West coach Matty Phillips’ notes ahead of our home game against Barnoldswick Town, taken from the match programme – available on the gate for £2.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to The Step Places Stadium for this afternoon’s match against Barnoldswick Town. I would like to welcome the supporters, players and staff from Barnoldswick and I hope you have a safe journey home after the match.

Since our last home match against Prestwich Heys a lot has happened! To come back to win the match against Prestwich and in the manner we did is extremely pleasing and personally as a coach, is one of the highlights of my time here. We were a goal down and had to show a lot of character to stick to our game plan and believe that the chances would come and that we would take them. We have confidence in our defensive players to keep games tight and we know that with our attacking four or five players we will have the fitness to push deep into games and have the quality to challenge anyone in this league.

The team obviously gained a lot of confidence from our first win back in this league and it was important that we carried this momentum into our FA Cup tie at Longridge last Saturday. We knew that it would be a tough test but we controlled the match and came out as 1-0 winners. It was really pleasing how we saw the game out, even when we had a player given a second yellow card. The win sets us up nicely for a trip to Northwich Victoria next Friday in the next round.

On Tuesday, we travelled to Cheshire to play Congleton. Congleton are a good club and they have an impressive set-up. These are the kind of matches we’ve been looking forward to following our promotion. Similar to our other matches this season, it was a really tight match which could have gone either way. Also similar was how we played really well in the first half. We went in 1-0 up at half time and were still winning deep into injury time before Congleton scored a 96th minute equaliser. Obviously to concede so late feels like a loss but we need to take the positives from the result and remember that we are still unbeaten. Overall, we would probably have taken the points tally we are on before the season but we need to keep the momentum going and winning our home matches is really important.

Today will be a tough match; Barnoldswick are an established team at this level and we know that we will need to be at our very best to secure a positive result. The team are excited for our first Saturday home match of the new season and I hope they put in a performance that matches this.

Finally, I’d like to thank you all for your incredible support that you have shown us so far this season. The unbelievable backing that you give the squad is something that will never cease blowing me away and we really do appreciate it.

Come on West!

Matty