11-09-2020, 17:38
When I was playing in the Chesterfield Saturday League Chesterfield put a side of Junior players into the league for a couple of seasons. They were very good. They finished fourth or fifth. They struggled against us, Barlow and Park Rangers I think, but we were experienced and physically much stronger sides, but they played nice football and because they were pro' trained stuck to that game. They were all about 17 years old. Whether it brought any of them on that much I don't know but they would have had no option but to learn to look after themselves. Teams of men don't like getting the run-around from teams of young lads. I can remember it took us quite a while to impose ourselves on them, but stuff like us having a 6'4" centre forward was difficult for them to deal with.
As I've said before, Plymouth run a reserve side in the SW Peninsula League, which is a decent level. They were the major challengers to Plymouth Parkway, who field Jamie Lowry every week, and last season Parkway moved up to the Western League and were up at the top in that. So there's no reason we couldn't aim to have a side a bit higher than Hope Valley, at Bakewell's level or even a step up from that.
As I've said before, Plymouth run a reserve side in the SW Peninsula League, which is a decent level. They were the major challengers to Plymouth Parkway, who field Jamie Lowry every week, and last season Parkway moved up to the Western League and were up at the top in that. So there's no reason we couldn't aim to have a side a bit higher than Hope Valley, at Bakewell's level or even a step up from that.