JOHN ULLMAN CUP FINAL - IAN NEAL INTERVIEW

22.05.10

A refreshing end to the season was capped with a trophy last weekend, with Ian Neal and his side defeating Chatham Town 2-0 to bring the John Ullmann Cup to Champion Hill. The Youth Team boss caught up with us this week to give his verdict on the final, his future at the club and his skipper's performance against the Kent outfit.

Having produced talent such as Louis Sprosen, Tom Pratt and Danny Baldwinson in recent seasons and the impressive array of results Neal and his side have conjured this season, many are calling for the promotion of some these youth team players to first team duties. Neal however, remains completely coy on the subject and refuses to say anything about the progression of his players into Gavin Rose's first team.

"We will have to wait till pre season begins to find out," he said when asked if he expected Rose to call up his youngsters into senior action soon.

As stated previously, Chatham have had an amazing campaign in the Kent Youth League this season, as at the time of writing are currently unbeaten in the league. The two sides had in fact met previously in the season, with Chatham running out 4-2 winners and Neal states that he based his tactics for the final on what he learnt from their previous encounter.

"We played Chatham earlier in the season when we lost 4-2 where we didn't start playing till we were 4-0 down and learnt quite a lot from that game. We were sort of forced into a system earlier in the competition when players were stuck in traffic getting to the VCD Athletic game, we had to shuffle the players around and it worked really well especially against the academy teams. We then adopted the same formation in games where we wanted the stop the opposition's midfield from dictating the game and playing counter attacking football."

Rumours have been flying all season about Ian Neal's future at the club, after whisperings of a frosty relationship with Rose had occupied the terraces. Despite this however, Neal states that he intends to be at Champion Hill next season.

"There will always be rumours flying around about this person or that person but unless some one knows something I don't then I intend be here next season."

Youth team skipper Olly Bell received a fair proportion of praise following his performance in the final, some suggesting that Rose should consider him for the first team next season and Neal was quick to heap more compliments upon the young centre half. Nonetheless, he also stated that his team were excellent against Chatham and identified every one of them as having a great impact on the game.

"He [Bell] has had a really good season and was fantastic on Sunday, but he was not the only player as I thought four or five other players were outstanding. It was a real Team performance, which I know they are all capable of and they should be proud of themselves.

"We were excellent as a back five on the day, which, in fairness, we had been for the whole competition, only conceding two goals with Sam [Wheeler] in goal keeping four clean sheets. The midfield trio worked extremely hard stopping the opposition from playing and supporting [Tom] Pedrotti up front as a lone striker, who ran himself into the ground and took his chance superbly. The wide players who got forward when they could but stopped their wide players from getting forward also did well. And let's not forget the subs that came on and just took over working as hard as the players they replaced."

Due to Chatham's dominance in their division, many felt that the encounter may be a tough task for the Hamlet, but Neal retains that he and his players always held belief that they could come away victors with the trophy firmly in their grasp.

"If you don't believe you can win a game then you shouldn't be there. You have to past that confidence on to your players without being arrogant. We beat three academy teams on the way to final and I believe the players knew they had a real chance in the final".

© Richard Caldecourt