Palmer aiming for on and off the field progress at Longlevens in new season
Longlevens Co-Manager Michael Palmer says making progress both on and off the field will be the key to success in the 2024/25 season.
Palmer’s side opened their pre-season schedule with a 5-1 defeat at Southern League Premier side, Gloucester City, on Tuesday night – a game which saw positives for his side despite the score line.
“I was really pleased with how the lads conducted themselves on Tuesday night,” said Palmer “We adopted a completely new shape, that we hadn’t even worked on yet, but thought the lads adapted to it very well.
“From our point of view, when you play pre-season games you want to get your objectives out of it and we weren’t concerned about the score line.
The only thing we were concerned about where achieve the outcomes we set for the boys, and coming out of it we know we can build on Tuesday’s performance now in training and take that into the rest of the upcoming friendlies,” Palmer added.
Longlevens will be looking to improve their fortunes in the Hellenic Premier this season, having finished 16th in the table and only winning three games after Christmas.
But with the club continuing to make ground improvements at Saw Mills, Palmer says there is no reason why progress on and off the field can’t benefit each other and bring success to the club this term.
“We knew we had to make changes and some of those changes were made very quickly and some we are still working on.
Off the field improvements are also continuing on the ground, which is a real boost. During the off-season both players and the Management were at the ground doing work and jobs needing to be done to make sure the ground is what we want it to be.
As a club we take pride in the facilities and by looking after and improving Saw Mills, we want to show how much Longlevens means to us and repay the work that the committee, Callum Newman and Mark Moore have put in to give us a great place to play football.
On the pitch, the lads have been fantastic since we came back together and we are continuing to make progress each session – which will benefit us for the new season,” Palmer said.
One of the changes on the field for the new season sees Co-Manager Craig Martin step back into the dugout. During last season Martin took a step back to support his son, Charlie, in playing for Gloucester Schools’ U11s side – meaning he missed a number of weekend games throughout the season.
With Martin now back on the side lines, Palmer believes it will help revitalise the changing room and management team.
“Craig never really left, just took a step back to support his lads with football and a fantastic year for the family – which we have all supported him on since day one.
He is a big personality at the club and when people think of Levens the first thing people think of is him.
I know he is itching to get back on the side line with myself, Buster and Liam and continue where he left off.
We bring the best out of each other and hopefully can bring the best out of the lads this season,” Palmer said.
Longlevens’ pre-season continues with an in-house friendly on Monday night, before they head to Wellington on Saturday 13 July.
