”