Boss Dave Winter hopes team spirit and Gav King goals can take Ollerton Town far

Town have secured the services of the vast majority of last season’s playing squad for the upcoming campaign.

And Winter believes that the experience his squad has picked up over the last 12 months will help them improve as they target a top half finish.

“We wanted a higher finish than we had ever had before, but the season didn’t pan out how we wanted it to last season,” he said.

“I never make statements that we are going to do ok, but I would love to think that we can make the top half next season.

“The lads have had the experience of the last two or three years. We have had them longer, the young lads are getting regular football and coming good.

“We are looking forward to it.”

For winter retaining his squad from last season is a major relief after a number of other clubs sniffed around his players with offers of bigger money.

“I hate this time of season, we know the majority of players from last season have been spoken to - I won’t call it tapped up because it is fair game,” he explained.

“I have seen what they have been offered and fair play to them for not responding.

“If I am honest, with no date for the season starting, it has been a strange one trying to talk players into staying or bringing in new players, because you can’t offer them any guarantees.

“Every player is free game at this time of the season as well. We could sign players on 1st July and all the lads from last year were happy to put pen to paper.

“Some lads just want to play football, know what they are coming to and to be settled.”

And being settled is perhaps the key reason why Ollerton have been able to bring back the services of former fans favourite Gav King.

The hot-shot striker will return to Walesby Lane after spells at Maltby, AFC Mansfield and Sherwood, with Winter admitting he was ‘over the moon with the news.’

“I have always been a massive fan of Gav King and we have always stayed in touch,” said Winter.

“I expected him to go on and we would never see him again because he would be flying.

“Some people are just suited at certain places. Some managers understand certain players. “I know Gav likes to have an arm around his shoulder and play in a certain position.

“As a club when you don’t have too much you try to look after players in different ways and I know what makes Gav tick.

“If you have to try and talk someone into joining your club then they don’t want to be at your club.

“We have no massive big-timers in the dressing room, we have a lovely mix of young lads, experience and people that have been with us a while like the skipper Sam Stretton.

“I sent Gav a message, he is good mates with some of our players like Lewis Bingham, key players who have been here for years. His most productive football has been in an Ollerton Town shirt.

“The lads were so excited when they saw Gav come sign on. He went on to Maltby and had a lovely move, then to Sherwood and AFC Mansfield.

“I’m watching that from afar and I know that’s not Gav. He likes to be settled and play regular.

“I felt we might have a chance, he likes the football we play, the players and the management so that always helps.

“He is a perfect role model for the younger lads, he’s clean living and conducts himself well.

“He does everything well for a lad his age. We are over the moon to have him.”

Winter was also quick to sing the praises of keeper Levi Owen, who impressed during his debut season for the club last time out.

Said WInter: “Signing Levi Owen helped us a lot defensively. We had had Gav King for the previous two seasons, scoring goals wasn’t an issue but defending seemed to be.

“Trying to replace 40 goals a season when we lost Gav King was always going to be tough. “There’s not many players who scored goals like Gav King in our league, if they did then they were very much out of our reach.

“We concentrated on bringing in a centre-half and Levi. To have a goalkeeper you can rely on each week makes him still one of our best ever signings.

“I was signing five for six keepers a season because of commitment issues. At our level if a keeper has six or seven good games for Ollerton, he can get tapped up from another club because we are a small club.

“Levi shares our values. We have tracked him from when he was a young lad playing locally with Clipstone and Shirebrook.

“He stays true to his word and there are not too many like that. It makes things a little bit easier.”

Progress is slowly being made on the pitch for Town with the introduction of a number of junior sides to supplement the first team and U19’s.

But the determined manager, who works at Portland College away from football, is keen to see the club develop in all areas to leave a stronger club than when he took over at the helm nearly a decade ago.

“I want to leave Ollerton in a better place than when I started” he added. “This is my tenth year now, I have grown up in the area and followed local football for 25-30 years.

“Whatever happens I want to leave a club for people to enjoy for years to come.

“We see the progress in terms of the teams that we have on the pitch now. When I got here there was a first team and U19’s and that was it.

“There are not many winners in football. If we win or lose it affects my weekend like the best of them, but one thing I know in football is not to take your wins too high and your defeats too low.

“It is a game of football at the end of the day and it won’t ruin my Saturday nights any more.”