On his birthday we thought it was the perfect excuse to share our recent catch up.
Magic midfielder Mr. Merris is living proof of how looking after yourself well can truly be the key to footballing longevity. We hope he’ll forgive us for mentioning that when he was Thomas Dodds’s age, Jack Griffin had not yet been born!
Dave’s illustrious semi-pro career began in the youth ranks of Rotherham United and included spells at York City and Harrogate Town among other clubs. He joined the Green Lions last season and quickly became established as a classy and highly skilled squad member. We had a chat with Mezz about his GFC career thus far.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first season at GFC. I needed something to challenge me football-wise and GFC has done just that. It’s given me back that love for football, that desire, and that togetherness with the rest of the lads. I think that close camaraderie was truly shown at the end of last season where we pulled together and got the results that kept us in this league. It was a thoroughly enjoyable season for me, and hopefully that will continue.
Four defeats and a win so far at the start of this season on paper doesn’t look the greatest but I don’t think that’s a true reflection of some of the performances our lads have put in. Looking back to our last home game the other Saturday, that’s a prime example. We were hitting the crossbar numerous times, hitting the post, missing opportunities chances-wise, with penalty decisions going against us at both ends of the pitch. I believe that these results are not a true reflection of the performances that we are putting in, and if we continue to play how we have been playing this form is going to change and we’ll just kick on.
I feel that on Saturday we were unlucky. I felt big parts of the game we controlled it, though we maybe slipped off a little bit towards the end of the first half when they changed their formation. As I said there were opportunities throughout the game; we had chances. We hit the crossbar, the post, yet other days those shots might go in and you come away with a comfortable victory. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t our day, and they obviously had a couple of chances and capitalised on them, so yeah, we were very unlucky. Again, our performance at times was very good and we were creating opportunities, creating chances and playing some really nice football.
It’s great to see Seb and Jack in the squad, as they both give us completely different dimensions. Sebby is a machine! Seb brings so much to the squad: tireless running, he breaks the game up, gets stuck in, gets on the ball, creates opportunities for other people – he’s selfless really, which is a great attribute. Jack, as you’ve seen from his first game, he’s got an eye for goal. He’s comfortable on the ball, with both feet, so he’s going to be a great asset and prospect for the squad. It would be nice to see him progress and thrive.
In terms of the squad’s current mix of youth and experience, I think we’ve got it right. I’d say at the moment GFC are probably in a transition where the youth are going to start coming through, and of course they need to start coming through, but with that support from those experienced players around them. It’s a perfect opportunity for those young lads to come in and get that experience from the older individuals and kick on, and then they in their turn will become those experienced players for the next set of youth players that are going to come through. So, at the moment I think we’ve got a great balance and the future looks bright for GFC.
It’s very early in the season yet to speculate on where we could end up, but because of this great group of lads we’ve got, I don’t see why we can’t say mid table, even why we can’t say play-offs. it was shown last season that where you had the chance to put a couple of runs together you soon can move up that table. The teams that are the most consistent always seem to be the ones up in there or thereabouts so very early on, but if we get a run together, confidence starts to build. Then you can push yourself further and further up that table, so there’s no reason why we can’t compete with those teams up around the top.