7th August 2019

With seven players making their home debut under the lights as part of the club’s summer rebuild, it was already contracted Courtney Duffus who provided the difference.

The striker’s goal after just two minutes set the green and whites on their way, with a resolute defensive performance earning a first win of the campaign and first victory of Sarll’s tenure. 

Speaking to YTTV, Town’s boss said: “The good thing for the supporters here is that they got to see a battling team. Not a great team in possession – they weren’t great. We are going to have to be so much better. But they were battling like a team that was fighting for their life. 

“I thought there was a moment, probably on eighty-odd minutes where the Thatchers’ end came alive and the noise was just brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. If we can maintain that, and it’s very hard to maintain that high level of confrontation, energy of tackle, head, tackle, head – it’s very hard to do that when you’ve got a small squad.

“But if we can maintain those human qualities and that endeavour, imagine this place when we’re playing good football as well and we get that side of it right, it will just be a really terrific ground. They gave me a taste tonight of what it could be, and it was exhilarating at times.”

Backed by a crowd just shy of 3,000, they’ll look for a repeat performance on Saturday as Stockport County visit. 

However, with Luke Wilkinson, Carl Dickinson and Myles Hippolyte all missing Tuesday’s encounter, Sarll admits that reinforcements are needed.

“The average age of the bench tonight was eighteen-and-a-half years old. The combined amount of games was 26, and we’ve got five of them. We’re going to need some. There’s no doubt about that. How can we expect our lads – if we want our lads to perform like tonight, for 50 more games, without any more additions? We’re going to have to do something.

“Firstly that means me trying to conclude the deals, and then we might need a bit of help financially later on down the line. But no-one who watched can say that we’ve made any bad decisions in terms of the calibre and the quality of the people that we’ve signed so far.”