Star winger Stuart Ellis sees a specialist on Monday to try an solve the mystery of a freak leg injury that’s kept him sidelined all season.
The left-side raider, whose mazy runs and spectacular strikes were an essential part of Town’s Midland Alliance league and cup double triumph, is badly needed to boost a squad being battered by a storm of big match demands.
Starting tomorrow, with a the UniBond League South’s game of the day, visit to Rushall Olympic, Town must muster the strength for seven key games in three weeks - and the midweek demands of travelling long distances are begining to pose problems.
Tuesday night’s FA Trophy replay cancellation at Bamber Bridge, for instance, cost players hours - and in one case a day - off work. Defender Gary Anslow drove all the way to the ground before discovering the game had been called off at 4.15pm, by which time virtually all the other team members had clocked off early and were also heading for coach pick-up points.
“The distances involved in midweek matches at this level are a real problem for a lot of the lads,” said manager Simon Line.
“You’ve got to remember they’ve got work commitments too - to make themselves available midweek, some have to make real sacrifices as far as work’s concerned.”
Ellis has been back in restricted training for some time but still experiences severe pain when he runs.
“I’m getting really fed up with it,” he said. “I’ve been to virtually all the Town’s games to support the lads but I’ve never been very good at just watching a game… I desperately want to get back playing,”.
“The guy I’m seeing is a top man and I’ll also be having a specialist scan so I just hope we can pin down the problem.”
Ellis suffered the injury in what was supposed to be a simple ball skills session with a mate. “I was keen to get myself into top form for the start of the season and it all went wrong,” said Ellis, who was again watching Town on Saturday as they drew 1-1 in their troubled FA Trophy tie against Bamber Bridge.
Police were called to the ground when a group of about 20 rowdy, booze laden Bamber Bridge supporters broke through a hedge bordering Greenfields and set themselves up in a small stand.
They refused appeals from Town’s stewards, led by chairman Alex Mutch, to pay their entrance fee, leave the ground or hand over their cans and bottles.
Fearing the trouble that might be caused in town by evicting them, the nine-strong police contingent settled for penning the gang into the corner stand where they remained, openly drinking, waving cans and bottles, as Town and Bridge struggled through an unbelievably scrappy match.
Town manager Simon Line admitted: “It was all pretty dire; our worst performance of the season by far.
“We had plenty of excuses - several of our players were not too well with a tummy bug and the wind, rain and greasy pitch made good football difficult.
“But the truth of the matter is that we just didn’t get out of first gear. We looked flat from start to finish and never really gave them much to worry about.”
A disputed penalty from Phil Eastwood on 64 minutes earned Bamber Bridge the right to a replay planned for Tuesday night but postponed to next Tuesday evening because their ground was waterlogged.
Town were clearly unhappy about what looked a dodgy penalty decision - given when Drayton’s Grant Goodhead and Bridge’s Ashley Dunn collided in midair going for Eastwood’s cross - but the result was about right.
Neither side could find any sort of form in a mistake-littered, tough, yet strangely passionless cup tie, although Drayton missed two good chances before Tom Ward put them ahead in the 44th minute with a well taken shot.
Apart from a hectic melee in the Bridge penalty area, when Ward and Duncan Horler got bogged down with goalkeeper Mike Hale and a group of defenders little more than a metre from their target, Town rarely troubled the opposition.
Martyn Davies fired one wide after the break and Tom Rogers’s running posed some problems but real goal threats were rare - and that applied to Bamber Bridge too.
After the match, chairman Mutch praised the club’s small group of volunteer stewards for they way they handled the fans’ invasion.
“They were brilliant dealing with what was a totally unexpected problem,” he said.
“The police let the group stay in one corner of the ground rather than evict them to go into the town and we fully understand their reasons for doing that.”
With Ellis a notable exception, Town expect to have virtually a full squad for tomorrow’s Unibond League South trip to high-flying Rushall Olympic tomorrow and for Tuesday evening’s FA Trophy re-run at Bamber Bridge.
The Trophy replay replaces Town’s intended fixture with Leek which means that, even at this early stage of the season, cup activities have left Town with three away league games to catch up on - Leek, Willenhall and Stamford.
Throw in the latest helping hand from the Shropshire FA for early next month - a home tie with St Martins, no less, in the Shropshire Senior Cup - and you have a fair notion of why Town want every possible squad member fit for the rest of the month, when their programme looks like this:
Tomorrow, Saturday - Rushall Olympic (league a), Tues 13th - Bamber Bridge (FA Trophy replay), Sat 17th - Sheffield FA (league a - depending on Bamber Bridge result), Tues 20 - Cammell Laird (UniBond President’s Cup a), Sat 24th - Stamford (league h), Tues 27th - Mickelover Sports (UniBond Challenge Cup, h), Sat 31st - Spalding (league a)
