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TRANMERE ROVERS – ALSO A FOOTBALL CLUB
Martyn Best , our inside man at Tranmere Rovers reflects upon the latest season for the club .
You will have been reading over the past few months about the many initiatives involving our local football team , Tranmere Rovers .
You will be aware of the heart-warming commitment to the local community which ranges from helping with thousands of food parcels ; the provision of 3,000 tickets to less privileged fans each season ; building up a resource for First Responders as well as the forthcoming creation of the very exciting new Fan Park .
However – did you know that they also play football ?
In a break from the regular and varied themes of this column , let us reflect on the 2021 / 22 football season .
You will be aware that , formed in 1884 , they play in the English Football League 2 – the fourth tier of English football , and typically in front of around 7,000 loyal , noisy and highly passionate fans . You may even know that they have the 4th highest attendance in the league , and one of the highest cohort of travelling away fans .
By now you will also probably have a twinge of sadness that they have just missed out on an opportunity of the Play-Offs and a chance of promotion , despite gaining more points than last season when they reached the play-offs , and despite having not only the best home record in the league , but the second best in the whole of the top four leagues – bettered only by neighbours Liverpool .
So , what can the Club take from this season , and what does their Chairman , Mark Palios believe the new season will bring .
“ For me , this season , whilst disappointing , does have some bright spots .
“ We have a much younger squad than last season , and with Micky Mellon , our manager , we shall be retaining much of this squad for next season and I am confident that once again we will be able to challenge for promotion .
“ As with every club , fans will be asking who we will be recruiting , and my consistent answer will be that we are always looking to improve the squad and recruit players who fit the Tranmere mould and we will be using our revised recruitment criteria which has seen competitive squads in recent seasons based on a balance of experience and potential .”
One of the successes this season has been the progress of their top goal scorer , Elliott Nevitt . Bought from non-League Warrington Rylands , he won the end of season awards for Player of the Year , Goal of the Season , and Supporters ' Player of the Year .
At the other end of the spectrum , they had Peter Clarke , nominated for the League Team of the Year , after having played in every minute of their 46-league game season , and Jay Spearing , former Liverpool FC complete his last competitive league game of a great professional career .
Continuing his theme of looking forward , Mark noted the benefits that Tranmere have in attracting new players :
“ We can do this much better than many teams in our division due to the resources we have with our outstanding training Campus , with our highly regarded pitch and ground , and by highlighting the absolute passion of our fans . As such , we are a fantastic platform for the development of players , and this was reflected this year with successful loan players from Liverpool , Everton , Celtic and Rangers .
“ This season we competed really well at home , but for whatever reason our away form really let us down . This may be attributable to the relative inexperience of a larger number of players as we have been investing in their development but I ’ m optimistic that they will have learnt from the hard lessons of missing out on promotion and will be stronger for it next season .
“ Our recruitment plans for 22 / 23 started months ago and now that we know which league , we are in , we can start to build on last season , and have a summer which we can use to look forward again . “
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