Chris Casement says Stowmarket Town will focus more on bringing youth players through with a smaller budget now in place at the club
Chris Casement says Stowmarket Town will be focusing more on bringing players through from their youth system as a result of a smaller budget now being in place at the club.
The Old Gold & Blacks have been hit with a number of player departures in recent weeks, including their top two goalscorers Reggie Lambe and Ollie Sotoyinbo, along with Marlon Agyakwa, Tevan Allen and Natty Stewart.
Last Friday, Evan Collard became the sixth player to exit, switching to Pitching In Isthmian League North Division rivals Coggeshall Town, while newly-appointed boss Casement has brought in Alfie Cutbush and Harvey Sayer on one-month loan deals from Ipswich Town and Colchester United.
Long-time donor Tom Morley has now decided to take a step back from the club and Casement insists with that will come a change in player recruitment.
“Tom’s concentrating on his family and his personal life,” the Stow boss said. “He’s been a great supporter of the club for so many years.
“In my playing time, and even before, the players couldn’t thank him enough. He’s been terrific for the club as you’ve seen the success that’s came to the club since he’s been here.
“With him taking time out with his family and doing other things it does give opportunities to our younger players, which I’m a massive fan of.
“It’s been a great period under Tom, but we have to find a way of the club being sustainable without Tom.
“One of the best ways of doing that now is hopefully younger players coming through our system here at Stowmarket.
“It’s exciting because young players surprise you when you give them the chance. Sometimes when you have a big backing or you’re successful then those players miss out and go elsewhere.”
Jack Ainsley and Jack Wilkinson, two of Stow’s senior players opened the scoring in Tuesday night’s 3-0 win against Lakenheath in the Endeavour Automotive Suffolk Premier Cup, with Luke Hipkin adding a third in added time to seal their place in the quarter-finals.
Stow (7th) head into a home league double header against Basildon United tomorrow (3pm) and Coggeshall on Tuesday (7.45pm), with Casement noting the importance his experienced heads in the squad will bring during the run-in.
“It’s still important to have the likes of Bully (Tom Bullard) and JJ (Joe Jefford) and Jack Ainsley and the other experienced players in and around it,” he said.
“It’s a great learning experience for the players coming through and it’s important to have those experienced boys to start their journey with them.
“It’s going to be a bit of a transition period if I’m honest, but hopefully in 12-18 months, or two years, we can look back on it and it will be the start of a new successful period for Stowmarket.”
Casement was delighted to notch his first victory as manager after Stow made a winning return to the Premier Cup on Tuesday.
The home side struck either side of half-time to take command of the second-round tie, before Hipkin’s strike late on put the finishing touches to a maiden win in charge for their new boss.
“Obviously it’s always nice to get your first win and get that monkey off your back,” he said.
“I felt it was coming in the second half on Saturday (2-1 defeat at Witham Town). I don’t think we deserved to lose that game.
“The message was important tonight, to take the second half from Saturday into tonight’s game and I thought we did that really well.
“Lakenheath were quite stubborn and it took us a little while to break them down and fair play to them.
“I thought the lads did really well tonight and it was great to get that first win.
“It was just about trying to keep that intensity up and trying to keep the energy up in the second half.
“Even though we went 2-0 up it was important to keep that energy up and pressing them over the park.
“Fair play to Lakenheath. They did well and caused us some problems in the first half which you’d expect.
“It was never going to be an easy game. We worked hard for it and I think we deserved it.”
