New boss is keen to look and learn
Rob Smith believes the coming Bank Holiday double-header will provide a good indication of exactly what is wrong at AFC Telford.
The new Bucks boss is at a loss to explain the club's dreadful start to this season's National League North campaign but arrives fully focused on how he wants to lift it.
Telford visit Gloucester City tomorrow before hosting Brackley Town on Monday. And Smith, who yesterday returned with assistant Larry Chambers for his second spell in charge at the New Bucks Head, knows things need to change with the club sitting bottom of the table.
"What I've been told by the board is that they want us to engage with the supporters at AFC Telford United," said Smith, who has also brought coach Steve Wynn with him from the Pitmen.
"We need to become one – because when the supporters are behind you here it is a very special place and a place that not many opponents will be able to handle.
"When we were here before and playing well with the supporters behind us we were almost guaranteed the win before a ball was even kicked.
"The short-term aims are to get this football club off the bottom of the league table.
"But it's a rather blank canvas. Me, Larry and Steve (Wynn) know a number of the players and we know of their qualities so we need to get in there and use these two games as an eye-opener as to what's been going wrong.
"I look forward to being able to go in there and sit down with the group and discuss what has happened because there is clearly something very wrong."
Smith also acknowledged, with an expectant crowd, it can be difficult when players are not performing.
He added: "Maybe some of them, especially the younger ones, just need an arm around their shoulder.
"Sometimes when you play in front of crowds like this, it can be difficult.
"Because a club of this size and stature expects.
"But it's a special place. I have a special connection with the supporters and I hope they are excited.
"I don't know why they have been struggling. But we'll see. My job is to get them back up where we were when I was last here and I believe between me and Larry we can hopefully meet the supporters' expectations." Chairman Ian Dosser has urged supporters to rally behind Smith and Chambers.
Dosser believes the duo, who twice won promotion from the Northern League with Bucks and then the Pitmen, will bring the stability lacking over the past two-and-a-half years in which the club have repeatedly switched manager.
And he claims it is their experience of the division in which the club now finds itself that appealed most.
"Their record in this division is as strong as anybodys," he said. "They know the club, they know the character – I think because of all those things they were always our first choice.
"This has been a difficult decision for them because they have had five good years at Hednesford.
"But they are up for it."
