Life's a Beach. (Southport FC Story)

Unknown manager Bobbie Ashworth takes over Vanarama North mid-table team Southport on a one year deal.

The young up and coming manager is said to be delighted with being chosen for the job.

Club Background




Summer Transfers & The Squad



Here are the transfers I have made since joining the club. The squad I have inherited is a relatively strong one and we have plenty of cover for most positions. With us playing a basic 4-4-2 tactic, there isn't really any 'speciality' positions or roles that are needed.

Notable mentions go to Tom Wraight who comes in to battle for the left midfield position for the season and free transfer Robbert te Loeke who adds some well needed experience to our goalkeeping position and will probably start the season as our number one.



Overall, I am delighted with the squad and I feel we have all bases covered for the season. Not pictured is 3rd choice keeper Charlie Albinson who has been dropped down to play with the U18s (We have no reserves!) but has the potential to become our first choice keeper further down the line and I'm trying to get him a loan move.

On paper, our best player would be Kieran Glynn who is currently on loan from Salford FC and is a naturally pacey winger. A player I will be keeping my eye on for sure for future permanent moves.

Pre-Season Friendlies

Pre-season has been good to us, with some great results on the pitch with us concentrating on the tactical side of things off it to get ourselves familiar with the way we want to play this season.

The draw against a strong Yeovil team from the Vanarama conference was a particular highlight.



Next Update: August. The Season Begins.

An unbeaten pre-season can't be sniffed at. There are some very good players in this squad and promotion is definitely a strong possibility. Paddy Lacey is one face I recognise as an Accrington fan. Just hope he's put his off the pitch issues behind him for you.

When taking screenshots, make sure your cursor is not hovering over the area you wish to display. Also, make sure you arent clicked on something as it may highlight something you don't intend to.

Good start here, best of luck with it, everybody loves a lower league English journey.

Nice start to the story, and a good pre-season to kick of Bobbie's debut season. Hopefully that form can follow into the competitive fixtures!

Thanks for your comments lads, August should be up either later today or tomorrow.

@griffo - Silly me, didn't notice I'd done that, thank you for pointing it out!

August 2019, the start of the Vanarama National League North campaign and we were raring to go. All of the preparation had been done, tactics discussed over and over again, players brought in and friendlies well and truly under the belt.

All that was left to do, was kick off the season and hope that over 42 gruelling league games, we could come out on top and meet our expectations. (Top Half Finish.)

The Results



The stand out game here, really was our opening game against Gateshead. I couldn't have asked for more than a 5-0 rout. Gateshead didn't look up to much all game. We had the game won by half time with Portuguese striker Raul Correia scoring a hatrick on debut, despite only starting due to a couple of injuries upfront for us. This would be a sign of things to come from him.

We've already played ONE SIXTH of all our games in a month having played 7 league games in August alone, which is a ridiculous amount of games to play.

The only low point of the month was the 2-1 loss to Darlington which hurt as we felt as though we at least deserved a point for our efforts which would have seen us go unbeaten in our first month of the season.

Managers Player of the Month

No doubt, if you've looked over the results above, you'll have guessed who got my own personal manager of the month.

Raul Correia

As mentioned above, he wasn't even supposed to start the opening game of the season, but after his hatrick, he became undroppable. Scoring 7 goals in 7 games, he was not only my stand out player of the month, he was voted Vanarama National League North Player of the Month for August.

Notable mentions go to both wingers Kieran Glynn & Tom Wraight who have provided nothing but quality service for our front two in our first month.




Summary

With another 5 league games coming up in September, it was vital we got off to a good start and we did.

Managers Rating: 7/10 for the month.

Not a bad start at all. The schedule at this level is tough and it requires careful management to navigate yourself through three games in one week on a regular basis. Hopefully the loss to Darlington doesn't start a poor run of form and you can recover quickly.

That is an incredible amount of games to play in one month, great effort to get the results you did.

A good start to the season and very nearly going unbeaten. Hopefully this can be built on for the rest of the season!